The best free security software

Dag, I was hoping on trying it out...oh wells, haven't had spyware problems in 2 years...why should I start having them now =D

 

i hated threatfire. tried it out. acts like a firewall. annoying.

 

How so? Threatfire has never asked to allow/block internet traffic.

 

My folk's system (Windows XP Pro) was infected with the "infostealer" trojan. Really annoyed at the time for not being more careful even though it was my folk's system (they only look at stocks, so come on... how bad can it get, right?... I was wrong, lol). Figured they would be more careful about opening emails.... which my mom later told me it must have been the result of an email sent from my uncle's account to her. She called him to ask about that particular email back then and he told her that his account was stolen, infected or what-not... but by that time she had already attempted to open the email (albeit with attachements) and the whole nine yards of infected goodies.

But, noooo... she didn't bother to tell me as I cruised the net logging in with various passwords to my accounts on her computer. She was still using the expired Norton Antivirus subscription from back in 2004....

Anyhoo....downloaded & installed ThreatFire. After it scanned the system, it detected most of the infected files and removed them, except for one (TR/PSW.OnlineGames.NLE) which Avira AntiVir was able to catch after I installed it and scanned the entire system. I think the virus corrupted the Winsock, but once it was reset everything seems to be back in normal condition.

By the way, infostealer is a nasty one... spreaded like wild fire through my flash drives. Grrrrr.

 

Hi

My friend also experienced Infostealer. defo a nasty one! make sure you scan your flash drives too to check its gone!! I tried new portable GoAnywhere app by DriveSentry to protect flash drives. u install onto the device not the system. It is supposed to protect your drive wherever you take it. Seems good so far...may of interest to you

http://www.drivesentry.com/drivesentry_goanywhere_download.html

Ette. its kinda free too. Top draw!

 

When, where, how?

 

https://license.avira.com/en/promotion-t0q1aatr05zwftftgnqr

It's not guarantee one year though, some people got 92 days, some got a 6 months license, and some got a year.

 

^ I got 92 days - but it might be worth a try. I have Avast 4.8 Home right now and I have occasional conflicts with the Outlook plug-in. I want/need Outlook protection and I guess I may have to pay for it!

 

I have a quick question:

Which free anti spyware program(s) should I use as an addition to Avira AntiVir and Comodo Firewall (both are free versions)?

 

SuperAntiSpyware as an on-demand scanner.

 

Okey-dokey, thanks for the tip, I'll take your word for it.

 

take my word too - it works well.

 

So if I were to run

Avira AntiVir & Comodo Firewall on the system, then maybe weekly or every other week run A-Squared, how well protected would I be?

Any suggestions above and beyond what I have listed?

I guess I want something constantly running protecting the system at all times, and something on demand to catch anything the constant running programs miss.

 

My Threatfire shows that it has detected a suspicious activity. Is there a log or some way that I can get the particulars about what exactly it was?

 

Have you checked Threat Control - Protection Log?

 

Yeah, that's what I did. I guess I just expected more specific information than it provides.

Thanks for helping anyway.

 

I use Avira Antivir, Comodo Firewall without Defense+, Threatfire, and then a-squared and spybot s&d as on-demand scanners.

I haven't had any intrusions or problems with the aforementioned security programs.

 

Do you all think Threatfire is really that beneficial?

I'm really disappointed that it doesn't keep any detailed logs.

 

I don't know... Threatfire has only detected 2 or 3 things but they were legit programs I was trying to run. I guess it's probably unnecessary but it makes me feel like I'm more protected with it.

 

I hear you!

 

Hadn't thought about that, Scoober; that's a good point. However, I'm very pleased that my Windows machine has not had any malware detected - none = since installing TF. The securiy apps on the machine also include Comodo, NOD32, Spybot and, at the moment, a trial version of CounterSpy.

Scans used to occasionally come up with adware and even spyware once in a while. But nothing has popped up for quite a while and I attribute the good fortune to TF since it's the only major difference/upgrade I've made aside from CS which I just installed a couple of days ago.

 

take my word 3!

SAS FTW

 

I'm glad to hear that it's all working out well for you. How many true and or false detections has TF made for you?

 

Im using Avira AntiVir Premium 8 + Comodo Firewall Professional + Comodo Memory Firewall + ThreatFire + Windows Defender + Search&Destroy (on-demand) + SuperAntiSpyware (on-demand) + Ad-aware (on-demand) + CCleaner (on-demand).

This programs work each other without any error.

 

And IMHO, you either have an app overkill problem or you need to change your browsing habits!

BTW - I am using Avira AV Premium (free 90-day license) with Threatfire myself (and Spywareblaster with SAS on-demand) and all seems to be running good.

 

IMO, a-squared works better than Ad-aware and SuperAntiSpyware. I only use Spybot S&D for it's "immunization" feature. You can probably also get rid of Windows Defender. It's pretty redundant.

