Do you, or anyone you know use more than one AV program or firewall?

[Saulbadguy]

Discuss Pro/Cons.

I don't really think having more than one firewall and/or AV program is necessary. Some of my co-workers and friends "brag" about how much "protection" they have. One friend told me he has all of these running:

AVG, Norton AV
ZoneAlarm, XP pro's built in firewall, Nortons internet security
Winpatrol, Promitron, Spybot, Ad-aware

He claims "can't have too much protection"

I disagree..

 

[xcript]

Smash your co-worker with a hammer.

 

[Anubis]

i run Norton Av 2003, Kerio personal firewall pro, and im behind a Lynksys Router

 

[gistech1978]

yes, i think so.
thats dumb to have that much.
panda AV, router and XP firewall suit me fine.

 

[minendo]

Originally posted by: Saulbadguy
Discuss Pro/Cons.

I don't really think having more than one firewall and/or AV program is necessary. Some of my co-workers and friends "brag" about how much "protection" they have. One friend told me he has all of these running:

AVG, Norton AV
ZoneAlarm, XP pro's built in firewall, Nortons internet security
Winpatrol, Promitron, Spybot, Ad-aware

He claims "can't have too much protection"

I disagree..

Tell him that a 12 pack of condoms is for 12 different instances not one.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: Anubis
i run Norton Av 2003, Kerio personal firewall pro, and im behind a Lynksys Router

That's exactly what I use.

 

[PanzerIV]

I have my router's firewall and ZoneAlarm set but no antivirus. I have never had one virus because I scan anything I don't trust online. I use Proxomitron because it blocks popups and banner ads, etc. not for protection.
Anyone with some sense should use Spybot and Adaware too.

I disagree with his use of several antivirus programs. They have a good chance of causing system instability.

 

[Electric Amish]

Originally posted by: Saulbadguy
Discuss Pro/Cons.

I don't really think having more than one firewall and/or AV program is necessary. Some of my co-workers and friends "brag" about how much "protection" they have. One friend told me he has all of these running:

AVG, Norton AV
ZoneAlarm, XP pro's built in firewall, Nortons internet security
Winpatrol, Promitron, Spybot, Ad-aware

He claims "can't have too much protection"

I disagree..

Next time you're with him, look out the window and say:

"Hmmm... I wonder what those black helicopters are for."

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269

Originally posted by: Anubis
i run Norton Av 2003, Kerio personal firewall pro, and im behind a Lynksys Router

That's exactly what I use.

works fine doesnt it, no need for anything eklse other then the opccasional spybot or adaware search

 

[HardcoreRobot]

i was always under the assumption the various AV programs did not play well with each other. I am behind HW firewall and keep NAV on and never had any problems. Well, once I got infected with a worm that penetrated my IIS, but this was before it was even reported and no patches or AV countermeasures had been released. But that comes with the territory of running windows.

 

[Metron]

Your friend is probably overkill on number of applications in each category, but he has the right idea:

Hardware firewall: Linksys Router or equivalent
Software firewall: XP built-in, ZoneAlarm, or Norton/Symantec Internet Security
Anti-Virus: Norton/Symantec Anti-virus, McAfee, or similar
Anti-Spybot: Spybot Search&Destroy, Ad-Aware, Pest Patrol, etc

I would suggest having one from each of the above catagories.
Metron

 

[Electric Amish]

Why would you need both a HW and a SW firewall?

 

[rh71]

Keeping up to date with IE patches and NAV is fine for me... has been for years. Never been hit.

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: Saulbadguy
Discuss Pro/Cons.

I don't really think having more than one firewall and/or AV program is necessary. Some of my co-workers and friends "brag" about how much "protection" they have. One friend told me he has all of these running:

AVG, Norton AV
ZoneAlarm, XP pro's built in firewall, Nortons internet security
Winpatrol, Promitron, Spybot, Ad-aware

He claims "can't have too much protection"

I disagree..

sounds like you should poison your coworkers food and when he is keeling over dieing ask him, hey did you have enough protection and then kick him in the face while hes crying.

 

[Aquaman]

OMGWATERMELON

THat is just a waste of resources

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[Metron]

Originally posted by: Electric Amish
Why would you need both a HW and a SW firewall?

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but the more layers of protection... the better.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I use a linux firewall to protect my network and then outpost firewall on my windows boxes within the network as an extra layer of protection. I don't see any problems with redundancies there. However, using 2 software firewalls on the same box is kinda redundant and not necessary. It's also a good idea to combine adaware + spybot, since neither one is perfect.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Electric Amish
Why would you need both a HW and a SW firewall?

Hardware firewalls only stop unwanted incoming requests, while a (good) software firewall will alert you to suspicious outgoing requests as well.

 

[Armitage]

Firewall built into the DSL modem
Firewall/NAT on my Smoothwall router
IPSec firewall on my linux boxen

No need for AV/spybot stuff

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

For me?

Hardware router, XP SP2 Firewall

Spybot, Adaware, CWShredder, HijackThis

AVG

Opera

Win updates

Common sense

Never a problem.

Other computers though? I swear, I've never seen anything break so fast.

That is why I don't let anybody use my computer. Something always breaks when they do. I had a friend over for one week. After that one week, I found no less than 6 seperate viruses (virii?) on that computer. This my friends, is why you always keep atleast two. One to loan out. One for you.

 

[Aves]

I run NAV 2004 & ZoneAlarm Pro. Occasionally I run Spybot/Ad-Aware.

 

[MalikChen]

I use linux. Say what you will, but the sheer fact that the few linux desktop users there are don't want a business deal from Nigeria, bigger breasts, or a neato collection of mouse cursors keeps spy/adware from targeting the platform.

EDIT: Oh, and if you are spending so much RAM/Resources on firewalls that you think you have been hacked/rooted/spywared, it is too much.