[Bruinaholic]

Hi, Just trying to get some opinions out here to keep my computer safe. I was wondering what people run on there computer. I have avast, zone alarm, XP firewall. I also run ad aware and spybot S & D each once a week. Is that enough or should I do more. I appreciate any opinions.

[Advertisements]

I find Panda Software AV the best AV out there. My Mcafee didn't detect some viruses so I bought Norton and there was no difference. Then I tried Panda...well there was about 6-8 Viruses 10 kits 189 spyware in total found with this glorious app =)

[Darkpunish]

I find Panda Software AV the best AV out there. My Mcafee didn't detect some viruses so I bought Norton and there was no difference. Then I tried Panda...well there was about 6-8 Viruses 10 kits 189 spyware in total found with this glorious app =)

[1101doc]

For what I have learned about layering my defenses, with web addresses of useful tools and informational sites, see my "Security" post at Vox: http://doc1101.vox.com/ To visit the links, copy and paste the URL to your browser address bar in a new tab.

[The Skeptic]

The ZoneAlarm that you have what is it? is it the free firewall only? If yes, then the xp firewall is disabled by ZoneAlarm. If you remove ZoneAlarm xp firewall will be reactivated automatically.

Is it ZoneAlarm suit that includes Antivirus, antispyware, firewall and antispam? If yes, then you don't need the Avast because you will have two AV running and that's not good.

There are endless possibilities to protect the computer but for all practical purposes you just need a good antivirus, a good antispyware with real time protection, a good firewall and 2-3 scan programs to run periodically. We look for free programs.

My choice for for AV is Avast which, in my opinion is a great product. For antispyware I use Spyware Terminator. It's a little known but a really smart program that also warn you before changes to the registry are being made (something like the Tea Timer of Spybot). For a firewall I use XP's. Good enough for me. In the past I used Sygate which gave me tons of problems and ZoneAlarm which made life difficult when trying to set a local network. By removing it the computer became noticeably faster.

For periodic scans I use Ad-Aware, Spybot and AVG antispyware.