E-Answer.Net

AVG Free Anti-Virus is pure crap!



Mostly n00bs, the naive, the computer illiterate, and children use AVG Free. People of their ilk love AVG because they say it is easy to use and almost never bothers them with any pop-ups or warnings. Of course AVG Free never bothers them, it hardly ever finds any virus to warn them about!



AVG has historically had the lowest virus detection rate of all the popular free anti-virus programs.



There are much better free anti-virus alternatives such as Avria Anti-Vir:

http://www.free-av.com/

and Avast:

http://avast.com/eng/free_software.html

______________________



As others have mentioned, Windows XP Firewall is just about the only firewall that has no outbound application filtering. It too is crap!



For an XP machine, i would suggest Online-Armor firewall:

http://www.tallemu.com/free-firewall-pro...

It's free.

I sit behind a standalone firewall router, this in addition to my on PC firewall. The nice thing with the firewall router is that you can attach multiple devices to the Internet using the same IP.



Netgear makes a nice firewall/router. I've had good luck with them.



BTW -- Make sure you have surge suppressors one all power sources as well as inbound connections. A good jolt of electricity will mess up your equipment.

I'm not a big fan of AVG as I personally believe Avast to be significantly better; it also has antispyware and anti-rootkit, plus a better detection rate. But that's your choice ;-)



Your big security hole is the Windows XP firewall. The XP firewall detects incoming threats only; a firewall *must* be bi-directional to be effective. So I would suggest getting a third party firewall such as Zone Alarm Free Firewall or Comodo Firewall Pro (also free).



> Zone Alarm Free Firewall: http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/c...

> Comodo Firewall Pro: http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/i...



* The Zone Alarm is probably better for newer users, while Comodo is probably best suited for more experienced users.

Sorry mate but you have very poor Security.



1. AVG antivius has a poor detection rate (82%)

2. AVG antispyware is poor.

3. XP firewall is a poor one way firewall.



Is this good enough to keep me safe - NO.

I would use (free) Zonealarm firewall instead of windows. I believe it's better.

good enough...but nothings 100%

its better than nothing at all keep it safe

That should do for now. It covers most things.

These days you need much more than just an antivirus protection.



For antivirus:



For vista http://www.avast.com

For xp http://www.free-av.com





____



Antispyware:



First of all I have spywareterminator.This is a great antispyware.It also has antivirus but don't install that because it will conflict with avast or antivir and it uses Clamwin which is not sucha good antivirus.Only install protection against spyware.

http://www.download.com/Spyware-Terminat...





Then I use spybot search and destroy.I only use it to scan.Don't install the security center.

http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-De...



Then i have superantispyware.There is a free and a pro version of superantispyware.I use the free one.The difference between both is that the free version doesnt have a realtime shield.

Get it here

http://www.superantispyware.com/





Then I have spywareblaster.This doesn't scan for spyware but it immunizes your browser.

http://www.download.com/3120-20_4.html?q...





_____



Firewall:

Download the best free one here

http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/



This firewall will not conflict with windows firewall,so you can use both.



___



Safer internet browsing:



Use Firefox http://www.mozilla.com

Then install the add-on called mcafee site advisor

http://www.siteadvisor.com/download/ff.h...



____



For registry cleaning use ccleaner.Awesome program that deletes junk unnessecary files and cleans ur registry.In this way it will increase ur computers life.

http://www.ccleaner.com



_____



A few tips:



1.Only run ONE antivirus program at a time

2.Only use one firewall at a time



That's all



HOPE THIS HELPS EVERYTHING IS FREE OF CHARGE !



PS:AVG IS ABSOLUTELY JUNK!UNINSTALL IT!

There are two main things that you need to protect your PC, real-time Anti-Virus software and a two way firewall (inbound and outbound) you can get them both completely free, these two work well together on XP:



Comodo Pro (firewall) and Avast Anti-Virus 4.8 Home Edition*



http://www.download.com/Avast-Home-Editi...

http://www.download.com/Comodo-Firewall-...



* Install Avast then Comodo as Comodo can sometimes interfere with Avast's installation, would recommend changing Avast's default skin for the Vista style skin available from their website.



Comodo comes top in leaktests

http://www.matousec.com/projects/firewal...



You should only browse the internet using a limited account not an administrative account, if a virus infects your computer and you are using an admin account it can make critical system changes, a limited account does not have the power to make critical changes.



Would also recommend that you use a safer browser like Mozilla Firefox, and download additional anti-spyware software my favourite is Ad-aware 2008.



http://www.mozilla.com



Install the McAfee SiteAdvisor add-on - when you search for something using Yahoo, Google or MSN, site advisor displays either a green tick (safe site), yellow exclamation mark (use with care) or a red cross (dangerous site) next to every result. http://www.siteadvisor.com/



((I recommend that you try Avast before trying AntiVir as some people recommended Avira AntiVir to me so I removed Avast and installed AntiVir but I could not get it to update, the forums are full of people having the same problem)