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Using this Site
Top Rated
Security Wizard Recommendations
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Overview
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Based on your answers you have been rated as an experienced technical user of Windows 2000/XP who engages in high risk computer activities. As a high risk user your PC needs very solid protection so we have recommended products that will provide that protection that are also appropriate to your skill level. However we strongly suggest that you also consider reducing your overall risk level by following the safe computing practices outlined at the end of this page. |
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The Wizard recommends:
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Security Product Suggestions
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Anti-virus Scanner
For your anti-virus protection we recommend Avira AntiVir, a free, feature reduced version of the powerful commercial anti-virus scanner AntiVir Premium. And it's more than an anti-virus scanner; it offers anti- spyware capabilities as well. Also missing from the free version are web and email scanning capabilities but otherwise it offers the same outstanding protection against virus, worms and other threats.
The lack of email scanning is not a critical loss as AntiVir will still detect email borne viruses should they become active.
These reservations aside, Avira AntiVir offers class leading malware protection for free.
For alternatives to AntiVir, see here. For installation tips click here.
Anti-spyware Scanner
We recommend the free version of Malware Byte's Anti-Malware. It offers fast scanning, superb detection rates and first class infection cleaning. The free version lacks the real-time protection, automatic updates and automatic scheduling of the paid version but the scanner is identical.
To use Malware Byte's Anti-Malware you need to start a scan manually ( called an "on-demand" scan) but that's simple to do. Before you do a scan we suggest you manually initiate an update of the malware signature file to ensure best detection. We suggest you scan your PC at least once a week.
For alternatives to Malware Byte's Anti-Malware see here. For a video covering installation and usage click here.
Browser Protection
To protect your PC from attack while accidentally visiting a hostile website we recommend you surf using the free Sandboxie program.
Sandboxie works by creating a special area of your PC ( a "sandbox") that is totally isolated from the rest of your PC. If you browse inside the sandbox any infection you get from a hostile website is confined to the sandbox and cannot infect the rest of your PC.
Even better, the infection can be completely removed with a click of button by deleting the contents of the sandbox.
But the sandbox has other uses. You can test any program you download by installing it in the sandbox. If the program is infected you will receive a warning from your anti-virus security software. You can then delete the contents of the sandbox and all traces of the program you installed will dissappear from your PC. However if there is no warning, you are free to install the program on your real PC outside the sandbox confident in the knowledge that the program is safe.
For alternatives to Sandboxie see here. For usage tips click here.
Firewall
There are two great choices available to you for your firewall:
The first is the free Comodo Firewall. This provides outstanding protection against inbound and outbound attacks. However this wonderful protection is only fully realized when Comodo is installed with the "Proactive Defense+" mode enabled. In the default installation, it is disabled.
Your second choice is the free version of the class leading commercial product Online Armor. The free version is missing a number of features found in its commercial big brother including the web shield, keylogger detection and DNS spoofing detection but it still provides potent protection.
Despite recent improvements, both products still generate a considerable number of security warnings that require user response and to be honest, only very experienced users are capable of responding appropriately. That's why these products are not suitable for average users. Indeed such users may be better off with a simpler, less demanding firewall.
For alternatives to the these firewalls see here. For a video installation and usage tutorial for Comodo click here. A guide for installing Online Armor can be found here.
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The Most Important Security Advice of all
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The task of protecting your PC from infection is similar to crossing a busy road unharmed. There are two, very different ways of crossing that road: The first way is to be very careful about where you cross and to be watchful and aware of the dangers. In other words, make sure you don't get hit. The other approach is to protect yourself with something like an army tank and cross anywhere, anytime. If you get hit, you rely on the tank to protect you. Now no sensible person would adopt the latter approach to crossing a road, yet when it comes to computer security that's exactly what many folks do. If you want real computer security, you need to adopt safe computing practices rather than rely totally on security products to protect you. No security product or combination of products can or ever will, provide perfect PC security just like no car can provide you with perfect road safety. With both cars and PCs you need to be careful in your own behavior. Like the rules of road safety we teach our kids, the rules for safe computing are simple and well known: 1. Be very careful where you surf. To help you stay away from bad sites install a website rating browser plug-in like WOT and make sure you only visit websites rated "Green" by the plug-in. 2. Never click on email attachments from unknown sources however tempting and attractive such attachments may seem. 3. Only download files from trusted sources. These include:
4. Never install programs obtained from P2P networks including BitTorrent, eMule, LimeWire and others as many of these files are infected with malicious programs. Some of these malicious programs are so powerful they are capable of overwhelming all your security defenses. 5. Never install programs that friends give you on removable media unless you have verified that they are clean by submitting them to free web based file scanning services such as Jotti or Virus Total. 6. Never accept free toolbars, media players or other unsolicited software offered to you by a website. 7. We recommend using an alternate browser to Internet Explorer such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera or Google Chrome. With Windows XP/2000 all these are more secure browsers than Internet Explorer and are arguably superior browsers as well. 8. You should seriously consider creating a fresh installation of Windows and then back up your PC using a drive imaging program. Then if in the future your PC ever becomes infected you can use the drive image to restore it to a pristine, infection free condition. You can find a number of free drive imaging programs here. By following these simple rules the chances of your PC becoming infected will be dramatically reduced. Combine these practices with the security software suggested above and you are well on the way to safe, secure, infection-free computing. |
This page is copyright © 2011, Gizmo's Freeware and may not be reproduced in any form without written permission.
