Firewall/AV recommendations?

My wife and I are getting DSL this coming week, so naturally we're a bit concerned about security. It's coming with a wireless modem (although I believe there is an option to hard wire it). Currently my wife's computer is 800 MHz with 320 MB RAM. Mine is 2.3 GHz with 520 MB RAM. We both currently have Norton Internet Security (both firewall and AV included in the suite) 2004 but mine is about to expire. My wife's computer runs quite slow and I've a feeling it is largely the resource demands of Norton. She is using Firefox 0.9.1 and I'm bouncing between Mozilla 1.7 and Opera 7.53.

So, based upon the above, what would you suggest in order that we are as safe and secure as possible (well.. without being paranoid).

 

With the system specs you have, I'd expect neither machine to be a true screamer but neither should run slowly unless you had some really intensive applications running. Your wife's issues are more likely spyware related than a simple matter of Norton causing major performance problems.

You should both download, update, and run both Ad-aware & Spybot.
- Set Ad-aware to the most complete scan it can do and remove everything it finds.
- Spybot will clearly identify bad things that need removal and they should go. It will also show you optional entries (history logs and similar) that are optional. Be sure to use the Immunize feature of spybot to reduce future junk.
- Spywareblaster is another good one to download and set to protect you. Nothing else to do except check for updates about once a month or so.

The Norton firewall is good provided you haven't opened too many holes in it.

As to replacing the Norton firewall & AV when your sub expires, it sorta depends.

AVG provides a good free AV program that seems effective and pretty trouble-free. They also have a paid version with some additional features.

Zone Alarm is a popular firewall with both paid and free versions but if you run XP, there have been some issues with it over the past few months that don't seem to be resolved.

I use Black Ice Defender and like it well. But it is not free and is not particularly simple to set up. If you run XP, the firewall with SP2 (due out this month) is good and easy to set up.

 

Shields UP is a good site to test your firewall solution. They also keep a score of personal firewalls. This list is a little out of date and some of the latest personal firewalls aren't there. Have a look at:

http://www.grc.com/lt/scoreboard.htm

So from this I would suggest that your Norton solution should be fine. However, if you want an alternative:

Personally I don't like Symantec software (with the exception of Ghost), so use McAfee for my Anti-virus software. The down side of the McAfee software is that the auto-update is not too clever at sensing when you have a connection, so the auto-update function isn't reliable when used with Dial-up. However, with broadband I just set the AV software to check for updates at boot up. Even better McAfee run an e-mail alert service:

http://www.avertlabs.com

Whenever I get the e-mail, I force an update. Works a treat. At work I've set up McAfee ePO to manage the updating and that works brilliantly (version 3.0). My system is updated before I get a chance to read the Avertlabs e-mail alerts! However, that's overkill for a home system.

I used PC-Cillin for a while with good results. That works a treat with Dial-up. What put me off it was when the year's license ran out it just stopped updating. No warning, no prompt to renew the license. I didn't like that. If a security product stops functioning I want to be alerted.

As for the firewall: I am a great fan of Tiny Firewall 2, but getting a copy nowadays is hard. The later versions aren't as good - try to do too much in my opinion. It puts a firewall between applications and the registry. Outlook is always talking to the registry and I ended up getting bombarded with alerts. A great shame, version 2 is a great loss.

I don't like ZoneAlarm. It is too easy for a novice user to get fustrated with it and start responding yes to all the prompts. With the free versions I've tried, it is difficult to close a port/connection type once you've said yes to a prompt. I believe the latest version are better.

So personally as a recommendation I'd go for the McAfee internet security package that will give you a personal firewall as well as AV software.

And don't forget your Adaware, to pick up the browser hijacking.

 

Thanks for the help, folks.

More info: we both use Windows XP. We both have Ad-aware and Spybot and Spyblaster and we keep all updated. We generally run them once a week to clean anything out (which is practically nothing because of our Mozilla/Opera browsers). Still... my wife's computer is not quite as fast as it once was and I have a gut feeling it is the demands of Norton IS 2004. Well.. thank you all for your suggestions.

 

Norton certainly has been blamed by more than one person on here for causing system sludge. I ran it for some years up thru the 2003 version and never noticed problems but I could have just been lucky.

Since XP has good tools for doing most of what I always liked Norton for and since I was getting a clean PC load with XP-pro at about the time my subscription ran out, I opted to use other products. Removed Norton from the wife's PC as well rather than pay for another year. Truth be told, I haven't noticed any spectacular performance improvements on either machine but with Peter Norton out of the picture, I get a sense that Symantec may not be keeping things as up-to-date as I'd like.

You might want to get a current copy of Hijackthis and post a log file. Even with the protection you use, you (or she) can still have been hijacked.