Anti-Virus Anti-spyware

[Rob]

Hello,

I've lived in a linux enviroment for about 4 years now. As of late, I've been doing more and more Windows systems and I decided to move my desktop back to Windows for the first time in 4 years.

That being said, I have had no exposure to virus attacks, spyware, and all the other crap most deal with daily.

I am running the Microsoft AntiSpyware and eTrust EZAntivirus software. Both were free, EZAntivirus being a 12mo demo. So far, it seems to be working very well. I haven't seen a virus yet, but the MS spyware tools seem to work very well and has blocked several strange things.

Anyone care to comment?

[Thrax]

What's there to comment on?

Forgive me for being confused. :scratch:

[Rob]

Am I clueless? :)

Well, then I assume the things work? LOL

Comment on the clueless lunix dork on windows, or that you've also ran those and recommend something better?

[Straight_Man]

I like F-Prot over EZTrust.

[muddocktor]

For antispyware software, I use a combination of Ad Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy. Both of those cost just as much as Microsoft's Antispyware (free :D ) and they've been around for a while and are good performing programs.

[Kwitko]

AVG, SpywareBlaster, TrojanHunter, ZoneAlarm.

[Shorty]

Both are good packages. You aren't missing anything particularly in your setup ( except perhaps X windows ;D )

As long as you are scanning your inbound email (but im assuming you have your own email servers, so would have gateway AV anyway) and you aren't surfing obvious sites that attract crap.. you will be fine.

Never thought Id see the day you would regularly use Windows though ;D

[Rob]

Both are good packages. You aren't missing anything particularly in your setup ( except perhaps X windows ;D )


Who said I wasn't running xwindows? :D

[Rob]

As long as you are scanning your inbound email (but im assuming you have your own email servers, so would have gateway AV anyway) and you aren't surfing obvious sites that attract crap.. you will be fine.

I don't scan my mail servers. I do offer it to everyone else though, at a small fee, but I have to recieve spam and 'other' mail stuff. I also have to use questionable sites and expose myself to most problems that come up, that's my job. Thats how it gets fixed.

[TheBaron]

if you're running firefox with the adblock extension, you should never have any spyware problems. with that said, I would suggest spybot and then set it up to do an autoscan and fix once a week. mine never finds anything, but i bet it would be helpful if it did

[Rob]

That's another thing I've noticed that concerns me. In linux, I always noticed some flash pages and other webmaster tools would peg the processor with firefox. I always wrote it off as a linux/flash issue.

Living in my linux enviroment I always have a CPU monitor running, a habit I brought to Windows with me.

I am also seeing this when I use Acrobat Professional with firefox and again with some web designs and flash.

IE's intergration with both of these is flawless, not causing the CPU spikes I've seen in firefox on both windows and linux.

My firefox is basic as well, I do not have any extentions loading or other things that may cause a problem it's just a plain install.

Smells like a war, and it stinks. Something tells me it's not firefox causing these problems.

[Shorty]

I don't scan my mail servers. I do offer it to everyone else though, at a small fee, but I have to recieve spam and 'other' mail stuff. I also have to use questionable sites and expose myself to most problems that come up, that's my job. Thats how it gets fixed.
Pays ya money and ya takes ya choice :D

[Leonardo]

I don't claim to be as good at PC security as many of the others here. With that disclaimer, here's what I use on my systems at home:

AVG (free anti-virus) on one computer, Norton AV on the other.
Firefox on all computers, including work desktop and notebook.
Spybot, AdAware, and SpywareBlaster (immunization) on all computers.

Since running this combination, I think I've had maybe two adware installations and zero virii. Infections were probably due to me not updating often enough.

I'm sure the other suggestions, including Windows new programs are good, I just don't have experience with them.