What is your Computer Protection such as, Antivirus/Antispyware/malware Programs?

Here's my smorgasboard of security software...have a Dimension 8400 with XP and an XPS 420 with Vista:

Firewall:       Outpost on XP, Online Armor on Vista

Antivirus         Avast on XP, AntiVir on Vista

MBAM       Works fine on Vista machine, won't update on the XP

Other programs that are on both and seem to work well together:
SAS, Windows Defender, A-Sqared Anti-Malware, Spybot Search and Destroy, Spyware Blaster, and Win Patrol.

Not a paid product amongst them and I seem to do OK...have very few alerts about anything.

To give credit and appreciation where it is due, I learned about almost all these programs from the more experienced regulars here.

Control-tps,

while i don't use either Sandboxie nor GeSwall, my understanding is that these two are "similar" programs, and so I don't know that it's wise to run both... then again, i see that you have turned GeSwall off.  

with that possible exception, I don't see any blaring conflicts in your list.

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Dale,

since you're using both avast and avira (on separate machines), are you in a position to offer some thoughts on how these two compare for you?

ky331,

Thank you for your input.  I will go to the GeSwall forum and find out if GeSwall would conflict with Sandboxie even if it is turn-off. 

Dale,

Also, thank you for input.

Hi David:

With very few alerts with either product, I guess I am living right and surfing safely. So I guess the products are doing as advertised and the benefits vs "costs" ratio is excellent.

I don't like the interface on either product, but they are easy to use and understand after a very short time. I believe I heard here that Avast will be coming out with a complete redesign soon and I am anxious to try that one. I have automatic updates on for both, but still will go and look manually later in the day just to stay ahead of the game. I don't care for the male voice on Avast, would prefer a soft and silky  female one!  The Avast updates appear to be somewhat frequent and small, just taking a few minutes. When manually updating AntiVir, it sometimes take awhile for the updates to begin, and on rare occasions they have not started at all, but will update if I try it again a bit later. So for these two programs, I think that for the "price" you can't beat them!

With A-Squared you have be very diligent and look for updates within about 30 hours of the previous update, or you will have to download all 46+ MB of database again... for some reason having to do with the two engines in the product. The rest of the programs are pretty straight forward and offer no challenges, and as far as I can tell, no conflicts.

Dale:

It's been awhile since I last used avast, but I seem to recall there was a way to change the voice alerts to a "silky female" one. There certainly was a way to disable the voice altogether, which was my preference.

Control_tps:

You indicate that your only real-time protection is Norton's 360 security suite, which I understand includes an anti-spyware scanner. You might want to make sure that Windows Defender has its real-time protection disabled in Tools>Options. I don't know for a fact that these two scanners running in real-time would conflict, but I have always avoided running more than one anti-spyware in real-time. I do know that my Outpost Pro firewall's real-time anti-spyware was disabled by default during installation, when it detected that I had other anti-spyware running.

joe53,

Thanks , I did disabled the Windows Defender Real-Time protection.  Yes, I google it and seems everybody are saying to only have 1 anti-spyware in real-time mode, because probably the Windows Defender might conflict with Norton 360 v3. 

Dell's forums (and myself) are more oriented towards use of Dell PCs than security, but...

...personally, I just use Norton Internet Security, and am very careful to run all patches.  In the past I've use McAfee and Avast!, but I like Norton now since as-of 2009, it is much faster.  I also like CCleaner, to clear-out old rubbish on XP, but I'm not sure how well it plays with Vista.  I also use a few other freeware tools "as-needed" (Malwareblaster; something like that...), but not so much these days.

I think the real "trick" to PC security is:

• Run a good virus-scanning package
• Install patches in a timely manner
• Be VERY careful with email attachments
• Be VERY careful with pop-ups on web-sites
• Be VERY careful about what web-sites you even go to (you may want to think twice about those "hacker" and "porn" sites...)
• Be VERY careful about what PCs you exchange data with (such as via a USB drive)

P.S. I've not swam over to Bikini Bottom for quite a while; tell SpongeBob I said hi!

joe53

...I don't know for a fact that these two scanners running in real-time would conflict, but I have always avoided running more than one anti-spyware in real-time.

