Comparing Security Suites

I'm looking for opinions on internet security suites. I've tried Norton and Zone Alarm in the past, and to make long stories short, found their products unsatisfactory;their customer support is particularly pathetic. Of course I realize that none of the suites will be perfect, but I am curious about F-secure's 2007 suite, which has gotten good reviews with reference to both the product and customer service (Norton and Zone Alarm have also gotten some good reviews). If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, so I am asking for any of your experiences, good or bad, with this product or their customer service/tech support. Thanks for any input.

docbombay

 

docbombay--Sorry to hear you do not like Norton or ZoneAlarm security suites. They came out on top in the review in the most recent issue of PCMag.
http://www.pcmag.com/search_results/0,1208,,00.asp?qry=security+suites&site=3
No reason for you to agree with the review. But the comments there may be of interest anyway.
I still stick with putting together my own "security suite" from various sources for antispyware, antivirus, firewall, IE security settings, HOSTS file, etc.

 

docbombay

Scott Finnie reviewed Antivirus programs a year ago and his pick of the year was F-Secure. You can go to his website( http://www.scotsnewsletter.com/ ) and go back in the archives to check it out. As for suites, he was opposed to them in all shapes and forms, including F-Secure's.

My ISP offers the F-Secure Internet Security Suite free of charge but I have to tell you, it slowed my machine down to a crawl. I had the local techie guru come over and he immediately suggested uninstalling it (which was no picnic) and installing a stand-alone AV prog, Firewall and anti-spyware prog (which is what I did and I'm so happy for it).

My suggestion would be to stick with individual programs rather than try to have it all in one suite. I use NOD32 (AV), Kerio (paid version for my firewall), CounterSpy for anti-spyware. Things are humming here.

 

I have been extremely happy with Panda Titanium. The anti-virus, firewall and anti-spyware/heuristics features work quite well and do not slow my PC or connection as much as other applications I have tried. I have dealt with Norton, McAfee and PCCillan in the past. I have also used Zone Alarms firewall previously. I have experienced issues with all these products in the past. For my customers that want free applications I use Avast, Sygate's firewall v5.6.2808, SpywareBlaster, AdAware SE and Spybot S&D. They are quite happy and have stayed clean.

 

Thank you all very much for your thoughts. After more research, I am leaning strongly towards individual security components rather than suites. We'll see if Zone Labs Tech Support can fix my most current issue first but I am not optimistic after their first attempt.

docbombay

 

It's really a matter of what works best for you. At one time I leaned towards the suites too (and in fact I had the PC-cillin suite for a year) since it appeared to me that it would work seamlessly and integrate well. But I found that while PC-cillin did some things well, it did not mean they did everything well. It's the same with F-Secure, Zone Labs, Norton and so forth. Each company is well known for certain apps. Trying to combine what they do well with other apps is questionable. Also if something goes wrong with one program, it can affect the entire suite. For me it only makes sense to stick with individual programs.

 

Again, thanks to all--I decided on Spy Sweeper, Kerio Personal Firewall and Kaspersky Antivirus. So far, so good--the hardest part was uninstalling Zone Alarm Security Suite! But all the little glitches that ZASS seemed to cause are now gone, so it was worth the effort.

docbombay

 

docbombay--If pieces of ZoneAlarm are still on your PC, read here
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache...Alarm+Security+Suite&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=6

 

Thanks, Welshjim--the link you provided is the exact set of instructions I followed, so I believe I got it all. However, since my last post, I got a BSOD stating IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Further instructions stated that if I had not seen this screen before (and I have not), to simply restart the computer. Being not so computer-literate, could this be something left of ZA? Or something to do with new software installation? I suppose this would be a discussion for another forum (perhaps Windows XP). If any thoughts, let me know in this or another area. Thanks.

docbombay

 

docbombay--I do not think it is a ZA problem. But the possibilities are many
http://www.google.com/search?source...GGLG:2006-38,GGLG:en&q=IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
See if it happens again and post in a new thread, with any other details. You also could look at Event Viewer for the RedBall Error message at the time you got the BSOD.
Start|Adminstrative Tools|Event Viewer|System.

 

Hi, Welshjim--I spoke with Kaspersky and Kerio tech support this morning. The best theory anyone could come up with was that automatic updates for kaspersky and spy sweeper may have been running at the same time. Both parties seemed to agree that if there were a true software conflict, the crashes would continue to occur, and it has only happened once. So I turned off autoupdates for Spysweeper. Today, all seems well. In looking at the event viewer (thank you--I didn't know I had one), one recurring error led me to discover that Symantec's Live Update had been left behind from long ago, which I got rid of. But I don't think this was the cause, since the same error has occurred many times before and after the crash. The only other error I could find was "The System Restore filter encountered the unexpected error '0xC0000243' while processing the file 'klif.sys' on the volume 'HarddiskVolume2.' It has stopped monitoring the volume." This error did not correspond well with the time of the crash, but was the only other close one. The bottom line so far is that I have decided to keep Kerio Firewall and Kaspersky antivirus. They seem to be playing together nicely, and there have no further suspicious incidents. And I agree that it isn't ZA--I can't find any traces of it. Thanks again for your thoughts.

docbombay