Go ahead and flame me or ignore me for being lazy, but I know this requires little effort for many of you.

For a firewall and virus protection, I currently have Norton Internet Security, but its expiring soon. NIS definitely slows down my computer and is a PIA. What do you guys recommend as a (free) replacement?

Thanks.

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"There is a good chance I gave you a very bad description of something that doesn't work."

zonealarm is a decent free product.
:/

You're best protection is a router and common sense though.

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A good education is expensive but ignorance costs more.

My desktop has Norton (virus) and Zonealarm (firewall). My husband's desktop has McAfee (virus) and Zonealarm (firewall). My laptop has McAfee (both virus and firewall).

I've always preferred Norton to McAfee because I found it to be less intrusive with its popup notices. But your opinions may vary.

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... can't sleep, blinds will eat me ...

I use AVG for my virus scanner, it's supposed to be really good (and free). As far as the firewall, I've heard ZoneAlarm blows away the one that comes with Windows.

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I'm CDO. It's like OCD, but everying is in order just like it should be.

A little bit on my setup... I have Comcast HSI and a Linksys RT31P2 router (used with Vonage phone). Router is wired, no wireless.

So ZoneAlarm is just a firewall, no Virus scan/protection? Anybody concur with a combination of ZoneAlarm & AVG?

Thanks for the replies (keep them coming).

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"There is a good chance I gave you a very bad description of something that doesn't work."

Zone Alarm is great firewall program, definitely recommended.
Despite what Gryff says, a router is NOT as secure as most firewall programs. First of all, a router will only protect you from external threats (people attacking your PC from the internet) and not against internal ones (suspicious/malicious traffic coming from your PC back out onto the internet.) Also most people don't know how to properly configure their routers to provide the maximum amount of protection, whereas Firewall software is easy to configure and does most of the work for you.

As for anti-virus protection, nothing beats NOD32. Unfortunately, it's not the easiest program to use and I wouldn't recommend it for the average PC user. It's pretty simple for someone who has some PC knowledge but not as simple as Norton, Mcafee and other more common AV programs. Unfortunately, it's not free (unless you know how/where to look ) so if you're looking for a free program then I would go with AVG. It's not as good as other programs that you would pay for but its definitely the best free program out there.

Thanks McJ. Can you give me your thoughts?

I can probably find a way to renew my NIS for free (at least after rebate), but like I said, I feel like NIS just sucks the speed out of my computer.

That said, would you reccommend:
1) Renew NIS
2) ZoneAlarm & AVG
3) ZoneAlarm & just frickin' pay for a decent Virus program

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"There is a good chance I gave you a very bad description of something that doesn't work."

Norton is known for that (eating up your PC's resources.) So if you've been having problems with it, it's probably best to avoid it all together. I would recommend Zone Alarm and then some sort of AV protection, which is up to you. Mcafee might be an option (if you're willing to pay,) but AVG is almost just as good and is free. Maybe try AVG for a bit and see how it goes? If you start to have PC issues or if you find it detecting viruses but not removing them, then at that point you could look into different AV options.

Cool. Thanks to all.

I run SpyBot about once a week for extra security. I'm told this is a pretty reliable program.

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"There is a good chance I gave you a very bad description of something that doesn't work."

Routers are more secure.
Good ones come with firewalls and can protect internal and external network traffic.

The additional security factor is that router firewalls cannot be circumvented by software ( ie viruses ) on your pc.
Of course a router has no anti-virus on your desktop so:

Router+anti-virus is probably the best solution, but if you use common sense its tough to get virus's. The main issue on top of that is spyware which Spybot does a pretty good job of keeping under control.


So to sum it up:

Router+anti-virus+spybot= Victory.

The best anti-virus has consistently been Kespersky - http://www.kaspersky.com

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A good education is expensive but ignorance costs more.