Need Anti-Virus & Firewall other than Norton

**Julia Henson** · 2004-02-05 13:02

Win98, IE 6, HD 8GB, 256K Ram
I am finally going to give up on Norton Y2004 Sys Works, Anti-Virus & Firewall.
Can anyone tell me what to get that will work really well?
I looked at ZDNet and it led me to Sophos. Is that any good?
Any input at all? I am thinking of at least moving back to Norton Y2003 until I find something else.
I can't keep my system working with Y2004
Thank you,
Julia

**viking33** · 2004-02-05 17:04

Julia,

I am still using SW2003 without any problems at all. I never upgraded to 2004 because I didn't see any advantage or any new features to justify it. If you still have the 2003 version available, why not just reinstall that. The worst maybe is that you would eventually have to renew your Virus defintions subscription for a few bucks.

Firewall? I and A LOT of other Loungers use Zone Alarm home.It's <img src=/S/free.gif border=0 alt=free width=30 height=15> . You can get it ZONELABS
Try it, you'll like it.

Bob

**JohnGray** · 2004-02-05 17:18

Julia

We use Sophos at work on 2600-odd servers and workstations (it's my job!), but it would need a little effort to use at home, because it doesn't have as good a home update system as does Norton.

Conversely, I'm just going to add Norton Firewall to our existing nearly year-old Norton AV, when it comes up for renewal at the end of this month!

**Julia Henson** · 2004-02-05 18:07

Thanks, both of you.
Yes, I still have my Y2003 NSW & Firewall, which I will now go back to. I didn't have these problems with that year. I'm really grateful someone knew about Sophos. It was on ZDNet's reviews as top-rated, but ZDNet is very network oriented and I am certainly not that!
Again, thank you,
Julia

**Julia Henson** · 2004-02-07 22:01

Thank you very much for the input. I am going to keep any suggestions so I can check them all.
Much appreciated!
Have uninstalled Y2004 now, and am hoping for better system performance. So far so good, but it's only been one day!
Julia

**JohnGray** · 2004-02-08 15:18

If anyone from the UK is going to purchase Agnitum Outpost, may I suggest that they get it from the US website?
You pay at least the same number in

**d_rasley** · 2004-02-09 01:04

The combination that I use at home, and am completely satisfied with, is Avast Antivirus and Sygate Personal Firewall (SPF). Both are available free for personal use, are easy to install, and easy to maintain. Avast has kept my computer clean through numerous MyDoom and SoBig messages, and SPF has kept out the rest of the bad guys. I've also found that the total system overhead has been far below what Norton and ZoneAlarm had taken when I was using them.

**Pilgrim** · 2004-02-09 14:52

Julia,

I like many others, I too am using Norton for my AV program (Norton SystemWorks 2003 Pro). I've considered others, but never have I found anything that stands out as being any better or cheaper overall.

As to a Firewall.... well, I have to say that despite the popularity of ZoneAlarm, there is one that is far better, cheaper, easier to use/configure and excels in the support area: Outpost Firewall Pro V.2. Novell, one of the major players in the tech market just went with Outpost exclusively recently, which is more than commendable. The latest update is scheduled (unofficially) to be released this month too (v. 2.1). It is packed with features, including popup stopper, ads blocker, attachment filter, etc., etc.... all which can be enabled, disabled, and/or customized. The Support Forum is unrivaled, IMHO, which you can access here: Outpost Support Board.

Jeff

***JoeP517*** · 2004-02-09 19:05

Julia,
I use the same combo as David in the prior post. Concur that both are easy to use, light on the system resources, and effective.

Joe

**cowboydawg** · 2004-02-09 20:39

I use Pc-Cillins Antivirus and it's built in firewall software,,plus I have a Router. Very light on resourses. Was using Kerio Personal Firewall with Pc-Cillin,,but I believe that to be an Overkill for my Computer and it's uses,, maybe for any computer it's overkill. If a hacker wants in bad enough and is good,, your not gonna keep him out with $100.00 software, much less the free stuff.

