I Avast. I love it!

WOW. Yeah I know, but I couldn't help it.

Know whut?

I just paid for ZoneAlarm. It hasn't interfered with email or browsing but can take a while doing a scan, which slows my Athlonx2 down noticably.

and I learned never to stop the scan in the middle of checking RAM...bad things happen.

Otherwise, it's a decent program...no bad things or malware that I've ever found and it's peace of mind what with these public connections.

Update
 

I've been using AVAST, free security software, for about two months.
It's great! I'm happy as a pig in poopie.
Once a day or so a little window pops up it the corner to tell me the database has been updated and I don't even have to close the window. Just ignore it and it goes away by itself.

Now, it may be sending every keystroke to the CIA/FBI, but at least it's not annoying me.

Most criticism I hear about security software is more often traceable to their pathetic explanation of what the software does what the various setting really do. For example, how many would understand which ports are blocked, or if a port is even blocked. And blocked how?

MacAfee’s Security Center - how you control and setup their various softwares - is a human interface disaster. It took forever to grasp their hierarchy. Now, if I want port 139 blocked on WiFi but not on the LAN, can I do it? Or is that setting really applied? And do those setting remain when I reboot? All this is vague if not explained at all.

But then every Norton installation in the past year and a half has been a disaster. For example, Norton will charge for the upgrade to Windows 98 - which their software does not work on. The upgrade to Windows 2000 will literally destroy register setting rather than announce the software does not work on Windows 2000.


Consumer Reports rated all these softwares recently. Noted was a lower rating of Norton compared to MacAfee. I believe that is a reversal. But even Consumer Reports did not complain about what these software packages all make difficult. You really have little idea what is and is not being protected. Then they require a complete package purchase forcing you to buy other bells and whistles. Ok. Many software companies do that. But at least others explain what those new bells and whistles do. Somehow I am supposed to know what it does only from the Trademark name?

And yes, some blocking functions do get turned back on after rebooting the computer. Good luck to others even knowing what is and is not still protected. Thunderbird stops working? So which function caused it? Good luck trying to find out which blocked port blocked that software. Yes it can be done. But good luck especially if you are not the only user on this computer.

I've used Avast for almost 2 years now. No problems, conflicts, or viruses have hit me during that time.

Classic. I thought I'd give McAfee a spin, because it was on sale at Costco, and boy was I in for a shock. There aren't any controls! You can't tell it to do anything, and it won't tell you what it's doing. It's like they expect you to think that PC security is something that can be done with an "ON" button. Okay, McAfee is "ON" so now I don't have to worry about anything. Yeah, right. Give me a goddamn "advanced tab" - how hard is that?

I am troubled by this trend in software designed for people that aren't expected to know how to use it. I don't like "just trust us" because, I don't.

Your in the minority Flint. Most of the great unwashed don't want to know, they just want it to work. Not only the security, but everything including the PC.

The same applies to their cars and everything else they use, they just want it to work.

Actually it does have controls and it does 'tell you' what it is doing - somewhat. But you must know how to find that information. Like every observed security package, it is either user unfriendly, will not provide useful 'help' information, or does not provide many protection features so that users would be 'pleased'.

McAfee has one tool I like. Enter the URL or IP address to see geographically where the 'intruder' is coming from. Is that IP address an existing intruder or simply from my executing program? That tool makes it faster to answer the question ... if you can remember the illogical sequence of mysterous mouse clicks to get to it.

A combination of AVG Free, Pest Patrol and Zone Alarm Suite Free keeps me totally trouble free, and I go to some pretty weird web sites.