The Time has come...
 

No, nothing to do with 'Rapture' or walruses...

McAfee has informed me that my subscription to McAfee Total Protection runs out on 18June and they would like to relieve me of 89.90 dollars to renew it - I think not.

Have previously noted comments from Mike_Bracknell and others that MS Firewall and MS Security Essentials would be a suitable replacement. Does that advice still hold true ?

Windows XP Home SP3, IE8 and run SuperAntiSpyWare on a daily scan basis, all patched up-to-date. Run Housecall/FSBL/MBAM every week or so and ShieldsUp! every so often. (also run as limited user, reserving admin function for installing apps)

As I see it, I would download MS-Sec-Essentials to desktop, disconnect from Internet, remove McAfee with removal tool, install MS Sec Essentials, ensure MS Firewall turned on and reconnect to Internet and away we go.

MS advise not to run any other AV products simultaneously but is that only during install of MS Sec-Ess ? and if not, which AV product would the team advise in addition to Security Essentials.

Appreciate your comments.

DD

Your approach is sound.

AFAIK, you can download MSE for an offline install (although you should get online ASAP afterwards to download latest updates / virus defs.).

You should only have one AV and one anti-malware program running. In the case of MSE, it combines both, but I would not try to run any other AV / AM program in addition to it.

SD

Supplementary Q...
 

.....SD. Are you saying that if I have Avast! and Malwarebytes that I don't need to run Windows Defender as well? Or Windows Firewall?

The Ancient Mariner

MS Security Essentials should be used as the only realtime AV scanner on your PC (and to clarify SD's statement above, it's this which is crucial you don't have more than 1 of, as they fight each other). It's highly advised to install the free version of Malwarebytes as that doesn't have a realtime component and hence doesn't interact badly with any other AV program, and it's extremely good at ridding systems after an attack. You should also use the Windows firewall as this completes the set of protection. You shouldn't however need Windows Defender, but as explained above it doesn't have any realtime scanning portion and hence can coexist with other things if you so desire.

You won't be 100% protected, but then nobody is 100% protected, but you'll give yourself the best chance of finding a virus or malware, the best chance of eradicating one if it gets onto your PC, and most noticeably of all the best experience of your PC whilst it's operating properly :ok:

(and apologies to everyone for the dictatorial nature of the above, but it's the quickest way of getting the message across!)

Mike, thanks for clarifying and spelling it out.

SD

Thus spake SD:

Encouraged by earlier favorable comments in this board I installed this program on one of my laptops a few weeks back.

Yes, the first statement is correct, and once installed, the program will update to the latest definitions etc. by itself.

It's all good so far, and I have a strong feeling that the machine is faster than before.

Thanks for your encouragement to go this way.

F-O-R

I've been running McAfee for years now and it has been excellent but I don't like paying for something when I can get the equivalent for free.
So like F-O-R, encouraged by the posts above, I've uninstalled McAfee from one of my laptops and installed MSE. No problems at all. The only thing I would add is that I didn't do the restart to complete the McAfee uninstall but then installed the MSE and let the restart at the end of that clear everything up. Which it did.

Thanks MB...
 

.....I shall have an inward digest of those facts. I also took a look at the cnet site where they seemed to think that MSE could slow down one's computer, which seems slightly at odds with F-O-R's experience. I suppose I could download it, try it for a bit and if it doesn't seem to suit I can bin it and come back to what I have now. (Hopefully with nothing lost)


The Ancient Mariner

Doesn't appear to have slowed mine down.

Can we possibly have this as a sticky? 'twould save time in future :)

Sticky ?
 

That's a good idea, for although I had saved some permalinks from previous threads there was no searchable concise solution to my queries.
There may well be others who are hesitant to take the leap otherwise.
Supplementary question - can/should I still run SuperAntiSpyWare as a one-off daily scan ? It may have been a function of McAfee deficiency or S-A-S-Ware efficiency but SASW always found 12-20 tracking cookies a day, mostly removed/quarantined without a re-boot.
Thanks for the confidence boost - the way forward is clear !
(as a reinforcement to frequent advice to run only as limited user - I haven't had a virus/trojan in 10years ) - touch wood..
Thanks for all the advice/comments
DD

Yes, keep using SAS as none of them are perfect & have different strengths & weaknesses. Holes in the cheese.....

Tracking cookies aren't a direct security threat (unlike a virus or Trojan) as they're just plain text so can't do anything to your computer. They can pose a privacy risk as they allow tracking of your browsing habits across multiple web sites. Whether they're treated as a threat or not is more a question of security philosophy. A straight anti-virus program will probably ignore them while an anti-malware program will probably handle them. On the scale of things they're very low risk.

I run AVG Free Edition every two days and MalWareBytes once a week, no problems, no complaints. In the past year AVG has picked up most threats and MalWareBytes six threats that slipped past AVG.

Also have a few filters set up in my WiMax system, and use OpenDNS.

If you have the ability to see how many attacks come in on broadband, you would too.

Download this free 90-day trial of Norton Internet Security 2011 and see how you like it: Partner Store ING

Don't believe any horror stories about Norton being a resource hog and a nightmare to remove, that information is a few years out-of-date.

Much as I want to love MSE, we've seen a high rate of them returning with viruses recently. I do not recall a compromised Norton system this year.

