Need help

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by colorado13, Apr 16, 2005.

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  1. colorado13

    colorado13 Registered Member

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    I'm quite a newbie and I'm not really that good with computers eather so I may ask some lame questions... I have a Pentium III 800 mhz and I'm wondering what software I should use that take up little memory and Defend me against viruses, trojans, adware,spyware etc. I am currently using Nod32 as an anti-virus, Zone Alarm for the firewall, TDS for trojans and MS antispyware. Do you think I could find Some that are better and take up less memory? Please HELP! SOS!
     
  2. Firecat

    Firecat Registered Member

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    NOD32 is one of the lightest AV scanners out there, so its best you stick with it.

    Unfortunately, I'm not too good at Firewalls and ATs and AntiSpyware, so I'll let one of the security experts help ya there :)
     
  3. BlueZannetti

    BlueZannetti Registered Member

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    How much RAM do you currently have, and what operating system are you running?

    The applications you list are solid choices. NOD32 is light on RAM, TDS-3 isn't too bad. Zone Alarm can be somewhat heavy, as for MS antispyware, it depends on whether realtime protection is enabled.

    Blue
     
  4. c0ltran3

    c0ltran3 Registered Member

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    You could use

    Kerio 2.15 as a firewall and MJ Registry Watcher as real time protection and MS Antyspyware only on demand.

    Your programs are good. You won't ever have a total protection any program you use
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2005
  5. SDS909

    SDS909 Registered Member

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    use Dr.Web.. Light as you can possible get.. Then throw Safe'n'Sec on to shore up your protections since it really uses no resources at all.

    Get a nice hardware firewall like SMC Barricade ($20-30 range), I haven't used a software firewall in 5 years and feel they are pretty useless except for application control. But plenty of apps do application control.

    All you need.
     
  6. c0ltran3

    c0ltran3 Registered Member

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    NOD32 is light as Dr Web
     
  7. zfactor

    zfactor Registered Member

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    and oupost firewall is lighter than zone alarm from my experience. i only see 6-8mb with it being run
    dr web and nod are probably the 2 best / light av's out there
    i personally use nod but have tried dr web and it is a great program. i may trial it again at some point we will see.
     
  8. sinbad370

    sinbad370 Registered Member

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    Keep Nod it is very light and has good protection. As far as a firewall goes, I have the same system as you and I use LookNstop. Very light on the system.
    You should give it a try.
     
  9. Mannaggia

    Mannaggia Registered Member

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    I have a five year old Gateway with AMD Athlon 700Mhz, 512RAM. I'm using Outpost Pro and just started using NOD32. They both run fine together here. [​IMG]
     
  10. SDS909

    SDS909 Registered Member

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    I have a license for NOD32, and have tried it on multiple machines, and dozens of configuration options and have found the following:

    * It can slow down some web browsing.
    * It conflicts with other things, and Dr.Web never conflicts.. For example I have several games that won't even run with NOD32 monitor going.

    While I will agree, NOD32 is quite light, I just found it heavier than Dr.Web, but in addition I found it conflicting at times with various things. I'm several months into running Dr.Web, and its seamless, I don't even know its there! To me, that makes it a winner above all.
     
  11. quexx88

    quexx88 Registered Member

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    Just curious, being a gamer myself, which games won't run?
     
  12. Firecat

    Firecat Registered Member

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    Several games that wont run with NOD monitor running? Can you give me more details? Please?
     
  13. richrf

    richrf Registered Member

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    TDS-3 is a great product for trojans on-demand, but I am not too fond of it for real-time protection. You may want to try out Ewido (there is a free-trial) and BOClean (no free-trial but a money-back guaranee). They may be too heavy for your system, but since they are free trials, you may find them worthwhile. Ewido also has an on-demand scanner, BOClean does not. My son turns off Ewido real-time when he is playing games. You could shut it down entirely if it is interfering with any game playing.

    You should also look at running Ad-aware and Spybot on-demand. They are both very worthwhile products, Spywareblaster is another good protection software that doesn't use any real-time resources. Also, one of the best things you can do for added security is to use Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird in lieu of Microsoft IE and Outlook.

    Hope some of these ideas help you.

    Rich
     
  14. colorado13

    colorado13 Registered Member

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    First i'd like to thank you for your replies.
    I have 512 Mb RAM.
    Can you tell me anything about F-Prot?
     
  15. SDS909

    SDS909 Registered Member

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    Soldiers:Heroes of WWII was the big one NOD32 caused to crash. There was a fairly significant thread on the support forums there about it. I played Soldiers quite often and would CTD with NOD32 installed on my machine. I never pinned it on NOD32 until I read of others troubles, and uninstalled it, and never had any trouble again with any of my games.

    Trackmania Sunrise also can bomb with NOD32 running as well, I own it, but don't use NOD32 anymore and have no desire to test this. ;-)

    Anyway, in general, I had a half dozen games that had issues, and all disappeared when I uninstalled Nod32.
     
  16. BlueZannetti

    BlueZannetti Registered Member

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    colorado13,

    With 512 MB RAM any of the applications that you've mentioned should not be a huge memory concern.

    If you do a search for F-Prot on the forum, you should turn up a lot of hits and opinions. I tried it, it's light, but it didn't click with me. It has a good reputation though.

