Which Security Program?

[DanGrease]

Hello Techimoians! Its me Dan da Man sitting in an internet cafe just waiting for my sweet computer to arrive. That will take a while more and I was wondering about something. I have some money left and I want to spend it in an security program. I need a newer Antivirus/Firewall program than the current one I have. I was interested in these three:
- McAfee Internet Security Suite 6.0
- Norton Internet Security 2004
- PC-Cillin Internet Security 2004

Which one should I choose? Which one is the best option? Or should I go with buying separate Antivirus and Firewall programs? If so these are the choices I am thinking of:
- Zone Alarm Pro
- McAfee Antivirus Professional 8
- Sygate Firewall
- Norton Antivirus Professional 2004
- Kerio Firewall
- AVG Antivirus (not free version)
- NOD 32 Antivirus
-- Others
Which one of these should I combine? Or should I go for the three choices above that come complete already? The price is not an issue since I have enough for whatever choice.

dan

[Siliconjunkie]

Well, you list 2 kinds of software. Anti Virus and Firewall.

I would go with Norton for Anti-Virus and Zone Alarm for Firewall. But you probably can't go wrong with any of them.

Use the trials of the firewalls, find the one you like. It will be the item that will need the most tweaking.

[Droppyale]

Norton AV + Zonealarm Pro.


Althoug I like better the corporate version of Norton AV.

[DanGrease]

Thanks for the responses guys.
I will probably start downloading trial versions before I buy to see which ones I like most.

[Pexster]

Just got the CDs for PC-cillin 2004. We use the free ZoneAlarm and am wondering if I should just go with the PC-cillin firewall or keep using the ZA. Someone told me the TrendMicro AV was good, but the firewall not so good. Any more opinions?

[Carl-cox-]

i use the new kerio firewall seems good to me. has regualr updates and logs every hack attempt. very intresting. my computers been on a few hours and it has blocked over 20 backdoor attempts. also it has a popup and ad blocker and cleans stange cookies on the fly very good software imo

as for anti virus AVG cant go wrong.

[John Prophet]

anything but McAfee....McAfee just seems like pure junk to me, even the look of it is cheap. Too many problems reported with Mcafee...cant uninstall etc.

[Pexster]

Tnx, Carl and JP. Yeah, I agree with you, JP, about McAfee. In fact, the only reason I got the PC-cillin was because this was for a work PC I have at home. They (work) want me to use their licensed McAfee AV, but every time I try to install it, I get a BSOD and have to recover. I think it doesn't like the free ZA, maybe. Anyway, it's a POS, so I just decided to buy my own AV, and TrendMicro had/has this $20 special running.

[muno]

Heh, I'd go anything but zonealarm and norton. Norton is bloatware and zonealarm is hysteriaware.

I'd go sygate and no antivirus, but if antivir is absolutely necessary, get some free one. (sygate is free, too, for personal use).

[trieder]

I wouldn't buy any of them because they all do the same thing and it's all very simple to program, they just modify Window's TCP/UDP IP tables.... If you wait about a week (could be even sooner), I will have written a program that does the exact same thing as them with more fine grained control (almost like iptables for windows). Plus it will be free (no adware, no spyware, nothing). I was thinking of even making it open source