Stand Alone Antivirus And Firewall

That is also what I am thinking as well. It was only just a few years ago for protection you had to run an AV, antispyware tools, and a firewall separately. Nowadays AV companies have integrated their antiviruses with antispyware/malware and now some have rootkit detectors so the name "antivirus" is becoming obsolete. Integration of firewalls and antispam may be the next progression of this evolution. Of course there should be options for not installing some of these componets such as the firewall since some people uses hardware firewalls.

For instance, since I have been running F-Secure all my antispyware scans (with the apps you see in my sig) have only came up with a few tracking cookies. FS has blocked trojans and other baddies before they are downloaded to my computer via information in a pop up window. I am not saying that something will never slip by FS but consider that a few years ago AV's wouldn't have done this. As threats evolve so will internet security apps. I do not know how this will affect the companies who only offer antispyware-malware software in the future.

Myself, I like IS's because at least I know all the security components will get along with each other. But I really don't have much use for antispam since my ISP uses Postini and I have Outlook 2003's own good antispam filter but FS don't give you the option of not installing it so I guess I just have a 3-tier layer spam defense.

 

I think you are probably correct.
Jerry