Hey

I have just reformatted my computer and its back to its original state the reason I wiped it was It had so many viruses, Now here is my question what is the best Virus protection/Fire wall Combination too protect my PC I want something strong but able too run games and software without it blocking them.

What is the best solution? for this Im running XP SP2 and dont want it too be CPU hungry I used too use Mal ware bytes but I need something stronger

The best protection is using your brain before downloading things or clicking on links. If it's even remotely dubious, then don't do it.

If that fails, use linux.

Quote from coleusrattus :

the best protection is using your brain before downloading things or clicking on links. If it's even remotely dubious, then don't do it.



If that fails, use linux.

That first bit isnt really helping

and no too linux

Quote from R34king :

That first bit isnt really helping

It's simple and free. You don't even need to download any software!

AVG/Avast, Router and windows firewall = fine for the last 4 years...

Quote from R34king :

That first bit isnt really helping

Woah, I'm glad I didn't imply that.
If you want to use anti virus software, I can recommend Avira Antivir. Still, NO software is 100% safe, you still have to use common sense to not get infected, as long as you don't use a Mac or Linux.

Well, I do use common sense too stay uninfected I scan the registry once a day and delete the nasties, I defrag once a month im fully up too date with windows updates and I had malaware Anti bytes before my pc crashed

Then how did you get viruses in the first place?

Hadnt had one for like 2 Years It was just my time really I got infected with Trojan Vundo then it kinda went downhill from there

Just use your brains like other people said.
Personally I love avast + Spybot + Windows firewall.
I've tried almost all firewalls and alot of combo's, but this really is the best so far.

It depends what you mean by "best". I still think the most comprehensive and secure system has to be the Norton collection, but it's a massive resource hog so it's not a great plan if you want to do anything else with the computer at the same time

I use AVG & Ad-Aware and I've never had any viruses (in what, 7 or 8 years and counting). That said, I don't go mental downloading tons of dodgy crap so that probably helps. Used to use ZoneAlarm as firewall, but firewalls are usually more bother than they're worth on a DHCP connection.

Ok so should I just stick to a basic Virus scanner and not have the firewall?

After much consideration Im going with Avira Antivir and Zonealarm firewall

Depends how paranoid you are. 95% of web surfers will never need a firewall. It's all about how much of an online presence you have. The more people have access to your IP, the more likely someone is to try and break into it.
That's not worth getting scared about in my opinion since most forums shield your IP from all but the mods and any hacker worth their salt knows that normal people don't have anything worth breaking in for

In terms of priority, I'd probably go virus > adware > firewall. In fact, if you don't download much from unreliable sources then you could probably swap adware and virus round with no problems.

I expect some of the hardcore will be all "you need a firewall, I could hack your system any time I choose and steal your innerwebs" or something, but if they could they wouldn't be talking about it; they'd be doing it

Quote from Dajmin :

----Depends how paranoid you are. 95% of web surfers will never need a firewall.----

When i wiped my PC, i reinstalled XP SP1a (all i had at the time) and as soon as i set up my web connection i went straight to MS site to download all the updates off the windows site, but without a firewall installed.

Within less than 10 minutes my whole install was f--ked, the sasser worm was in, (lsass process crashed, causing a countdown to 0, then the pc shut itself down) dodgy jpeg files and .bat files with random names all over the desktop, something called Zconnect making its own connection in the network connections folder, and disconnecting my legit connection every 10 seconds, all windows pages i had open before the shutdown then 404d and would not work again, neither would any AV or PC help sites....it wasn't pretty at all.

Yes, i was using a very outdated copy of windows as sp1a is well old, but for that reason, i would always recommend a firewall.

This is what i am running now, on my old packard bell imedia 5094 (2002) machine..

ZoneAlarm firewall (free)
AVG 8.5 (free)
Lavasoft Adaware Anniversery Edition (free)
Malwarebytes anti-malware (free)
Spybot S&D (free)

So i have spent precisely NO money on security and *touch wood* i have never had any problems with anything virus or worm related whatsoever since i have had all these running together, this old pentium 4 thing here is a fortress!

Quote from danthebangerboy :

Within less than 10 minutes my whole install was f--ked, the sasser worm was in, (lsass process crashed, causing a countdown to 0, then the pc shut itself down) dodgy jpeg files and .bat files with random names all over the desktop, something called Zconnect making its own connection in the network connections folder, and disconnecting my legit connection every 10 seconds, all windows pages i had open before the shutdown then 404d and would not work again, neither would any AV or PC help sites....it wasn't pretty at all.

thats the one and only virus in god knows how many years that ever managed to go through that path of infection
hardly worth wasting resources on an utterly useless firewall on
besides if its a software firewall whatever attack gets to you is already in the application layers of your pc before the firewall even has a chance to react

in conclusion the only way to stay save is by avoiding pebkac

Quote from R34king :

Hadnt had one for like 2 Years It was just my time really I got infected with Trojan Vundo then it kinda went downhill from there

Coleus is not saying to use your common sense for protection. He's talking about not clicking links that the average person would know not to, or not to visit dodgy sites. He's right though, common sense would help alot with you not getting viruses.

