What would be your choice for your wife?

My wife understanding of a computer is very limited! She know how to use office, firefox, look at pictures and listen to music, and thats about it.

Lately i have been testing out different kind of security software. Avira, Kaspersky, Norton, ZoneAlarm, Mamutu, Online Armor, A-squared, Comodo, Norman and Gdata.

But my problem is that when my wife use my.. I mean our(she is standing behind me ) computer she have no idea whatsoever when a security warning pop up and ask you to make a decision. Last night i had A-squared 4 and Online Armor 3 installed and she turned red when they started asking about some active x controller and other simple stuff.

So my question is: What security would you use for your wife? A simple but yet strong suite that dont ask to much questions but take the right solutions at the right time? Not just to keep your comuter safe, but also keep the temperature in your living room down!

 

There is no such thing as the perfect WifeWare! My sweetheart uses the net similarly on her XP Home laptop, but has a thing for buying dog supplies for our JRT. So, I licensed Avira's Premium Security Suite and PrexCSI. I have everything set to max in APSS as well as auto for all malware detection and decision. So far, I haven't heard my name being yelled out (well, at least not for any app related situation!).

 

I understand your dilemna, my wife is also a computer illiterate.

On her computer i did install Kerio 2.1.5, Avast free and DefenseWall. It has been quite in the Living room since then.

 

I would say Antivir Free, ThreatFire and Defensewall or Sandboxie (force your browser to start sandboxed, direct access to the download location for convenience). Quiet, simple, light and powerfull.

 

NIS2009 with Norton SafeWeb addon.

It keeps her laptop safe and gets the job done quietly without any popups .

 

Sandboxie and Returnil.

Have a "Save stuff here" folder on desktop that's a shortcut and saved on another partition.

Tell her to save any pics, music etc to that folder or it won't be there after reboot.

Wifey still has a whinge every now and then though but that's just normal.

 

Among the paid ones i have found Trend Micro IS and Norton IS to be the most quite ones. Among the free there should be some set up needed in the beginning
but this combo should be fine
Avira or Avast free
SAS free
PC TOOLS or Windows firewall
You should try doing some teaching and then you will be fine
PS; that is what i did

 

I put SAS Pro and Threatfire on my wife's PC. I scan it every week or so with MBAM, too.

 

lol, good topic. I use Avira Free and TF on my wifes computer. I used SRP to disallow IE from starting, and forced Firefox to run as a Basic User. I also installed sandboxie, and forced FF to run in it. I made a folder in MyDocs called My Downloads, and made an exception in sandboxie so that it is direct access to that folder. This way she saves everything there. In FF I made it want to download everything to that directory by default.

The other thing I did was in sandboxie, made a box just for the My Downloads folder. If an executable starts from within it, it is not allowed net access. She got used to knowing where everything is downloading to after a bit, and now actually says it helps her more than she thought, because it gives a centralized location to look.

I use xp firewall now behind a router. I was using pctools firewall for awhile, and once I set it up, it was pretty quiet. But after a year I determined that it was really of no use for her and what she does, so ditched it.

Sul.

 

Threatfire works fairly well as there are very few popups with it.

 

I would say, by experience, KIS 2009 (totally silent on automatic permission mode) and Prevx Edge...

Cheers,
Fax

 

Many good comments here!

I have tried Norman security suite. Few pop ups, but i dont trust them. Mainly because off all the bad test scores they have. Now i try out avira pemium and outpost FW pro 2009 together with SAS PRO realtime. And its actually very qiuet! And so far my wife is happy!

I can deal with programs asking for permission for this and that, but my wife cant. So it good the see all this replies! (if i only had a secondary computer )

 

Glad you've found a good combination. I like Norton Internet Security 2009. By default it is virtually silent so it's perfect on my wife's PC. You can also add KeyScrambler which protects against keylogging and can be made silent.

 

Your setup right now is much more powerfull then any suite out there but what bad test scores? As far as i know they do well with AVC and AV Test.

 

Avira free and SAS pro.
or
Avira premium.

Problem with sandboxie for a very limited user, they may lose an important file and not realise it. ThreatFire shouldn't produce any alerts. A friend of mine has had it installed for a year, without realising I put it on his computer. Never heard him mention a thing.

 

hahhah antartica all this time i believe you were a she hahhaha,sorry man.

 

My wife manages: ThreatFire behind GeSWall Pro
My Mom of 75 manages: Avast behind DefenseWall

I should not try a sandbox with a virtualised file system like Sandboxie of SafeSPace, GreenBorder or BufferZone, because you have to know what is in or out of the sandbox.


Advantage of DefenseWall is that is a very quiet HIPS, advantage of Avast is that is available in a lot of languages (and has a rootkit scanner), AVG is also available in a lot of languages but does not have rootkit in the free version.

 

my wife likes defensewall and comodo

 

for example this test: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2261172,00.asp

And the firewall testsuite from comodo http://www.testmypcsecurity.com/securitytests/firewall_test_suite.html it scores 30 out of 330.

I really like Norman! It is a very userfriendly interface, has a good parental control, and it feels very light and quick! ( i posted a tread about it an the antivirus section) But after reading this test and after trying out comodo test suite and scoring so badly.. Woo. It feels unsecure.

Sandboxie i`ve tried but i didnt understand the program. I`m not that technical maybe?!

My wife herself likes Norman very much and she also likes Norton. But as long daddy is in charge of the computer i will still try to find the best security solution that my wife can understand and i like! It`s hard to be a man!

 

I`ve tried the new comodo IS 3.5. But then the monitor almost came flying out the window! A very good product, but far to much pop ups for my princess!

And language and price is not a concern!

 

you have to lower the pop ups so she doesnt complaint ,here is afew pop ups

 

Do you use the whole suite of comodo or only the firewall? Can you use defensewall alongside comodo firewall??

 

If you want peace of mind and price is not a concern use NIS2009 with Defensewall.

 

Defensewall.. Is it a regular firewall or is it a HIPS program? Will it work alongside lets say comodo firewall or outpost pro FW or online armor 3?

 

Defensewall isolates untrusted apps (web browser etc.) from the main system. Its like a hips but without popups asking yes/no.