Re: choosing firewall and antivirus: Norton or McAfee ?Something else

Hi. Why are those two the worst choices ? What would you consider good
criteria for choosing a good firewall and a good antivirus program ? Any
specific programs you have in mind ?

Btw, for the sake of experimentation I asked the company from who I bought
the router (router is between cable modem and wireless adapter on PC) how I
could turn off the router. I did follow their instructions and to my
surprise, when using firewall tests, such as pcflank, tests at
www.hackerwatch.org/probe and shieldsup at grc.com (it made no difference
whether my McAfee firewall 6.0 was on or off) all ports appeared to be
stealthed. Except port 0 and 1. Were they really stealthed, or did it just
appear as if they were ? I used Port Fw. and gave an ip address (it did not
make a difference if I used the IP address of my computer, or the "Ip
address" I have to type in as a URL when I want to access my router. I
suppose you could call it my router's IP. (Please correct me if the latter is
nonsense). I also specified the port range from 1 (could not use 0) to
something over 60000. And when I performed firewall tests, it appeared as if
I were stealthed.

If they were stealthed, does the inability of the router to make port 0 and
1 stealthed the stealth option of little value ? I don't know how hackers
operate with that regard.

Please advise.

"Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE" schreef:

"unstablemicrosoft" <unstablemicrosoft@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:460D3A27-A98F-4BD1-AEB0-4C4F43A5BF2B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi. I have narrowed down my choices to Norton and McAfee for a firewall
and
anti virus. It's best to have the firewall and antivirus of the same
manufacturer.

What I like about McAfee is that it's anti virus program has an
aggressive,
heuristic approach to what might be viruses or malware and who are not yet
in
the DAT file. How is Norton's product in that regard ?

Norton claims that it's firewall is completely stealthed, but is that true
for all ports, including 0 and 1 ? I suppose it doesn't make my presence
on
the internet invisible, or am I wrong ? Basically, I have a static IP
adress
(cable ISP), reverse DNS possible. Officially I have a dynamic IP adress,
but
that changes rarely. So my computer name acts like a supercookie, as said
on
www.grc.com. This is just an intermezzo, but I'll ask it anyway: there are
ways to be anonymous on the internet, but are governments, criminals and
hackers not especially after proxies or other ways to remain anyonymous,
making one even less secure ? It would be easy and safe if my ISP had a
proxy
server, but it does not. Any recommendations to stay REALLY anonymous on
the
internet (I'll allow cookies, except tracking cookies) ? I'd have to
hide/change my IP.

Ok, back to the original question: is Norton anti virus aggressive towards
possible viruses of which no entry in the DAT files have been made yet ?
And
how does it compare overall to McAfee's anti virus ?

And now the firewall ? Which one is better, Norton or McAfee, and why ?
Any
vulnerabilities ?

Please give me a comparison of those two. McAfee and Norton.

Even if you don't know both, I'd appreciate your input. I'd have to buy
one
of these soon.

Kind regards,
Unstablemicrosoft

So, you've narrowed down your choice to the two worst choices. You have my
sympathies.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
Reply in newsgroup
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve
neither liberty or security"



.

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