    Blue
     
  17. Detox

    Detox Retired Moderator

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    I'm a pretty serious gamer myself - playing different things including lots of multiplayer RTS as well as FPS and I've never had a hitch in any of my games with NOD runnin. I probably play about 15 different games regularly (currently anyway) and plenty are very resource intensive. All in all I believe I have installed/played somewhere between 40-50 games since I have been using NOD. I'm about to have to buy another file cabinet to store the things actually :rolleyes:
     
  18. SDS909

    SDS909 Registered Member

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    Thats great, but I also get heartburn when I eat Taco Bell, and you probably don't. In otherwords, everyone has unique experiances, opinions and results with almost anything.

    My experiance with NOD32 and gaming and web surfing, was poor. Glad yours was good! I found a product that treats me right.
     
  19. no13

    no13 Retired Major Resident Nutcase

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    Wouldn't YOU like to know?
    You've got enuf RAM...
    but a p3 800 is the bottleneck.
    AV ::: NOD32 uses little or no cpu power...like McAfee enterprise, [/i]DRWeb[/i], and I think Avast
    firewall ::: Look'n'Stop, Kerio v2 (netveda safety.net? ask Arup in other firewalls section)
    AT ::: ewido
    AS ::: spywareguard, Spybot Bad downloads blocker instead of teatimer... I myself use NO other real time AS, they use way too much CPU... instead, a weekly scan with 3 or 4 products is on the cards.

    regards,
    Maj. Res. Nut.
    no13
    ---
    PS ::: you like me a lot, don't you colorado13
     
  20. BlueZannetti

    BlueZannetti Registered Member

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    colorado13,

    I just wanted to reemphasize this point by SDS909. There is a substantial amount of time spent discussing layering of your security setup. Part of that layering is communication control between your PC and the outside world. The primary tools for that are a packet filter, software firewall, or NAT/SPI router. Of these options, the NAT/SPI router is without question the first piece that should be implemented. In some circumstances, it may be the only piece needed.

    Although I do use a software firewall, I also view that as an optional "nice to have" component in some circumstances. As SDS909 notes, for the majority of us, it's about application control - do you want this application talking to the outside world. But a router deals with the vast majority of issues, which arise from unsolicited in-bound communications: a NAT/SPI router will block these. Since it is a separate hardware device, the work is load balanced in your entire setup - your PC devotes no CPU cycles to these blocks.

    If I were to casually construct a hierarchy of security layering, in other words, in what order should I purchase/implement the various layers, my personal recommendation would probably go something like:
    • AV program and NAT SPI router: the first things to get. Absolutely required for most people, although some will debate even that. The router comes first (even if you have 1 PC), then the AV.
    • Registry control and/or proactive protective applications: applications like Process Guard, RegDefend and/or PrevX, SafenSec, etc. In terms of realtime monitoring, you can be very well protected if you stop at this level and have made a good choice of tools to this point.
    • Dedicated AT: The need for this partially depends on the scope of coverage by the AV application. I do recommend using one, but a top-tier AV does an excellent job these days with trojans. Although you can stop at the layer above, this is the minimal layer that I recommend
    • Antispyware applications: I use these for cleanup. The AV/AT applications handle the nastier aspects of spyware. I don't do realtime monitoring of spyware, I let my primary tools (AV/AT) do that. I perform a nightly scan off-hours for cleanup. I also use WindowWasher to flush all the temporary internet folders/files, thats the bulk of the cleanup needed right there. There are other (free) applications which perform similar functions. You can also do it manually without the assistance of any program if you are an experienced user.
    • Diagnostic tools (port monitoring, bandwidth monitoring, backup on-demand tools, etc.): The tools you use if you believe something is wrong or you just want to verify the system is OK. I might use this section of my toolbox once every few months. It's a set of tools that I very much like having. Not really recommended for the casual user, but strongly recommended if you want to start learning more of the details of how everything works.
    • Software firewall: I do like controlling external communications by application, but the majority of things that are malware based are handled by the AV/AT components. This is a backup layer, not a primary one for me.
    Anyway, that is my personal perspective. You will see alternate approaches that are equally valid. The road to take is determined by your personal comfort level and knowledge.

    Blue
     
  21. SDS909

    SDS909 Registered Member

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    Thats extremely relevant information that Blue posted.

    Of course, as he said, depends on the circumstances. I don't need more than a few layers to accomplish what I want, but I understand circumstances where people would need more.

    Good stuff.
     
  22. richrf

    richrf Registered Member

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    I like Blue's guidance and it very much reflects my own experiences. However, the software firewall, I find, does more than just protect me. It gives me information about what is happening on my system. This information is very often quite useful (and possibly necessary) for me to make a determination concerning the real-time state of my system security. In many ways similar to other diagnostic tools such Process Explorer, Security Task Manager, etc. For this reason, I consider it a fairly important element of my system, otherwise I am guessing blindly. While a firewall may not be imperative from a "protection" point of view, I find it absolutely invaluable from an "information point-of-view", when I am trying to figure out what to do in cases when I feel I may have been invaded by some malware. A fine, but I feel, an important distinction.

    Rich
     
  23. BlueZannetti

    BlueZannetti Registered Member

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    Rich,

    Excellent point! In essence, your right, I'm using Outpost for information, not security per se. You can use it as a security component, but I really don't. Thanks for that add-on. It captures where we are both coming from quite well.

    Blue
     
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