New firewall/antivirus recommendations

[Aotrs Commander]

After nearly two bhours of fracking about as Zonealarm's latest update won't instal/work/etc, I am giving up. I don't have time to arse about with it, expecially when it means the computer is not affected.

As an interim measure, I have installed Comodo (because it was there), but I am now looking for a replacement (free, if possible, since we have four PCs/laptops/netbooks at home) firewall/antivirus suitable for my Win XP HDD (and eventually the various Win 7 PCs throughout the local family).

Edit: I would also consider a non-system resource intensive paid version if i absolutely have to (one of other of me and my Dad can write it off an a business expense), but it needs to be either fairly cheap or allow us to put it on all four devices.

[factotum]

For the firewall side of things, is there a reason you don't use the built-in Windows one that's been provided since XP SP2? It's pretty much no fuss and just works.

[Aotrs Commander]

For the firewall side of things, is there a reason you don't use the built-in Windows one that's been provided since XP SP2? It's pretty much no fuss and just works.

I've been using ZA for so long I don't know; there was probably some reason. (I used to have AVG antivirus/ZA firewall, but when AVG got too resourcree intensive and ZA did both I just used ZA).

The only thing that makes me a touch leery is of course Win XP is no longer getting updates. But I 'spose that might be an option for the Win 7 systems.

[Avilan the Grey]

I am VERY pleased with BitDefender.

HOwever I have to fight them about prices every time I need to renew my subscription. No problem so far, they accept my arguments, but their homepage is weird when you try to renew.

[Alent]

I find Glasswire is pretty cool as a Firewall, the free version anyway, not sure about the paid version. The free version hooks into the Windows firewall and lets you monitor what programs are using it, then block them at a specific program or specific website level. (I stopped one repeat virus machine from getting viruses simply by blocking IE. :smallamused: )

I don't know if the paid version is worth it, that's been on my list of things to check for over a month now.

As far as Anti-virus, I usually use the built in Windows one or on the Windows 7 side of the fence, MS Security Essentials. Anything that's a "real threat" is Malware instead of Viruses, which gets a Spybot S&D and Malware-Bytes Anti-Malware double wammy. The paid version of MBAM is actually pretty nice, but heaven help you if you use skype on the same computer. (Skype does this weird peer to peer networking thing for it's VOIP, and so it connects to parent peers all over the globe, and MBAM freaks out and starts shooting off security alarms when Skype starts calling the peers in China or Eastern Europe.)

[factotum]

As far as Anti-virus, I usually use the built in Windows one or on the Windows 7 side of the fence, MS Security Essentials.

I assume you mean Windows Defender? Wouldn't be any use with XP because it's no longer supported by Microsoft, so they don't provide updates for it on that platform anymore. Same applies to MSE. Hence the need for a third-party tool for AV in this case.

(There's definitely an argument for saying Aotrs Commander should just upgrade the XP machine or stop using it entirely, but I'm assuming there's a good reason why he still has the digital equivalent of a time bomb sitting on his home network...).

[Aotrs Commander]

(There's definitely an argument for saying Aotrs Commander should just upgrade the XP machine or stop using it entirely, but I'm assuming there's a good reason why he still has the digital equivalent of a time bomb sitting on his home network...).

The short answer is that all of my actual work software and other applications (Outlook Express for example) are on the XP drive and the ability to run them is more important1. (Nevermind the 80% of the games that I'm currently playing that are twenty-odd years old and stand even less chance of working on Win 7...) The Win 7 HDD on that machine solely exists for playing/running anything that doesn't work on XP and serving as one of the... oh, what, seven back-up respositories (yes, at least one of which is off-site). I will only be stopping using the XP drive when it actually physically wears out.



Of course, I haven't even attempted updating ZA on Win 7 yet, so there's no garentee that would solve this particular problem anyway...



1Some things just do not work on later OSes, what with MS not really being very good at backwards compatibility. My Dad has had to buy an old lap top with XP installed (admittedly for offline only) just so he can run his laser cutter.

[Alent]

I overlooked the Windows XP part. Um... if you want to secure it, the best way is to unplug it. :smallfrown:

MBAM and Spybot still run well on XP from what I've seen and the paid version of Spybot added antivirus as a feature at some point, but you're coming up on the point where you really need to migrate your XP apps into a Virtual machine with the networking set to NAT and never launch web anything on them unless you absolutely have to. On the upside, anything that was meant for use 20 years ago should emulate absolutely seamlessly. Also, you might try looking at Foxmail if you're an Outlook Express diehard, it's basically a Windows 7 friendly version of Outlook Express 6. (It just comes from China with all the inherent fears that brings... still safer than XP.)

The backwards compatibility thing you're pointing out is more an issue of 64-bit vs 32-bit. You'd be surprised what kind of legacy things you can still make run on Windows 7 32-bit.

I don't think I'd risk using the Lasercutter on a VM, tho'. From my own experience with my CNC mill and dropped g-code, adding an emulation circuit to the loop seems like a good way to start a fire.

[factotum]

The backwards compatibility thing you're pointing out is more an issue of 64-bit vs 32-bit. You'd be surprised what kind of legacy things you can still make run on Windows 7 32-bit.


I don't think I've yet encountered a 32-bit app that didn't run just fine on a 64-bit OS--I'm sure such things probably exist, but they're pretty darned rare. The main backwards compatibility problem with a 64-bit OS is that you can't run 16-bit Windows applications any more, because the WOW subsystem which allows that is used for 32-bit apps instead.

[Alent]

I don't think I've yet encountered a 32-bit app that didn't run just fine on a 64-bit OS--I'm sure such things probably exist, but they're pretty darned rare. The main backwards compatibility problem with a 64-bit OS is that you can't run 16-bit Windows applications any more, because the WOW subsystem which allows that is used for 32-bit apps instead.

Agreed, I just oversimplified a bit and referred only to the OS versions. :smallwink:

I deal with too many clients that don't care about the particulars. :smallsigh:

[TechnOkami]

I can second Bitdefender. The last viruses I had were without Bitdefender, and if anything did pop up it would alert me and give me options for what to do with the infected files. I too am generally pleased with it.