 

A-squared free, SAS free, Ad-aware free all don't have real time protection which is absolutely needed. So keep Windows defender ON.

 

Ok but as an on-demand scanner, only a-squared or SAS is really needed.

 

Malwarebytes'AntiMalware can be added to those two as excellent on-demand scanners.
And having ThreatFire means having real-time protection of course.

 

I uninstall Windows Defender. Real-time protection has Avira Premium 8, ThreatFire and BOClean in my computer.

 

Can Windows Defender be uninstalled? I only know the way to disable it.

 

haOkepa, yes it can if you have Windows XP. In Vista you dont find this option.

 

I currently upgraded to CA Security Suite provided by Roadrunner and I feel it has dogged my system. So I am thinking of uninstalling it. I like to keep things simple. I dont want real time spyware checking, I dont mind the occassional scans. So based on this thread a good combination is:

Comodo for firewall
Avira for antivirus
A-Squared for manual anti-spyware scans

Do you think uninstalling CA and installing these 3 instead will improve my PC performance?

On the Comodo page it says it includes an AV scanner. Is it an AntiVirus program too?

This thread is quite long and I tried to skim it so I apologize in advance because I realize similar questions get asked over and over. Thanks

 

That would be a nice setup with Comodo and Avira.
Can't say whether it will be faster because I don't know the memory usage from the CA Suite.
Both Comodo and Avira are fairly light on resources though.
Just make sure, you get to know how to use Comodo, it has extensive help files and there is the Comodo forum of course.
The Comodo AV scanner is only meant to scan your HD for malware before installation of the firewall.
(The AV scanner is the same as their web based AV scanner and is build on Authentium CAV V.3 engine).

I'd choose SUPERAntispyware or Malwarebytes'Antimalware over A-squared although those three are in the same league.
You could install 2 of them as not one AS program finds all different versions of malware.
Cheers.

 

I've been using Zone alarm free edition for years on my destop.
I started using Comodo firewall as suggested here, how do the two compare? Which is better? less resourse hog?

 

Take a look here: http://www.matousec.com/projects/firewall-challenge/results.php

 

I'm also a long time ZA user, both paid and free. I tried the Comodo firewall, but it wouldn't remember my settings, so it was nothing but a pain to use, so I switched back to ZA, it's much more intuitive and have never been happier with it.

 

Looks like Online Armor is back on top with its paid version

 

How so?

 

Oh yeah forgot to mention that I was talking about the test done by matousec. The link was posted just a few posts above mine.

 

Thanks pal, I'll check it out.

 

how many anti spy ware can u have installed on ur pc?

 

In theory, you could install every on-demand scanner you come across.
In reality, one real-time scanner and one on-demand scanner is sufficient.
For instance, ThreatFire for real-time and SAS or MBAM for on-demand.
No need to go overboard with a stack of security programs.
Having more then one AS-program with real-time protection is asking for conflicts.
Most people who think that having 5 different anti spyware programs keeps them safe, probably need to change their surfing/download behaviour.
Cheers.

 

One free anti-aalware program I don't see mentioned is BoClean.

Protect yourself from online identity theft. The greatest threat on the Internet today is having your personal information hijacked remotely

* Destroys malware and removes registry entries
* Does not require a reboot to remove all traces
* Disconnects the threat without disconnecting you
* Generates optional report and safe copy of evidence
* Update automatically from a network file share

http://www.comodo.com/boclean/boclean.html

 

Ah yes, I have thought of adding Comodo BOClean before.
It's a not so well-known antimalware product that used to be not free, only after Comodo acquired it last year it has become free.
BOClean used to be a specialized anti-trojan security app. but it's now aimed at other malware also; link.
It's not a HIPS, it's a real-time memory scanner and NOT a file scanner.
So it won't scan files while you are downloading them like an AV program does.
For instance, if you download a trojan that is (still) missed by your AV, BOClean will kill and remove the trojan once it becomes active.
It's a signature based program, so only when malware becomes active and BoClean recognizes a certain pattern while analyzing the memory (and registry and file system), it will stop and remove the malware.
Being signature based thus making use of a black list, is what's making it different compared to a behavioural blocker like ThreatFire.

It's available for XP and .Vista, for 32-&64-bit; link.
Make sure to stop current BoClean processes and uninstall and reboot before installing a new version.
Download link is also in the sticky.
Cheers.

Hiker, thanks for the reminder.

 

does anyone know where i can find avira premium security suite in canada? tried ebay but they dont have it.

 

You could always just buy it directly from them: www.avira.com

 

thought maybe i could find it cheaper somewhere

 

You know that the best programs are switching everyweek, why not make a poll every week or two weeks to determine a general consensus for people to look at?
Just my 2 cents

 

What do you mean? Best programs for what (firewall, antivirus, anitspyware, etc)? The software on this list doesn't change drastically every week so if certain software is better than others, it usually remains that way for several months until major changes are made to others.