Best Security Setup

[s0l0m0n]

So I've been browsing for a while now, and I've seen a scattered response, but I just wanted to see what people were saying and what people actually think about the software out there, and what they actually use.

I use Avast Free, Advance System Care 6, and that's it. I've never had any real threats (mostly because I can recognize phishing and malware when it knocks), but for those of lesser technological aptitude, I want to know what to recommend.

Please try to have some reasoning behind your recommendations, as well as the origin of the software, and why you like it.

Hope I'm not asking too much!

 

[Reckless]

The best security setup is teaching the stupid people what not to do.

antivirus program or malware program is only good once you are infected but teaching someone how not to get infected is the best security.

 

[Lexluethar]

Education is the best practice. All the security in the world will not help an uneducated user from clicking the wrong thing.

I use MS Security essentials and Malwarebytes. Run full system scans with both weekly.

I use both because of their ease of use, small footprint and relative low use of resources.

 

[PP Mguire]

Common sense.

 

[DistraughtSysop]

I agree with the above comments. The biggest security risk is always the one sitting in the chair.

Of course, you're probably talking about the tools that you use. I find that the typical home user is usually fine with Avast Free and Windows Firewall. Any of the reputable free antivirus suites should be fine, but I like Avast because it updates its definitions often by default. I've had issues with that when using other free AV suites like Avira and AVG, and regular users can't be expected to manually keep their definitions up to date. Windows 8 users get Defender by default, which should be good enough. It still doesn't seem to automatically update as often as Avast does, though.

I always warn people away from Mcafee and Norton. I've heard that Norton has gotten much better lately, but it's been so bad for so long that I'm not willing to give it another shot.

If I'm troubleshooting someone else's machine I'll grab MBAM and DrWeb CureIt for scans. I used to just use MBAM, but it's been pretty popular for a while and a lot of malware is designed to get around it. I've found that CureIt will find what MBAM has missed.

 

[Yevrag35]

Common sense.

But I can't help it if a website tells me i'm the 10,000,000th visitor so I won an ipad!

I always warn people away from Mcafee and Norton. I've heard that Norton has gotten much better lately, but it's been so bad for so long that I'm not willing to give it another shot.

That's funny, cause I used to say the same thing about McAfee.

 

[PP Mguire]

They have both gotten worse over the years. Norton is just one pile of bloatware and Mcafee does nothing.

 

[carnageX]

If I'm troubleshooting someone else's machine I'll grab MBAM and DrWeb CureIt for scans. I used to just use MBAM, but it's been pretty popular for a while and a lot of malware is designed to get around it. I've found that CureIt will find what MBAM has missed.

I usually run: TDSSKiller > ComboFix > MBAM (quick scan) > HTJ > MBAM (full scan).

Usually takes out everything.

 

[hikaricloud]

I normally only run ComboFix if there is something seriously wrong or I'm working on someone else's machine lol.

I keep MSE for real-time since it's pretty good at picking up stuff, but I don't normally do full scans with it since it's really finicky about false positives. I mostly rely on MBam for that, plus I run Ace Utilities every now and then to upkeep.

 

[PP Mguire]

Am I the only one here who prefers to do things the hard way when working on a paying customers machine?