I dont think my Security combo is the best, but it works great for me.

Anti Virus Software: Nod32
Firewall: Standard windows one for me. Does the job well enough.
Ad-Aware SE Plus:

I scan weekly with Nod32, and i dont get viruse's come up in the scan. I know that some programs occasionally miss some viruses when scanning but alot of people say Nod32 is one of the best AVS out there, so i trust it's judgement.

I scan weekly with Ad-Aware too, and that never brings up anything serious. Just small things like cookies etc, which is normal.

Eset Smart Security > Anything else.

Well IMO the simplest and cheapest (long term view) of protecting your PC from hackers is to put it behind a NAT enabled router. That way only the router is exposed to the outside world and hacking a router isn't going to get anyone very far very quickly.

TIP - Make sure whatever you use be it on your PC or a router doesn't respond to pings on the public IP port. First port of attack for any hacker indiscriminately looking for a "target" machine is to do scans for machines that announce their existence by replying to ping requests.

After that I can whole heartedly recommend CA Anti-Virus from here : http://shop.ca.com/virus/antivirus.aspx

Been using their AV product for over a decade now and haven't had a single significant virus on my PC. (i.e. never had any performance or data loss issues that have subsequently been attributable to a virus).

Get yourself some decent Malware/Spyware application such as Ad-Aware or MalwareBytes. I run Vista so it comes with MS Defender built in but I still have MalwareBytes, which I run on occasion.

Last but definitely not least. Keep your PC up to date with security patches. This is just good practice and should be something that is done on a regular basis.

But as has been said already, the best bit of security you can get for your PC is your own common sense. Treat everything that wants to run on your machine, (that you didn't explicitly request), as highly suspicious and err on the side of caution.

I did the first thing the guy above said and that was it, A NAT enabled router is the only thing besides Spybot S&D I need.

I never click on anything other than my deviant art pages or other art websites, youtube, or here. Thats all I frequent. Everything else I do with extreme caution.

My main computer has been virus free since I got it, thats 4 years now. None of my computers have ever had a virus from my doing. My brother let one in unknowingly once, but it was on my secondary computer, and I killed it quickly.


Simple way to avoid geting a virus or malware, don't go places you don't have to. Downloading random stuff seems like a good idea, but in the end it will cost you alot of time. The only downloads I ever do are images or games and modifications from trusted developers.

I've been virus free without any sort of protection for a while. Common sense is mostly what you need but if you feel like exploring, you should use McAfee SiteAdvisor. It's not 100% accurate but if you click on the bubble to the right before entering the site, it takes you to a page with info about anything dangerous on that site. What matters most though is the user comments at the bottom of the page.

For example, letssingit.com is apparently safe according to McAfee. But if you click the bubble and look down, there are quite a few user reports that the site has pop-ups that lead to viruses and browser exploits. Just today my brother went to the site and was unfortunate enough to get a pop-up that murdered his computer. Now I have to fix it. We used that site for quite a while but we haven't had any problems until now. I guess we won't be searching lyrics any time soon.

As for actual protection, Comodo Firewall, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware/Ad-Aware/Spybot S&D, Avast Antivir/Avira Antivirus was a good combo for me a while back.

EDIT: No luck. He got Win32:Vitro. That thing's a polymorphic infective virus. In basic English, it changes itself to hide from anti-viruses and it constantly infects files in your computer, and lots of them. It even attacks the scanner. Guess there's nothing to do but to erase the whole drive with DBAN and start over.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

The best protection is using your brain before downloading things or clicking on links. If it's even remotely dubious, then don't do it.

If that fails, use linux.

lol thats extreamly good advise but people allso need to rember its not just downloading things alot of websites have virus's built in even some of 4chan pages have virus's built in that auto download in ur web browser.

just be carefull

If it helps, if you use Mozilla Firefox to browse the internet, make sure you use try the No-Script add-on...

It helps a lot with blocking hidden web page bugs/browser hijacks.etc...

Quote from WSR :

make sure you use try the No-Script add-on...

I would recommend No-HTML and No-TcpIP aswell

Ontopic: use brain.exe, but don't forget to inject straight_hands.dll in it.

All you need is comodo, it's free, antivirus, firewall, network traffic sniffer, and process manager all in one proggie. Having issues with an IP or Process you don't trust? no worries, you can terminate them, or terminate and block them from reconnecting / restarting. You won't need any other proggie for antivirus, or even a firewall, this does it all.



also, don't go saving files you don't trust, read user reviews, those help.

Quote from Pablo Donoso :

also, don't go saving files you don't trust

How the feck saving a file could infect your PC?

+1 for Comodo Internet Security along with running Spybot Search & Destroy every now and then...

CIS has antivirus/Firewall, a small memory footprint and is usually loaded even before the start menu is on the screen... AVG and ZA took ages to load, even on a fresh install and slowed the pc slightly....