Partner apps for my McAfee suite? A tad lost in the jungle

Hey all

Been lurking around here for a while trying to figure out what would be the best range of apps/tools to secure my laptop in the best possible way. For a noob in security software this feels like a dense jungle of overlapping features and functions among the different types of security packages.

80% of my daily work is done on the internet so I often hit pages that are scummy to say the least. It's part of my job so it aint gonna change.

At the moment I'm actively using two different kind of security measures. The first is the HP Protected Tools suite which handles all rollback, passwords and other hyper sensitive info. Second is the McAfee Internet Suite for real-time protection.

After doing some cross checking I've found out that McAfee do let some stuff through. Especially have some spyware/badware slipped through on a cpl of occasions. Now I would like to install a third real-time app to double up with McAfee. Something to continuously monitor all activities for badware, malware, spyware, rootkits, trojans, etc. But, I feel a bit lost in the jungle. Currently I'm testing Mamuto zero-day defense together with McAfee. From what I read it felt like a good companion but I'm far from sure here. I've also downloaded the X-Cleaner and X-Raypc from XBlock/FaceTime to use an on-demand scanner. The X-Cleaner also had some nifty extras I thought.

Does anyone have any comments, views or other recommendations for an app to double up with McAfee? Is Mamuto a decent choice? And, is anyone else here using X-Cleaner? I got a good impression of it but I don't see much mentioning of it around various forums.

Appreciating all the help I can get here guys

cheers
tim

 

Browse with Opera or Firefox instead of IE.

 

Thanks for the tip. Yea, I use Flock as my main browser. IE only if there's some special reason for it.

 

Not sure if you have XP or Vista, but if you have XP I would recommend disabling the McAfee firewall and trying Online Armor free version as it has an integrated HIPS component. If you feel good about the McAfee firewall then I believe you can disable the OA firewall- at least you would have the HIPS running- but OA is is a very good fw too.

Also would suggest you download Spyware Blaster as it will add some scumware sites to your IE restricted zone. I am not sure exactly what benefit it adds to FF or even if it adds the protection to flock (just thinking it might since flock is a FF cousin) but it will prevent you from accidentally visiting some site where you could be infected with scumware. You just download it and update, then enable its protection. You have to manually update it about once a month although you have the option of donating/upgrading to auto update. It does not run and use resources- just adds restricted sites and prevents some malware from loading. So when you are running IE you will be ore protected.

 

Hi,

Heavy work on Internet ?

OK. No matter how sophisticated your modern defense gears are Or how many layers your defense lines may posses, or what kind of browser you use. there is slightly tiny chance malwares will sneak thru, and you probably do not like it.

I would suggest to adopt this approach:
(1) to use Erik's reboot-restore technique--FD-ISR etc--reverting to original snapshot after each reboot. OR

(2) to try my recipe: find one decent Sandbox app(such as Sandboxie-may not work with Flock), I use DefenseWall. and Virtualization app (such as Returnil, SafeSpace etc),I use Deepfreeze. Then they will take care of all intrusions after reboot.

These two methods are carpet vacuum style reverting approach: everything is back to the way they were.

 

Thanks for your answers folks, appriciate it

Thanks for the tip. I installed OA and have had it running a few hours now. Looks like a great package. But running it alongside Mamuto I get a lot of dbl warnings. One from each of them on the same app/process. Seems like it's a lot of overlapping going on. Is Mamuto considered a HIPS system?

Hehe. Well, heavy can mean many things. But yes, I'm a full time domainer and webmaster. That's my job and I come across a lot of nasty stuff out there.

Do you suggest this kind of approach as a last level of security in combination with other tools or as the total and only regime? If yes to the latter, how well protected am I while I work?