Hi all,
I read a lot on here about people using things like adaware, Spybot etc etc - are all these programs used as alternatives to a package like nortons or are they needed in addition???

Also what is the best free / not free protection available?

Spybot does a different job to norton or a firewall m8, it removes adware / spyware from your computer,. f you dont have either fo them, i would download one now

The best free antivirus program i know of is AVG

And the best not free one is F-Secure, it was in a test that a website ran, they installed thousands of viruses and then ran the program to see how many were detected, it got about 98%, while Norton only got about 92, MCafee 96 and AVG got in the high 80's

Cheers Dave - would I be safe enough though just running firewall and AV software?? I've never had any problems with this setup, just that all this talk of Spybot etc has got me worried that i might be missing something - however my system runs perfectly so the firewall keeps them out??

Firewall is a must, m8, if you're on hi speed connection. I've several attacks everyday blocked and reported by Norton FW. If you're running a router with NAT FW, it will give you additional protection but the FW's won't block ads so you would need something like adaware as you mentioned above.

Cheers Van, thats a bit of an eye opener - I run norton firewall and just assumed that I was completely covered.

Time to get installing - cheers! :tup:

Thanks for the advices folks - I installed Spybot and it came up with a small handful of intruders (is nothing sacred :rolleyes: ) which have been duly removed.

It was worth it just to see the option on the installer screen - a check box for "install icons for the blind" .... WHAT THE ...! Thats even better than the braille on the toilet doors in the cinema :laugh:

Originally posted by Virgin San
Thanks for the advices folks - I installed Spybot and it came up with a small handful of intruders (is nothing sacred :rolleyes: ) which have been duly removed.

It was worth it just to see the option on the installer screen - a check box for "install icons for the blind" .... WHAT THE ...! Thats even better than the braille on the toilet doors in the cinema :laugh:
LOL - You get the blind icon options m8 as the prog assumes that it will find $ex dialers on your HD in it's useage..... you can guess the rest! j/k :laugh:

I also select "d/l beta definitions" from the settings and if you go to Pepi's forum (link on SpyBot site) you can d/l the latest version (v1.3 Beta 4) which is much better than the current 1.2 version too.

For a free A/V I have yet to find one better than avast! 4.1 :- www.avast.com/ which IMHO is almost as good as the mighty F-Secure 5.41 workstation that Dave mentioned. The reason F-Secure works so well is that it is 3 A/V scanners in one and I would not use anything else period myself. :)

Your in luck i just found the link to the antivirus test

makes a nice read

http://www.virus.gr/english/fullxml/default.asp?id=59&mnu=59

hey chaps sorry to dredge this thread up again but my system works is nearing the end of its anual subscription and i'm probably gonna try out f-secure based on these recommendations.

While i don't appreciate the resources that system works takes up, is there a similar prog that does the weekly check up/ clean up that system works does? and is ghost the best back up software? Currently running roxio go back- but i'll lose that once i uninstall system works

Try RegSupreme http://www.macecraft.com/ nimbles, from the maker of jv16 Power Tools but very simple and best reg cleaner I've used. Way, way better than Norton.

Ghost is still very good though, Acronis do a good one called True Image though. I'd plump for Ghost though by a small margin.

thanks for that lazza :tup:, yeah i've been using reg supreme based on a previous recommendation from you- its just system works used to "find" registry errors and fix em during the weekly one button checkup even after having just done an extra deep reg clean with regsupreme, assumed it was doing something else.

what about Norton IS vs ZA Pro- always been a ZA Pro user and am pretty satified with it.