Internet security vs anti-virus

[Charlie98]

Alright, so I'm a blockhead.

On my new build, my Gigabyte mobo came with Norton Internet Security. Along with that, I use MSE and SAS, and run Spybot once a week, on my W7 system.

It didn't really dawn on me that I was using Norton Internet Security until I tried to put the license key in from Norton AntiVirus. Hmmmm...

Gleaning information from this thread, it appears MSE is a fairly capable AntiVirus program, correct? Do I really need an 'internet security suite', or does MSE and SAS cover that?

I don't really venture too far off the safe internet trail, but I do have a teenage daughter that has the common sense of a rock (she gets it from me) and I need to set her laptop up with something capable, it's running MSE on XP at the moment.

I just don't want to lull myself into thinking I have my bases covered when I don't.

 

[boochi]

Norton Internet Security contains Norton Antivirus along with a firewall and other nice things. If you have a year subscription to NIS, use that and ditch MSE. If it is a trial and you don't want to pay for a subscription you may want to run MSE with Comodo Free Firewall. I run those two together along with Malwarebytes Pro. If you catch a deal you can get Malwarebytes Pro for ~ $10 and it includes lifetime automatic updates and active protection.

Comodo is arguably the best free firewall out there and is uber customizable.

 

[Charlie98]

Norton Internet Security contains Norton Antivirus along with a firewall and other nice things. If you have a year subscription to NIS, use that and ditch MSE. If it is a trial and you don't want to pay for a subscription you may want to run MSE with Comodo Free Firewall. I run those two together along with Malwarebytes Pro. If you catch a deal you can get Malwarebytes Pro for ~ $10 and it includes lifetime automatic updates and active protection.

Comodo is arguably the best free firewall out there and is uber customizable.

I got Norton AV off Newegg for something like $10 on sale, intending to put the key in when the NIS free trial ran out (that's in 3 days.) I guess I should have researched it better...

Does not MSE have a firewall? Or what about 'Windows Firewall?'

 

[dawks]

MSE does not have a firewall. It will enable the Windows Firewall as a check box option during install. If you have a router with NAT, you technically have a pretty good firewall anyway.
MSE is a great AV/security program. However, nothing beats using your computer safely. No matter how much you try to 'secure' your system, user behaviour can always find a way around it.
Dont download junk, use a secure web browser like chrome, ignore AV warnings from websites, etc.

 

[Charlie98]

If you have a router with NAT, you technically have a pretty good firewall anyway.

My ignorance is complete... what is NAT?

 

[dawks]

My ignorance is complete... what is NAT?

Network Address Translation.

Lets you have one public internet IP from your ISP, with a bunch of private internal IP's (192.168.1.x). That is effectively a firewall. A software firewall running on your computer mostly provides protection from other systems that are already on your network.