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Comments
Interesting narrative on what you need to run, based upon answers to your survey. Reasonable choices to in terms of recommended software.
However, I like what I use: DropMyRights, Avast, MalwareBytes Pro, WinPatrol and Outpost Firewall 2009. Works for me and Avast's sandbox variation is a nice plus.
Currently I am using Nod32, Threatfire, Windows Firewall, and Superanti-Spyware on an older Compaq Presario laptop running XP. While I am satisfied with the detection rates, Nod32 (especially during a scan) bogs my computer down to a very frustrating crawl with 95-99% CPU usage and a 4-5 hour scan (sometimes more). I have(had?) a second Compaq Presario Desktop PC with nearly the same configuration and Security products, with the same slow down problems. Recently I decided to change Nod32 to Panda Free because Panda comes highly rated from several product review websites (including CNET and PCMag), and I liked the "light as a cloud" load on my old, slow processing PC. Next thing ya know, ZeroAccess infection (aka Max++, Sirefef, Win32/Paccyn, Win32/Gen, and on &on). I have quickly come to the realization that I will be reinstalling Windows on my desktop. I'm unsure about when exactly I became infected, but Panda seems to be in question about whether it failed me. ZeroAccess is a ?@#$!&* to get rid of, but the up side is I'm learning a whole lot more about internet security! (Like I wish there was one standard for naming the damned viruses!) Anyway, I found your site to be the most comprehensive and helpful of all the 100's (OK, a bit of an exaggeration) of sites I've been at trying to figure out what to do. Your Security Wizard was the only one of its kind that I saw and very helpful! It also made me feel pretty good about my computer competence. What is your opinion of Panda Free, and PC Tools Threatfire? Thanks, and I'll be trying out Avira because it was also one of the top three choices I was contemplating to replace Nod 32.
I wouldn't rely on Panda (or MS Security Essentials, for sure). They are not the best rated antivirus solutions at the moment. I used Avira in the past, but it has more false positives than Avast and it lacks some functionality, so I turned to Avast Free. I've been using Avast for a couple of years and found it a very good choice. But Sandboxie is a *must* (even on Win 7 64 - the 64-bit experimental protection works fine for me), as no antivirus is close to perfect - I highly recommend Sandboxie to prevent nasty infections. Windows Firewall isn't adequate: everybody needs packet filtering and good inbound and outbound protection. My favourite firewall has been PC Tools Firewall Plus, but now PC Tools stopped developing their free product and I'm going for Privatefirewall, anyway it´s probably a lot better choice for recent OSes and browsers... IMO if you use Avast, Sandboxie and a good firewall with HIPS (Privatefirewall, for example) you don't need ThreatFire. And for stability improvement don't forget to clean any sneaky old cookies and temp files with CCleaner (I know I forgot sometimes) Hope this helps somehow. :) Rider36
Avast is not very highly rated either if you look at AV Comparatives results. By the way, is there one specific firewall other than Windows that works best with XP?
For XP firewalls you still have a lot more choice than Windows 7 as many of the older ones were not redeveloped to support W7, or were already "obsolete". I use this word carefully because in terms of what firewalls were designed to do, programs like Sygate, Kerio 2.1.5 and NetVeda for XP will still deliver a first rate service until IPV6 eventually becomes the dominant protocol.
You also need to decide if you really need a HIPS component. These are the cause of so many of the system issues experienced by users who, by adopting safe surfing practises, using a DNS filter like Norton and a site rating agent like WOT (Web Of Trust) together with a good AV can avoid this need altogether. Although I author the best Free HIPS category here, I tend to agree with one of the regular posters over at Wilders who said "HIPS are only for people who plan to get infected". Using WinPatrol as a lightweight alternative along with a pure firewall (no HIPS) is usually more than adequate for normal use.
