courtesy of pc world
Security Showdown
Can you skip paying for a hefty Internet security suite like Norton? You betcha.
Safe computing requires an arsenal of protection--antivirus, firewall, and antispyware tools at a minimum. Internet security suites offer the convenience of managing everything in a single product, and dealing with a single vendor for tech support. But suites don't come cheap: Most cost $70 to $80. You won't find a free, all-in-one suite that compares to market leader Symantec's $70 Norton Internet Security 2005, but you can build your own collection of free products.
Click to view full-size image. And you can save some time, as well as money, with freeware. It took me several minutes more to install and update Norton Internet Security than to add all three of the stand-alone free products combined. Furthermore, the Norton package requires more reboots during installation and demands a total of nearly 300MB more hard-drive space than the free apps do.
On the other hand, learning to use a suite is often easier than tackling several disparate applications. Maintaining separate tools and keeping each of them up-to-date is typically more difficult as well.
With antivirus applications, nobody should be penny-wise and pest-foolish. That isn't a concern with AVG--it's both free and secure. In comparing AVG's effectiveness at protecting your computer with that of the Symantec suite's antivirus utility, the principal difference lies in the frequency of virus definition updates, with the advantage going to AVG.
Symantec updates weekly, unless the company deems a new threat to be medium to widespread. In contrast, AVG updates as often as new viruses are found. For example, when several new Bagle worms were discovered during my testing period, AVG updated my protection within hours, but several days later Symantec still had not provided detection. In my tests, I saw no significant protection differences other than the update schedule.
Click to view full-size image. As for firewalls, both Norton's firewall and ZoneAlarm kept my PC virtually invisible on the Internet and protected me from unauthorized intrusions. ZoneAlarm gave me the option of letting it automatically decide what could access the Net, or having it prompt me on a case-by-case basis; Norton made some decisions for me and prompted for others. I also tested both on a spyware-infested PC. With Norton, I was deluged with pop-ups even though my browser was closed. With ZoneAlarm, I received none.
While the Norton Internet Security package offers most of the features you expect in an all-in-one security suite, it currently lacks spyware protection. (However, upcoming 2006 versions of the Norton suite, not ready for this review, will include spyware protection.) For an extra $10 you can purchase Symantec's Antispyware Edition, but my tests show neither it--nor a free spyware scanner--is your best bet. (My pick is Webroot's $30 Spy Sweeper; see November's "Best Defenders."
Of the three free spyware scanners we tried--Ad-Aware SE Personal, Spybot Search & Destroy, and Microsoft's Windows AntiSpyware (downloadable beta version)--Microsoft's tool did best, removing 66 percent of active spyware components, but falling far short of the 90 percent removal rate of Spy Sweeper.
Overall, if you're an experienced computer user willing to put in a little time and effort, constructing your own freeware security suite seems an ideal way to save yourself some money. One caveat: AVG Free Edition does not offer tech support, though you can find several self-help groups online. But even the $70 Norton suite has only limited support--to speak to a live person, you'll dish out $30 per incident.