Need firewall, virus scan, etc after clean install?

I just followed stallen's clean install guide and my laptop flies now. But don't I need a firewall and virus scan? Do I need anything else? Which firewall or virus scan should I install? In the past I've used free ZoneAlarm firewall, but I'm a tech novice. Thanks.

 

Both Vista and XP have their own firewall which is more than enough IMO. As for virus scanner, I recommend AVG. It's totally free.

http://free.grisoft.com/

 

If you are connecting to public wireless networks, you may wish to have a firewall other than the Windows firewall. If so, Comodo Firewall Pro is now available for Vista as well as XP.

 

Anyone disagree with AVG and Comodo Firewall Pro? If not I'll go ahead and install them. They won't bog down my system right?

 

Technically any kind of malware scanner program will bog down your system. It's not noticable to the average user though.

 

ehh, iv had that stuff but never needed it... my new desktop is security free (accept for the vista thing)

 

I've been running AVG and Comodo on an old eMachines desktop for a while now, though with XP rather than Vista. So far, so good; the machine hasn't had any sort of problem crop up.

 

I can second AVG and Comodo Firewall as great antivirus and firewall solutions; I've been using them ever since I had my old Toshiba (P4 Prescott).

 

I'm using AVG and ZoneAlarm. No problems for the past 4 years.

 

You are getting great information here but I'll add my .02$.

IMHO... The Comodo firewall is probably the best free firewall you can get right now. Easy to configure and manage and very light on system resources.

Zone alarm is another good one but I haven't played with it for a long time. I did have some performance hits from it a couple of years ago, which lead me to using Comodo.

for AV,
I've used Avast! and AVG and while I have no hard evidence, but I felt Avast impacted my performance less than AVG. I've also had people tell me they were very happy with AntiVir

I don't normally use any spyware blockers as my fw is set pretty aggressivly and I typically don't go to many nefarious web sites or open emails from people I don't know.

A great app I use to keep my system clean is CCleaner

Keep you systems patched.
If you have to go to the "bad" sites, use a vm session.. get infected, who cares.. just revert back to a clean snapshot.

While these are just my opinions I think you should at a minimum have a FW and AV solution installed on your machine. To those of you who don't run anything, I wish you the best, but it's really just a matter of time before you are infected with something. Just say NO to BOTS

Also a shout out to MajorGeeks This is a great place to find new tools.

Good luck and safe computing

 

I've been running nothing for about 2 years without any problems at all. I don't go to "bad" sites though.