A possible alternative AV to consider is UnThreat (free). It uses the Vipre engine and turned in a great result for the VB RAP test.
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/rap-index.xml
As a new product it's too early in the day for it to be considered for inclusion here, but I've been running it on Windows 7 and it's fine. The devs are also quick to respond to reported issues which is always good to see.
http://www.unthreat.com/free-antivirus
MC, perhaps you can answer this question related to the previous-I am using WinPatrol free, an AV with HIPS, PC Tools firewall and Browserguard (and a few other add-ons) with Firefox as well as an antikeylogger. My browsing is usually risk free sites. I do have Sandboxie installed too but only use sporadically. Is using the PC Tools firewall overkill and even perhaps causing some conflict resulting in web pages loading slowly?
Also has the Unthreat AV been light or heavy? I used the Vipre engine in another product and it bogged down the system. Thank You
Certainly the more products you have installed with a finger in your network pie, then the slower such operations are likely to be.
No doubt quite a few folks reading this would say use Sandboxie full time and dump most of the rest, but I appreciate this comes down to personal preference regarding how you like to use your system.
Does your AV really have a HIPS, or is this just a layer of heuristic detection? (which is different). Even so, there is likely to be a degree of redundancy between the features of these various products.
From how you describe your surfing habits, unless you use online banking or other high risk services, you can certainly do without the antikeylogger.
My first advice though in situations like this is to say that if everything is working well together why change it? It's more likely the browser extensions that are causing pages to load slowly so this could be your first area to look at. Running a DNS benchmark test might also identify a faster set of server options for your location. See Remah's excellent article here:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-find-best-dns-server.htm
I have found UnThreat to be very light in operation on my Windows 7 system. There is the usual lag when you open a folder full of .exe files like with anything else, but it's noticeably less than some other products such as AdAware for instance.
Thanks MC for the tips. (BTW my AV does have what you described as heuristic detection, not a full HIPS-good point)
Pleased to help. :)
There's been a mini surge of new programs recently with UnThreat and also FortiClient Lite coming into the frame. It's tempting to see these, look at the test results and want to change. Although there's nothing wrong with that, the chances of leaving something behind from product "a" which might interfere with the function of new product "b" are great enough not to change too often if you can possibly avoid it. If a system has remained infection free for several months, then whatever is on there now is doing its job. If you do change, it's very important to use the dedicated removal tool provided by the vendor instead of just winding something like Revo up to "advanced" and hoping for the best. :)
thanks
to second time
samer from iraq
Since avast! Free AntiVirus has now been recommended as the best free Antivirus, should I use that instead of Avira AntiVir? Has the Wizard not been updated yet? Or should I stay with Avira?
I agree with this. Avast! should replace Avira.
They should be able to update the pages with that somehow....
I am currently using SuperAntivirus and Malwarebytes. These programs (to me) are real life savers. The other products listed, I will test and report back latter. Kuddo's to your staff!
I test and search for free software as part of my work and your recommendation of Avira Antivira, Online Armour and Anti Malwarebytes is spot on (imho). I see too many computers with AVG and trojans to recommend it (true it may just be that AVG is by far the most common virus scanner around here). Excellent article - thanks!
One of the most common methods of virus infection is emails received from friends who have been infected. I have 2 teenage daughters who receive a virus at least once a month, all because a friend from school gets infected and the virus goes straight to their address book. "But the email was from my best friend Jenny and I thought it was safe daddy". My wife is no better in these regards.
So, P2P and warez sites are not the only culprits to high risk users. IMHO, an Internet connection, an email client and a few friends can be just as dangerous as downloading the latest keygen.
Thank you for this great tip, I recommend it to beginners to advanced PC users.
I've tested maybe thousands of applications over the years.. it's like a hobbit (habbit/hobby :P) of mine, because in my perfectionism I'm looking for the best. I've spent most of the time in the last two weeks in front of my PC searching for good, free, lightweight software too, it's for a project of mine.
The software you recommend matches exactly with the software I use for years of discovered recently. With antiviruses however it is a long discussion..
McAfee seems to have info on any virus I get, so they work hard, update and have most current/complete databases, but a resource hog and not free :(
Avira Antivir has been tested (by a german website though) to catch the most of the threats, but it has many many false positives. I've used it over the last few years and now I finally got tired of it saying HFS (HTTP File Server) is a virus and it's too time consuming to add files to exceptions.