I've had 7.

You could of course just use the "Only from sites I visit - Block cookies from third parties and advertisers" settings in your browser.

Interesting that I've had PCs with Norton, McAffee and Kaspersky with infections, but none with MSE. I prefer it to AVG which, I've found, does slow things down (particularly when it's scanning).

It is very interesting hearing the experiences of others. At the end of the day a lot of it probably boils down to user habits and luck.

I can only go off my own experiences in the field (likely to be different from others though). Going in order of best to worst of your list:

1) Norton
2) Kaspersky
3) MSE
4) McAfee
5) AVG

I think the problem with MSE and AVG is a lot of the time the user is not running a firewall or is only running a one-way Windows/hardware firewall. Firewalls are a pretty important part of preventing viruses, some people don't realise that unfortunately.

It's fair to say AVG is pretty much reviled in our shop these days, rubbish detection rates, a tendency to break every five minutes and you have to remove the damn thing to run ComboFix.

And then some realise that and have gone a little further than you and recognise that two-way firewalls are worse than useless when configured by an end-user.

The whole point of this thread is to protect yourself as well as possible FOR FREE.

The products I have the most experience with, Norton Internet Security and ESET Smart Security both feature automatic two-way firewalls which are very effective for the average user. I'd rather risk meddling up my outgoings (easily resettable) than risk a virus dial home unchallenged.

Free protection is a false economy. You might get a decent AV product (MSE) but the popular free firewalls (ZoneAlarm/PC Tools) are too complicated for the average user and prone to messing up.

Unplug all cables from computer. Place in cupboard. Job done. :E

If only! :D

Running a different browser mightn't be a bad idea either. Owing to others on the home network I run Norton (cheap 3 pc deal <£20) and when that expires then whatever is cheap (but NEVER McAfee as I hate the adverts and tricky auto renewal, and I am just prejudiced against them from past experiences, and ZA hates too many programs).

If it wasn't for these others on the network, I would take the free route too.

You don't come here often, do you Stu?

The browser option is an interesting one. What tends to happen with browsers is the relatively unknown ones are the least susceptible to malware so when everyone cottons onto this they sing its praises, everyone jumps on the bandwagon and IE gets called. But then as it becomes more and more popular, the malware authors take note and write malware/exploits targeting the new browser. In the end it turns out not much better than the browser it was designed to compete with, as is the case with Mozilla Firefox versus IE.

In my experience you are OK with pretty much any modern browser provided it is regularly updated and patched. It is what you do with it what matters.

Me, I am a fan of both IE9 and Google Chrome.

I would say that summarises things nicely. Layered security. Keep your computer up to date, don't run as admin user, preferably use a seperate hardware firewall, and keep your wits about you and your average user should be safe from many threats.

Unfortunatley too many people frequently forget to take care of the weakest element, the user. :E

The Time came..
 

All done and dusted, easy-peasy.
I note that a full daily scheduled scan takes 2-1/4 hours for 660K items, including my two external HD's, but since it doesn't appear to slow anything down whilst it is running I'm not bothered.
Strangely enough I noticed one side effect which relects on Green Granite's post about program hanging on shutdown - previously when shutting down I would get past 'saving your settings' when a splash screen would pop up for SuperAntiSpyware - 'ending program' and the blue blocks scrolling all the way across and pausing until 'this program is not responding - End Now or cancel' An End Now would terminate it and the shut-down would complete.
Since removing McAfee and installing MSE, on shutdown the same splash screen pops up and after scrolling three blocks it disappears of its own accord and PC shuts down.
Thanks to all for the advice and comments.
DD

Immunet is worth a look - Antivirus, Antivirus Software, Free Anti Virus Download-Immunet Real Time Antivirus

Free to detect malware, subscription required for rootkit removal, will co-exist alongside other AV solutions.

And avoid IE like the plague, use FF with NoScript / FlashBlock, or Chrome with similar.

Disclaimer - I work for the firm which owns Immunet, but as I have a Mac I don't use the product :)

I've had Malwarebytes require reregistering to renew my free copy but this week their notice doesn't appear to have a "free" option. It appears to have worked well but I noticed the praises of "Norman" being sung with a suggestion that it had worked even better than Malwarebytes..... I would welcome advice from those more erudite than myself on Norman as a replacement.

Thank you for that, NotGettingAnyYounger. I've had the quickest of looks and will investigate further when I get a chance. I have to say it's from a company I've never heard of (not that that's too hard!) and I'm not looking to replace any more than Malwarebytes in manual mode, being very happy with Avast and the assorted other stuff which I use. I will be interested to see what support it garners from the PPRuNe think tank!

Comodo's stuff tends to oscillate between excellent and useless. Unfortunately, it tends to oscillate between upgrades of the same product. I've tried very hard to like Comodo over the years, but I no longer use nor recommend the products: I think QA is almost non-existent.

Oops! Well, has anybody else had Malwarebytes go all commercial on them and is there anything to be said about Norman - or any other on demand replacement malware-buster?

In the absence of any comment on Norman, I visited their website and tried to download the program but, for me at least, the website didn't work and, click as I may, no download was forthcoming. It was BOAC who favoured Norman but my experience does not support his confidence. All (well, nearly all!) comments will be welcomed.