Need suggestions on building up my own Security Suite.

Hello, all.

I need help with evaluating if I am well-protected by the lightest on resource possible softwares. thank you for all your inputs.

I have 2 desktops both using winxp sp2 +ie7 with automatic update on. my networking device is westell versalink 327w , its a modem/router/hardware firewall combo. and I set my hardware firewall on with a hard rule.

I am trying to build up a software security setup with hardware firewall. And I want to use least amount of softwares and resource that still cover up everything that a retailed security suite does. I want efficiency and light.

I have a couple of questions though, I am looking forward for getting some advices here.

1. I have mcafee AV and norton av for free ( provide by ISP and school), I also have antivir, avg and etc freeware ( lol, who doesn't). Which one should I choose when I can get free big name AVs?

2. I have mcafee FW for free (by ISP) and freewares like Zone alarm,comodo, etc. plus, I kinda like windows firewall, its easy. my questions are:

Is windows firewall good enough for me (I have hardware firewall on) or I need to have a real deal ?

If I do need a real firewall, which should I pick, among Mcafee(free license), ZA(free version) , comodo and any other freeware? Lighter is the better

3. I have spy sweeper also by ISP. But its kinda heavy on resource, I'd like to know if there is any substitute that works as well as spy sweeper. I would like it as lighter as possible of course.

I read somewhere about not all AS can anti-Trojan. Could anyone tell me how spysweeper doing on anti-trojan?

and do I really need a anti-spyware? some AV I mentioned above have some sort of spyware detecting and removing,right?

4. I also have a2free and mcafee stinger for backup on demand scan, ccleaner and regcleaner for clean. these are right choices, right?

those will be all for the momement, I appreciate whoever reading this and appreciate more for your kindly inputs.

 

Hi.
Some thoughts on your options:
1)I prefer AntiVir.Good detection rates.A case could be made for Norton or McAfee.I'm sure.
2) I really like Comodo.I'd wait for one of the firewall experts' opinion to see if you really need a software firewall though.
3)I would look at BOClean and then supplement that with a free scanner like SUPERAntiSpyware or AVG AS.
4)Those are good freeware choices.

 

HI coldplay,

They all very good AVs, so whichever suites you.

Yes

XP firewall is sufficient, but again whatever suites you as there all good

Use it on demand.

AFAIK Spysweeper an Anti-Spyware not Anti-Trojan. (Although latest version seems to have Anti-Virus)

IMO No AS needed in Real Time, as (yes) many AVs including McAfee and Norton have spyware protection/detection (although they may not be as effective, yet).

Yes

betauser2

 

Thank you guys, you guys really helped.

AV: I think I will go with Antivir

hope its real-time guard can also help anti-trojan since I dont have anti-trojans in hand

FW: I will go with Hardware+Windows Firewall

I have some more questions here thou.

according to your advices, I think I will be ok if I have windows firewall and hardware firewall both on. But can I rely on windows firewall when hardware firewall is off or down.

Anti-spy/anti-trojan:

not decided yet. It seems that more softwares is the better according to my research. But its against my idea of least amount of software and resource. I hope I can find a all in one solution or at least the lightest software setups.

Thank you again. more advices are certainly welcome.

 

well i wont recommend antivir,
and i wont recommend windows firewall either,

your router firewall is good though and will protect you with the windows firewall, if you turn off the firewall in your router... you are not safe.

i recommend a suite, in my opinion its the safest way to go only one installation, one progam to manage and now they are very cheap compared to individual programs, and now because there are sooo many suites out there, there is always one that will make you happy.

 

Due to the fact that i think Windows firewall is good enough for home user

 

At AVcomparatives.org, Avira scored quite highly, and also in regard to trojan detection and removal, so you've probably got a good choice there. I've read some reports of false positives, can't really comment. I use Avast, haven't used Avira for almost a year.
AVG Antispyware had a very good anti-trojan rep when it was Ewido, presumably it's capabilities haven't changed. Don't know what the resource usage is,it's a 30day free trial, then becomes an on demand scanner.
I'm using SpywareTerminator, and the task manager lists that as 18,716 Kb. (HIPS on, integrated ClamAV off) It's free and realtime.Rare. My Comodo firewall shows just over 17,000.
Asquared is a good on demand scanner, also with a good rep for trojans.
Both Norton and MacAfee have reps for being heavy, embedded, and a bit buggy. Although have read one report that Norton 2007 is much improved.
IMO it's good to have some on demand scanners for trojans and spyware. They only use resource when activated.Especially if you don't have a resident going. Depends how safe a surfer you are. If going to dodgy sites, you really should have resident antitrojan/antispy or HIPS or a sandbox type application.
XP firewall is fine only provided you don't have any malware on the computer. If you do, it (the malware) will call out without any alerts from anything, until (perhaps) it's nasty reinforcements arrive, at which point (hopefully) the antivirus should start bleating.

 

i agreed with Targ57

 

Thank you guys.

I am using antivir+comodo+avg as for real-time defense.

they are not light as I thought they would be

avgas.exe------12,444k
avgnt.exe---------504k
avguard.exe-----4,156k
cmdagent.exe--- 9,768k
cpf.exe---------29,664k
guard.exe------ 12,644k
sched.exe------- 5,232k

total mem usage: 74,412k while I was doing nothing

wtf is wrong with my machine

 

My comodo's taking 10k mem.....

 

No, that looks about right, except that cpf is a bit high. Maybe you have a lot of web based applications running?
I've found the full tests available at http://www.pcpitstop.com/default.asp to give a pretty good indication of how it's all running. An activex control is downloaded, then takes about 5min, tests disk health, RAM, CPU, startup programs and a few more things. Found it quite eye opening to see what runs at start up, plus there's some guidance avail on what can/shouldn't be disabled. It's prob more for relative newbies like me rather than someone who knows their stuff, though, so if you fall into the latter group it might not tell you much.
One of the problems with applications today seems to me to be they are designed around what kind of technology the average user has available, which seems now to be at least 512Mb ram, and many have 1G, some more. The days of 256Mb being state of the art, whilst not that long ago in actual time, are loooong gone. My PC has 1G, and at the time (<1yr ago) the tech who built it said "you'll never need more than that." Short sighted.

 

I have only 448 Megabytes RAM installed in my laptop. Here are my figures about this setup.

avgas.exe----- 4,080k
avgnt.exe------- 464k
avguard.exe--- 5,044k
cmdagent.exe--3,872k
cpf.exe--------5,312k
guard.exe------9,400k
sched.exe----- 5,008k
=====================
Total--------- 33,180k

Not so much compared to other suites!

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

if your worried about ram, as i think you might be... get bitdefender 10 installed

 

You'll (or may be) be caught with chaff if you tried to figure out memory cost by taskmgr.exe
for a variety of reasons.....because coders can carry out "low memory cost"in a variety of ways......

 

Your security is getting tight. I would only suggest you to check out sandboxes(both free and top): Sandboxie and GeSWall. To use instead of AVG-AS's resident. Use the free version to check your computer monthly or something. But concerning Antispywares, like i said in another thread, none gives the coverage AV's do concerning Viruses. So to use an on-demand scan, consider getting them all. The free ones, of course. And good ones, like SuperAntispyware, Spybot, A-Squared, Spyware Terminator.

 

quote from webroot customer service who just responded my question ticket.

I guess antivir+spysweeper would be full covering since SS has the trojans that are spyware and antivir has the trojans that are virus.

found out that spy sweeper loading quicker than AVG AS at windows start up

 

If you are knowledgable then running just an av+hips would be sufficient. Something like NOD32 + System safety monitor would offer excellent protection and run very light.