NOD32 Antivirus I used before for years and I was happy with it because I surfed safe and didn't mess around with the PC as I do now, but I remember times when simple viruses "took care" of it instead of vice-versa. However, it identifies (maybe not remove so well) most of the threats, and that's why I've started using it again very recently.
As for firewalls, Online Armor is great, I tested it this year too and I liked it but what I needed is just something that I can block or allow an application from accessing the Internet simply even if I could make rules but I don't need the hassle, so I used Ashampoo Firewall Free until recently and now I'm enjoying/testing PCTools Firewall which seems exactly what I need.. not too complex, not too often disturbing and yet practical configuration. Also, protects against system attacks by asking for permission for some actions like a process executing another process (can make rules to remember just by ticking).
Ashampoo Firewall changes the name of the driver they use (source of errors) and the interface is buggy (notification window sometimes didn't appear).
Great website too, I'm adding it to my favorites
Hi,
Why not ask what security measures the user has in place and then give recommendations?
Just a suggestion, I realize it would require a lot of extra programing.
B
I'd personally like to see PC Tools recommended as a freeware firewall rather than OA or Comodo. (However, I tested as experienced, so maybe it does recommend PC Tools firewall to less experienced?)
I used to use Avira AV Free but their update server is so often overloaded nowadays that I have now switched to MS Security Essentials on all my Windows machines and find it a more than suitable replacement for my type of use. Apart from that I use Comodo FW and on my one remaining XP laptop I add SpywareBlaster and Spybot S&D minus Teatimer.
The Wizard classified me as an experienced high risk user because I occasionally download software via bitorrent to test. However, if I am not sure of a website or websites I am going to visit or the stuff I am downloading I use SandboxIE or a separate virtual machine, depending on which of my machines I am using.
For backup/imaging and general disk management since the late 90s I have used Paragon's tools as they are from experience, having tried most free and commercial offerings, IMO at least, best in class.
Great article.
My most recent change for security are:
Main: The recent Microsoft Security Essentials
Supported by: Avast Home & Malwarebytes anti-Malware
Firefox browser for specific browsing.
For backup: Acronis True Image.
So far so good.
i think geswall free 2.9 can be a good addition to this ut nneds to be configured
great guide!
Nice wizard..
but for security purpose, are there really different recommendations for users based on their knowledge and usage? to choose firewall and browser protection maybe (still, I think there is no other alternative for sandboxie and secure browser+addons), but for antivirus and anti-spyware software? should we just simply use "THE BEST" software instead? It's just update-scan-remove step to use it periodically, and rely on active-monitoring.. I dont think users should choose different software just because they are low-risk user.
My results are Avira, SuperAntiSpyware, Comodo, Sandboxie.
Meanwhile I am using Avira, MBAM, Outpost Firewall, and no sandbox.
Would you recommend Outpost firewall for your mom and dad? I would not.
This is indeed a great guide!!!
Pretty cool. Very informative.
I would recommend to use only the Outpost Free for Firewall and Intrusion Protection.Once set up this combination with Avira etc. is easy on resources,free,secure and easy to use.I use this on my relatives machines.
There is one important thing:The Outpost Free should be first set up by an experienced user(I do for my family members) and the firewall policy should be enabled as ''Block Most''.
pretty kewel!
for the n00b right on info
no fluff no headache material
kudos to the crew :)
Great initiative guys, a daunting task but admirable.
For my 'mum&dad' answers, I was advised Avira, SAS and XP FW.
Pretty spot on.
An intermediate level (2-2-1-1, Y-N-N-Y) gave me Avira, DriveSentry and XP FW.
Is DS the standard for IDS/BB or is ThreatFire a possible alternative? (it hasn't come up yet in any config)
'My' answers got me to Avira, SAS and Comodo/OA ( I use free Avira, free MBAM and paid OA) so also pretty spot on.
Question; Are ThreatFire and Malwarebytes'Antimalware also possible recommendations or will these always be presented as alternatives to your preferred apps?
Remark; when a user answers he dl's cracks and programs/games from torrents, he shouldn't be given advice to never install programs from a torrent site.
He should be warned that crackz/warez/whateverz can negate all security measures/render his setup useless and that you expect/recommend the use of imaging sw or something similar perhaps.
Again, a great initiative!
OA Free now includes keylogger detection (info update needed). DriveSentry seems to have gone MIA, Threatfire should be recommended ahead of DS.
Overall, well done! Some good advice for the not so tech savvy. :)
geswall 2.9 (free) is a valuable addition too but must be configured well
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