Antivirus Vs "Premium Security"

I'm a little confused over what exactly the advantages are over using security suites over an "antivirus" product.

I have a hardware firewall at present and am now looking for a antivirus solution to run alongside it. Im unsure what to go for though as a lot of the time the vendors promote "protection from online shopping & banking" as part of their security suite rather than their AV products.

Does this mean the likes of MSE, and the other free AV's dont provide this sort of protection? and if so, are their free products to run alongside free AV's in order to create your own security suite?

 

it's a personal thing, frankly I think it's it's a little over hyped. if you use vista or windows 7. keep the built in security turned on, keep operating system up to date, and use common sense when installing things, don't use torrent or file sharing, and mse or any other stand alone av will be fine and wont bog your pc down with un-needed junk. the site is not up atm. but google 'sam spade firewall snakeoil' it's old now but pretty much stands.
router and windows firewall, especially vista/ win7 is more than enough.

 

MSE together with Prevx Safeonline (www.prevx.com/facebook to get it for free, don't forget to become a fan off them on Facebook) provide the protection any normal user could ever need. Don't buy the ******** from vendors claiming you need their premium suite or you'll basically die. The two above mentioned are free, light and extremely good applications.

 

thanks for the advice guys,

I was kinda thinking it was all a load of marketing spin by the vendors...!

One last question... is there a significant difference between paid and free av? I was planning on maybe buying a licence for one of them but dont really know if its worth it or not

 

One of the best ones, Avira, is free. Why pay when you don't need to?

 

I don't think it's worth paying if you're getting an AV, Avira or Avast should be enough.

 

A good choice if you don't have the definitions update issue. Which I did prior to moving to premium.

 

There is no difference in the detection rates. The suites, which I prefer, give you a package that includes a firewall. Individual applications sometimes require trial and error so that all work smoothly together. Personally I want a software firewall and the suites have that.

Having said that, it is also my opinion that individual applications can sometimes be better. For example few suite firewalls have HIPS. So a free AV (my own preference is Avast) plus a free firewall such as Online Armor free, combined with Malwarebytes, or something similar, gives you all you need. I prefer the paid version of MBAM to run alongside my AV, but scanning periodically with the free version is fine.
My own reason for wanting MBAM running full time is that I have several friends who have been infected by rogues while using some of the best AVs. It took MBAM to find and remove them as their AV would not do so.

If I were going to use a free set-up it would be Avast, OA free (I don't think 64 bits is supported now in the free version), MBAM free, SAS free, and maybe Prevx free. I don't not think that any suite would give you better protection.

I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination.

Regards,
Jerry

 

Well, as it was stated earlier in this thread, getting the right
combination of security is more or less up to personal taste.

Some like to go all out and use a bit of everything. For that
you would want a software firewall, a separate anti-virus program,
a program for anti-malware, and maybe even a fast rootkit scanner.

Others, (I belong to this category), like the lean and mean approach.
For this category you will need to first examine your net usage. If you
are a careful web browser, and do not leave personal info openly stashed
on your system, and do regular maintenance, i.e. weekly system scans, defrag,
regular junk file cleaning, ect..then this approach can work for you.
A good stand alone anti-virus program, I like Avira, and a decent browser such
as firefox with adblock and noscript added in, is very effective and a fairly small
footprint on the system resources.
You can add a software firewall, but at this point, the only use a software firewall
will give to you is protection/control of outbound connections, i.e. keeping a file
from accessing the net. I too have a router, (wifi setup with a separate laptop), but
I find that sometimes files will access the net, even though I have not asked them to,
for updates or some kind of usage checks, so I use the software FW to prevent it.
The router is a strong hardware FW against inbound, not so much for outbound
file control.

Well, there is a TON of information in this forum about all kinds of security. Read
thru some of it, and you will be surprised at the ideas you can get from it.
Whatever way you chose, the free security programs work plenty well enough.
Once you find a comfortable combo, if you want to buy the "premium" product,
then do so. The company that made it would certainly appreciate your business,
and you will get a higher level of support.

Good luck and have fun

 

Very nice summed up, folks