When my Lotus arrives...

Hey guys, I have a simple question. I ordered a Lotus P150HM-S1 from Malibal last week. It's my first laptop and I am extremely excited. I was wondering what, if anything, you all recommend I do once I receive my machine. I've heard of people doing a clean install of Windows, running benchmark tests, and other things. I was just wondering if there's anything you think I should do to make sure I'm getting the most out of my machine. Maybe some helpful software (good anti-virus, media tools?).
Thanks a ton, you all have been extremely helpful.

 

Because you ordered the machine you did, you don't have to worry about doing a clean install. There isn't really an crapware on Clevo/Sager machines.

Run benchmarks to make sure the machine is running correctly and install an antivirus/firewall right away. That's pretty much it.

Personally, I recommend Norton Internet Security 2011. On sale, you can usually get it really cheap, and unlike their earlier products, NIS actually works pretty well.

 

Really? I'd recommend against Norton actually....

Go for MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. I run both on all my machines.

Mr. Mysterious

 

I used to recommend against them, but I've been very pleasantly surprised with how well NIS holds up since they redesigned it 2 years ago. Runs with very little as far as background processes goes and blocks pretty much anything I've run into.

 

nearly everything you will need HERE.
i cant update it as thread has been closed.

 

Thanks for the tips. One more thing, can anyone suggest a good backpack? I desperately need one and don't know where to start.

 

I highly recommend a bag made by Wenger/Swissgear. They may be expensive ($60-90), but they're very much worth it. I used to go trough a bag every 6 months, my Ibex backpack still looks brand new 2 and a half years later.

Amazon.com: Swiss Gear Ibex 17-Inch Notebook Backpack: Electronics

 

I have the Ibex bag for my work laptop, and it rocks - plenty of space and durable (2+yrs of use and it looks like the day i bought it).

For my new P170, I'm looking at a Slappa Spyder or MASK bag.

 

I 100% agree with this! Norton has a good firewall and spyware detector but it uses so much of your computer's resources that it is completely not worth it. Also it is not free. I am very much against purchasing any form of anti-virus software or firewall. You can get everything for free.

MSE is a good firewall. The AV scan is pretty lame though. Using it with Malwarebytes is a fantastic combo though because Malwarebytes is one of the highest rated anti-virus and malware programs. These are also both completely free.

As for backpacks, I'm with them on recommending swissgear. But it depends what you need it for.

If you are using your laptop for school:
I have a backback from them that has a special computer pocket. It is extra padded and has a half-zipper. It also has plenty of room for books and notebooks.

If not:
Something simple like this would work:
Laptop Bag

 

We have also had very good luck with Norton the last year, it works well and consumes very little resources. In the years past we discouraged Norton but as of late, I think it is pretty good. Many of our staff use it.

 

On Windows 7 all you really need is the Windows Firewall and Avast. Run Dr. Web CureIt once a month.

 

I disagree. It's not like it used to be.
I like the review of Norton from Maximum PC. The title says it all: An antivirus for geeks, not newbs

Whatever you do, get something.

Besides, you can often find NIS for free after rebates, so that argument goes out the window.

 

Sadly, Norton's left a pang of hatred inside of me that will not go away. I refuse to install it on any machine I have. =).

As for everything else: Microsoft Security Essentials seem to work swimmingly. They are lightweight, and (at least with my D900F) you don't even notice if it's scanning. It picks up antiviruses well, and I haven't ever gotten any false positives like what AVG has been giving to certain people with popular programs.

I wish I could recommend Bitdefender to you, but alas, with their 2010 product dying, they've become one of the worst software developers in existence. Fallout: New Vegas was less buggy than their 2012 beta. I've NEVER ran an antivirus that was SO bad I couldn't use my PC how I wanted.

Avast! is another good one. It has a free component, but it's less annoying to go with MSE.

Kaspersky has some good products, I hear a lot of people commenting on NOD32 as well. Both seem to be pretty good, though both of these are paid-only as far as I know.

Out of all of the above, however, the only one that was able to match Bitdefender antivirus's thorough scanning and virus database was MSE. While bitdefender's program is about as good a program as a 3-legged chimpanzee is at getting a date, its virus scanner/database is top notch, and thus I'll recommend Microsoft Security Essentials to you.

If you don't want MSE, and prefer to go with something else, the rest of the options are there for you to decide. I *cannot* say if Norton is still bad, or if it's as good as they say it currently is. No antivirus should slow down your PC with the kind of specs you're going to have.
I also have a list of you-should-never-install-these.
McAfee, AVG, Comodo (while people will swear by it, it blocks a lot of things by default; I put it in this list to save you the headache), TrendMicro, Zone Alarm, Panda Titanium, Black Ice.

Hope this chunk of text above helps.

 

I use vipre and its awesome. Doesn't eat memory or cpu and I've never had a virus with it.

 

Maybe it's just not catching anything

 

lol i must be really lucky then since nothing bad has happened. really lucky considering its a dell.