Stand Alone Antivirus And Firewall

It seems that the all-in-one security suite is the big thing now. Just about all the major security software manufacturers have security suites.

I have tried several of the security suites. I have also tried several of the stand alone antivirus and firewall software. I have come to the conclusion that I much prefer the stand alone software.

My question is, do you think that the stand alone firewall and antivirus software are going the way of the dinosaur, and be extinct in a few years?

 

Anti-Spam- waste
Parental control-waste
Command line scanner-needed
Firewall-take it or leave it
Hips-needed
Zero day threats-needed

Perfect suite
AV
Hips
Zero day threats

Is there one, a good one.? Maybe it is coming, soon.

 

May be

 

Shhhh, that was my surprise.

 

My opinion is that people will prefer stand alone products over the suits because the stand alone offers precisely the function the user wants , the stand alone is lighter than the suite and take less memory/free space .

Example : why should I buy Norton 360 for :
Antimalware
Firewall
Back-up
Tune up
IMO expensive and definitely big software

when I can use a free small , light and effective firewall (or built-in one such as Windows Firewall in XP or Vista) , small , effective and light antimalware application , Tune Up (manually done or by free effective applications) , Back-up (manually or by another lighter applications)

ADD : Let's not forget that suits offer things that cannot be considered exactly "security" ...
But , it's my views .

 

hmm i still prefer seprates but my dad likes it under one hood.
I hope anti hacker improves.
if not i might use comodo or something else as a firewall.
my fav firewalls are outpost and comodo but antihacker is part of the suite so thats what ive got it.
lodore

 

Norton did it right for a user friendly firewall for 2007. I keep harping that firewalls mean crap to the average user who doesnt understand each pop-up.

The end result with average joe and a firewall like this results in a more unstable system then just using your operation system one. Or router. Norton realized this and did a good job.

 

Well, small companies don´t have the necessary resources to build a security suite. They put their best to make a solid app. which is very specific (behaviour blocker, firewall, AS/AT, HIPS, etc).
Perhaps AVs as stand alone apps. have the greatest chances to disappear. All AV engines have evolved into antimalware engines and most vendores have started to develop or license firewall and antispam tech.

 

And that is great, but until you take the guess work out of the consumers hand, mistakes, bad ones will happen and the consumer blames the vendor for the choice the consumer made and doesnt realize it. This isnt rocket science folks.

 

thats knida why i want a better router so i dont need a firewall as much.
lodore

 

The worst is FW with AS
I think i'll never go for suites, but that's just me. I like to choose the best of breed (if i can judge that...) of each kind of software.
And the free products usually come as a single app.

 

Standalone apps will most likely disappear, though they are much more safer.
All-in-one apps contain only one the top app, but common people just like suites.
Choosing and using a suite is much more comfortable than searching & trying others.

 

Oh I totally agree, suites are what are going to sell, but the vendors job is going to be a creating one that actually supplies security with all the fluff left out. Word of mouth, is a powerful weapon.

 

And I should have included F-Secure as another one with a solid, easy firewall.

 

Not necessarily true. If we see that most people have windows FW and and AV that came with the pc, these conclusions could be flawed, even if logic.

 

i think they will just make suites like kis6.0 and bitdefender 10 where you can choose what modules you want and dont want installed by doing a custom install.
i can do suites if they have options to not istall the modules you dont want.
but i dont see outpost making a suite.
sure they have antispyware and firewall but i cant see them adding a antivirus to it.
lodore

 

All of the suits I have tried do have option for cusmot install so one can install what they want . However , when looked from the other side , why pay for suit when you will not use all the functions you have paid for ?

 

True, but I will bet it was their AV supplied and surfing habits, that were flawed. The latter always being the hardest to protect.

 

And since my middle name is joe, how do I know what to install and what not to. You have to take the consumer, out of the frigging equation.

 

how would you rate outpost 4.0 for prompts?
enough? to many?
simple to understand or hard?
also the problem with routers is that most of them are unsecured since the home user just sets it up so they can use the internet and doesnt think about the encryption. just think if you have a laptop how many unsecured networks are there to use?
if your in the middle of a city alot more lol
i choose the bt voyager 2110 for my neighbour because all i had to do was connect to it and type in isp username and password. the encyption was already set and all they had to do was read the random password for the encyption off the bottom of the router.
most routers like netgear and linksys have no encryption as default and the user thinks it looks to hard to set up i wont bother. its just selecting an encrytion level and typing a password and writing it down since its gotta be really
long.
lodore

 

lodore, routers and firewalls are no different. Routers should come with basic protection enabled, making them safe. Firewalls should do the same. The consumer finds it easier to work backwards, then forward.

 

and my netgear 834 came with Trend Micro active with one click for total protection, not that I went that way though.

 

im gonna create a thread abourt routers so this doesnt go OT
lodore

 

holding on dinner for it.

hey graystoke my friend, did your question get answered.

 

Yes it did. I just got back home a few minutes ago and started reading all the posts. It is very interesting reading. Thanks everyone for joining in the discussion.

I think that security suites will probably grow in popularity because in my opinion, the average PC user out there doesn't that know much about security, and they like the idea of an easy to use all-in-one security app. The big companies, Symantec, McAfee, to name two, will continue to spend huge amounts of marketing money to make sure those people believe suites are the only way to go. I think the stand alone products will still be available, but to a smaller market share consisting of computer security knowledgeable people.