**westerneagle** · 2004-02-10 05:24

David mentioned Avast.
FYI, I tried to use Avast when I was using w98 and I could not get it to run without countless lockups. As soon as I removed it, everything back to normal. I will say I have not tried it since changing over to xp. Just my 2 cents since your using w95

**Julia Henson** · 2004-02-10 10:36

Thank you all for your input. Am tracking all of it. Have Win98 now, but will be changing to XP within the year, so XP info is also appreciated.
Am having no problems yet, with NSW Pro Y2003 and Norton's Personal Firewall 2003 installed again, but am watching all the input for use later, and in case I start having difficulty again.
I had both the free ZoneAlarm as well as the purchased version at one time. Worked fine until a computer pro tried to do something with my computer and it couldn't be fixed until I took ZoneAlarm off - Microsoft had identified it as a problem with Win98, after numbers of days of troubleshooting. I didn't want to take the chance again.
Outpost Firewall is sounding good, Jeff.
Cowboy, what is a Router? Is it really possible to have overkill for any computer?
Anybody else have any experience using Kerio Personal Firewall with Pc-Cillin? I really am into overkill - better too much than too little in this area, I feel.
Michael, appreciate hearing your experience with Avast. I am using Win98, not Win95.

I tend to stay away from free software when it comes to anti-virus, firewalls and spyware. I want all updates and problem solving when I need it, and I don't want any protection left out. I sorta lean towards willingness to spend the money to bypass any possible problems.

**cowboydawg** · 2004-02-10 14:26

<hr>Cowboy, what is a Router?<hr>

A router allows more then one computer to use the same INTERNET connection,, and as I said above,, also works as a firewall.

<hr>Is it really possible to have overkill for any computer?<hr>

I would say it's all in the way you have your computer hooked up and what you use it for and what you have on it that could be accessed. For instance,,if you have a computer that all you do is play games on it on line with friends,,what are you protecting it from.? Whats the hacker gonna do,, steal your game Information and nick name. <img src=/S/grin.gif border=0 alt=grin width=15 height=15> So to have Several forms of Firewalls on that computer to me would be Overkill.

<hr>Anybody else have any experience using Kerio Personal Firewall with Pc-Cillin?<hr>

They work very well together,,and nether one of them are Resource Hogs.

<hr>I really am into overkill - better too much than too little in this area, I feel.<hr>

Thats cool,,,,To each his own,,and to own is to never have to rent. <img src=/S/cheers.gif border=0 alt=cheers width=30 height=16>

**Mark P** · 2004-02-11 00:17

I really like Kerio PF (Tiny as was) as it allows me to control permissions by port and IP address, which none of the other free offerings allow. It also has a number of other nice features, like asking you if you want to allow one program to start another, and keeping tabs on the MD5 hashes of all progs accessing the internet, and checking with you if they change. The latest version has free and paid offerings, but as the latter just adds add blocking and web filter functions that, IMHO, are done better by other progs, I can't see the point. One word of warning: when I upgraded from a beta version to the latest full release, it wiped out my config file when the free trial period expired - a real pain. So if you try it, back up your config file as you get close to the expiry of the free "fully featured" trial.

Many people have run into compatibility and system stability issues with ZoneAlarm, but that might just reflect the number of people using it. There used to be a problem with it not uninstalling properly, so bear that in mind if trying it.

When I tried Sygate PF, my computer rebooted ever time I dialled up, so I didn't explore it further!

There was quite a detailed, fairly recent review on cnet or zdnet, which ended up plumping for Norton, but only because its "out of the box" setup was the most secure. Depends on the granularity of control you require.

**Julia Henson** · 2004-02-19 12:37

Win98 updated, but not upgraded to Ver 2, IE 6, 56K modem, 256K ram, 1GB processor, 8 GB HD
Well, the 'good times' back with Norton's Y2003 lasted only a couple days. Evidently all the Y2004 doesn't uninstall quite as well as they indicate it well.
I am not able to LiveUpdate at all, without first deleting the c:windowsAll UsersApplication DateWymantecLiveUpdateDownloads - and this only after it bombs the first time. Then, it bombs the Lucomserver with an invalid page fault. It is still bombing both Excel and Word. Excel is always a Ccapp bomb first, then I have to End Task with Excel as well. I never have figured out what is happening with Word.
So, I am considering Pc-Cillin with Outpost Firewall Pro.
Does anyone have any info re problems I might have with these together? The plan is to download them to the computer first, then call Norton and uninstall everything completely, including the registry, etc., then to set up Pc-Cillin and Outpost.
Does that sound alright?
Mark, your input is appreciated, but I really don't know anything at all about what you said. I don't even know what you said!
Thank you all for your continued assistance,
Julia

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