I'm getting a new PC. I have some questions...

[Craig18]

Note: I apologize if this is posted in the wrong section. I'm not exactly sure where I should put this.

1: My parents are keeping the laptop we have and I'm getting a new PC, with much better features. They use it a lot less than me. Is a free firewall good enough for this or should we buy a full version. I'm thinking of getting ZoneAlarm Pro on the new computer. Is ZoneAlarm Free/Sygate, etc. good enough for the laptop, or should I install ZoneAlarm Pro on it.

2: Is plugging the ethernet cable directly in the back of the computer to the Belkin box any more secure than using the Belkin card. I find that the computer has been a lot quicker when it is connected directly.

3: Does a BelkinBox have a hardware firewall on it? If so, should I still have a software firewall? Do the two conflict?

4: Before connecting to the internet, what steps should I take to make sure I'm instantly secure?

5: Are paid for anti-virus programs as good as free ones, or will Avast/AVG be sufficient?


I'm a complete beginner and I know these questions may seem stupid to advanced users on this forum but any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm paranoid about computer security and want everything to run smoothly.

Thanks for any help.

[RWB]

I see no real reason to pay for some of these... you apparently have a Belkin Router which acts as a hardware firewall to keep traffic out, but if you had a virus on your computer then the firewall is kinda worthless depending on the virus. So a software firewall like ZoneAlarm or Comodo Firewall will do the trick as well as proper Anti Virus like AVG.

Personally I have no router right now I am plugged directly to the modem... keep spending my money on other things so I have Comodo Firewall and AVG Antivirus, plus Anti Spyware stuff like SpyBot Search and Destroy and AdAware works fine for me. All free, works great, though once I get a router I'll probably dumb the software firewall becuase when I bit torrent it just uses up too much processing power.

I have yet to run into any trouble with my setup, been using it for a very long time now.

A further explaination....

When you have a router, all outside traffic only sees that router and nothing behind it, hence the name router it takes all requests from your computer and routes it out to the internet. Plus with extra features like port blocking and such it can help secure your internal network. The router will usually take the public IP the ISP gives your home and then use private IP's to all internal PC's becuase usually ISP's only give you a single public IP. I for example have my computer plugged directly to my modem so my PC has a public IP instead of private due to having no router for the time being. Because of this I am more prone to an attack/probe from the outside world so I have the software firewall help protect me.

The software firewall also helps me prevent programs on my PC from accessing the internet if I desire, it'll usually ask me if I wanna allow a program to get online or to block it. Simple as that. For example if I had no Anti Virus, or if my Antivirus doesn't prevent a virus from getting onto my PC and I were to browse to a website that gave me one, the firewall should see the virus try to access the internet and ask if I want to block it. I can then probably determine what's going on and try to remove it.

Most "hacking" are just probes or virus's. So if a probe found a vulnerability on your system it could be used, or it may not. Usually no one is going to target your system specifically so paranoia IMHO is useless. But being naive enough to do nothing is just asking for it to happen at the same time.

Like I said, I've been using free software for a long time, years... and it's served me well. Kaspersky is a good alternative though as well with AV and Firewall software with little overhead for a small price, Grisoft has AVG and their own firewall as well and you can pay for their premium packages if you think you need them.

I personally would stay away from anything Norton/Symantic or McAffee. The way I see it, they're the most used programs so they are also the most attacked.