Re: AV and firewall recommendations
From: Bruce Chambers (bchambers_at_nospamcableone.net)
Date: 02/20/04
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Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:09:50 -0700
Greetings --
When my subscription to Symantec's updates for Norton Internet
Security 2002 came up for renewal (at a cost substantially higher than
last year's subscription), I decided to try less expensive solutions.
I downloaded and installed the free version of GriSoft's AVG (
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php ) and the free version of
Sygate's Personal Firewall ( http://smb.sygate.com/free/default.php ).
Both have proven to be easily installed, easy to use, and quite
effective. Additionally, I was pleasantly surprised to see a small
but very noticeable improvement in my PC's performance, once I'd
replaced the Symantec product.
WinXP's built-in firewall is fine at stopping incoming attacks, and
hiding your ports from probes. It doesn't give you any alarms to tell
you that it is working, though. What WinXP also does not do, is
protect you from any Trojans or spyware that you might download and
install inadvertently. It doesn't monitor out-going traffic at all,
much less block (or at least ask you about) the bad or the
questionable out-going packets.
ZoneAlarm, Kerio, or Sygate are all much better than WinXP's
built-in firewall, and are much more easily configured, and there are
a free versions of each readily available. Even Symantec's Norton
Personal Firewall is superior by far, although it does take a heavier
toll of performance then do ZoneAlarm, Kerio, or Sygate. It's been
several years since I've been tempted to try McAfee products. Their
quality seemed to take a steep nose-dive after they were acquired by
Network Associates.
Bruce Chambers
-- Help us help you: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. -- RAH "Newbie techie" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:14AFF74B-728D-45D3-8279-595EF6C74D5C@microsoft.com... > Eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new laptop with XP Pro... > planning ahead, I'm wondering about the best anti-virus and firewall > software to use. Currently I use Norton AV and ZoneAlarm on Windows > ME. They slow things down very much and often cause the PC to > freeze for minutes at a time-- sometimes even crash. Granted, a > large part of the problem is ME itself... can't wait to get rid of > it!... but the fact remains that Norton (and seemingly ZoneAlarm as > well) is exceedingly FAT and unwieldy software, that I hate to use > if I don't have to. And it's been playing very poorly with other > software. Any recommendations for the best (most stable, least > intrusive, frequently updated signatures) AV software for XP? And > as for the firewall, is the integral XP firewall adequate, or will I > need to use ZoneAlarm again (we have an always-on DSL connection).
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