Hey, Joe:

The subject of how many real-time Antispyware programs a person can run seems [to me anyway] to be a little controversial. I've come across many experts offering different opinions on the matter. Then we also have trusted companies such as Malwarebytes and SuperAntispyware, who recommend running the paid versions of their programs [which include real-time scanning] alongside an antivirus. Given that most Antivirus' now cover a wider spectrum of Malware detection (Anti-trojan, Antispyware etc.), this I gather would then result in the end user running two real-time Antispyware/Antimalware apps.

I suppose the most obvious danger of running two similar Antimalware programs in real-time is that both Apps may try to quarantine a malicious file at the same time.

The following is purely speculation, but AFAIK SAS's real-time scans "on execution" where as an Antivirus normally scans "on-access", maybe this difference in scanning method has something to do with how both programs (as SAS would claim) can run real-time and co-exist without problems(?).

I can certainly see the logic in running just one Firewall, Antivirus and Antispyware, but who am I to question the great minds that develop MBAM and SAS .

Red Dawn wrote:  AFAIK SAS's real-time scans "on execution"

RD:  Can you cite a source for that statement?   I may be wrong, but It seems to me that waiting until a file gets executed would be too late to "scan" it and prevent it from attacking one's system.   (Then again, it also appears to me that HIPS-protection can only "work" at the time of execution, but that's not the same as "scanning" a file.)

Hi RD:

I hear what you are saying, but I am not sure that just because some resident anti-malwares coexist nicely with AVs that also have anti-malware activity, necessarily translates into "it's ok to run 2 resident anti-malware programs" as a generalisation.

We have seen that various McAfee and Norton suites (although not, apparently, the Norton 360 version the OP has) disable Defender at installation to prevent potential conflicts with their own anti-malware module. And my OP firewall shut down its own resident anti-malware for the same reason (in this case, it was due to OP detecting I had NOD32).

The potential for conflicts no doubt varies according to the anti-malware programs concerned, and how they work.

I have seen opinions on both sides of this question also, but I have never seen anyone demonstrate any benefit to running 2 purely anti-malware programs in real-time simultaneously, even if it is possible without conflicts or degradation of safety. It certainly does increase CPU usage, and the potential for duelling pop-ups.

I have run into system and browsing slowdowns when I have tried it myself, although not invariably.

@ky331

Its been a while since I came across that info on SAS, but a quick Google search turned up THIS, which kind of unofficially backs up what I was getting at earlier. I'm not familiar with that Forum but am very familiar with the author of the post (Lordpake) . You may have seen him around on various security forums (Wilders, MBAM's etc).

I'll post later on SAS's forum for some official confirmation.

It might also be worth posting on MBAM's forums to get their view perhaps.

@Joe

No further response at this time , thanks for the reply.

Hello Red Dawn, joe53, and ky331,

Thanks, for all your enlightening in regards to the topics.

Just a bit of additional info here. Until  their special expired about a month ago, I had the full A-Squared version, which was offered free for a year and had real time protection as part of the package. So I had that antimalware program and Windows Defender working together for a year and never noticed any problems or conflicts.

Dale:

I just now instructed my MBAM and A2-AM to both load at startup and run in real-time, while Windows Defender real-time protection was disabled.

This resulted in a total screen freeze, requiring a manual shut-down.

This proves nothing, of course, other than that these 2 anti-malware programs don't play well together in  real-time, in my PC's particular environment (and in the absence of any malware on my system).

There are just too many variables involved for me to make any recommendation, other than that running only one anti-malware in real-time is prudent. You might get away with more than one, but I don't see any benefits to justify the risks.

A long time ago I was advised by a wise man to never use more than one program to accomplish the same task. This advice has served me well over the years.

Then again, I could be dead wrong ...