Norton on BB

I am currently running 2 Anti Virus programs (Avast and AVG) and also 2
firewalls (Sygate and Zone Alarm).

Since installing BB some 3 weeks ago I seem to have picked up a number of
Trojan Horses whilst running these, which are always kept up to date btw.
Yesterday AVG came up with 96 Trojans on my machine, rather than going
through the usual I decided to reinstall and reformat my system, which I
did. I don't have any now. Today I purchased Norton Antivirus 2004 and
Norton Firewall.

My question is, are there any benefits in running all three AV and FW's or
should I just uninstall the 4 free ones and keep Norton. Or perhaps are
there any disadvantages with running 3.

Thanks in advance mark

"Mark Lee" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I am currently running 2 Anti Virus programs (Avast and AVG) and also 2
> firewalls (Sygate and Zone Alarm).
>
> Since installing BB some 3 weeks ago I seem to have picked up a number of
> Trojan Horses whilst running these, which are always kept up to date btw.
> Yesterday AVG came up with 96 Trojans on my machine, rather than going
> through the usual I decided to reinstall and reformat my system, which I
> did. I don't have any now. Today I purchased Norton Antivirus 2004 and
> Norton Firewall.
>
> My question is, are there any benefits in running all three AV and FW's or
> should I just uninstall the 4 free ones and keep Norton. Or perhaps are
> there any disadvantages with running 3.

I have seen this question asked before many times and opinions vary widely.
Some say that the more protection you have the better, whereas others will say
that running 2 or more of the same type of programs can cause conflict. But of
all the people I know that do run 2 AV programs, they have not reported any
problems with confliction. As far as I am concerned, as long as they are
regularly updated you shoudl not have a problem. Make sure also you do not rely
on solely the automatic updates. Schedule an update every day instead of the
standard once or twice a week as virus's are released every day and you do not
want to get caught out.

Mark Lee wrote:

> I am currently running 2 Anti Virus programs (Avast and AVG) and also 2
> firewalls (Sygate and Zone Alarm).
>
> Since installing BB some 3 weeks ago I seem to have picked up a number of
> Trojan Horses whilst running these, which are always kept up to date btw.
> Yesterday AVG came up with 96 Trojans on my machine, rather than going
> through the usual I decided to reinstall and reformat my system, which I
> did. I don't have any now. Today I purchased Norton Antivirus 2004 and
> Norton Firewall.
>
> My question is, are there any benefits in running all three AV and FW's or
> should I just uninstall the 4 free ones and keep Norton. Or perhaps are
> there any disadvantages with running 3.

One AV program and one firewall should be enough.

Ideally, you'd let your router do your firewalling because personal
firewalls have a habbit of buggering stuff up (for many they work
perfectly - but not for all). If that's not possible, I'd be inclined
to use the built in Windows XP firewall instead of NPF (simply because
the XP one is less bloated).

You might want to look at a program like Adaware, too, to get rid of
"spyware" but it's less important (but many will disagree with me here
and say it's just as important as AV and FW :-p).

Most importantly: Keep the programs up to date (that includes going to
windowsupdate.microsoft.com!)

>
> Thanks in advance mark
>
>


--

Alexander Mann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in news:41213f3f$0$58816$5a6aecb4
@news.aaisp.net.uk:

> If that's not possible, I'd be inclined
> to use the built in Windows XP firewall instead of NPF (simply because
> the XP one is less bloated).

I believe that any third party program can issue a call to the OS and turn
the built in firewall off so relying on it may not be the best of
solutions.

Here we have firewalling handled by the router, antivirus (Avast!) running
on all the PCs and the only problems we have had is spyware coming in with
stuff my little sister downloads and installs all the time.

--
Colin
*Drop DEAD from the email address to reply*

"Mark Lee" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I am currently running 2 Anti Virus programs (Avast and AVG) and also 2
> firewalls (Sygate and Zone Alarm).
>
> Since installing BB some 3 weeks ago I seem to have picked up a number of
> Trojan Horses whilst running these, which are always kept up to date btw.
> Yesterday AVG came up with 96 Trojans on my machine, rather than going
> through the usual I decided to reinstall and reformat my system, which I
> did. I don't have any now. Today I purchased Norton Antivirus 2004 and
> Norton Firewall.
>
> My question is, are there any benefits in running all three AV and FW's or
> should I just uninstall the 4 free ones and keep Norton. Or perhaps are
> there any disadvantages with running 3.
>
> Thanks in advance mark
>
>

I recommend using just One of each type, for the following;

Anti-Virus
=======
Having 2 Anti-Virus programs with both On-Access Scan type thing loaded will
slow your machine down quite a bit, since each piece of data loaded will be
scanned by *both* anti-virus engines - as opposed to one. This could also
result in a conflict, which is detrimental to the cause of stopping viruses.
This is just a waste of time IMHO. I have used Norton (inc 2004), McAfee 7 &
8 and various others. I am currently using McAfee 8, which has no problems.

Firewall
=====
Same scenario as anti-virus, with the conflicts being the more operative
context. I cannot recommend Sygate Pro enough as the firewall software to
use, I have never had any issues with it, not bloated at all and better than
the bog standard XP firewall nonsense you get.

As another poster has said, if you have a router, you can even do away with
the Firewall software and let the router take charge for you.

Extras
====
Other pieces of software to get would be Lavasoft AdAware Pro/Free version,
since this will also scan your comp. (when told to) for things such as
Trojans, trace lists etc...

Number one rule, keep these protection things *UP-TO-DATE* and you shouldn't
normally have too many problems!

b0yce

> Since installing BB some 3 weeks ago I seem to have picked up a number of
> Trojan Horses whilst running these

Two quick comments :-p

1) Norton generally sucks ass
2) ...as does McAfee

Tips on avoiding and cleaning up trojans / spyware is on my site here:

http://www.phoenixbbs.co.uk

I link to a couple of external sites but can verify the last downloads I
had from them were all legitimate - the main sites often being down due
to DDoS attacks.

Two general safety precautions

1) ditch lookOut urgently
2) "" "" IE "" "" ""

Use another browser for as many websites as you can (unless they`re
really badly written websites that only with with IE - in which case you
should complain to the webmaster that they`re forcing you to use insecure
software that the US Computer Emergency Response Team (US CERT) has
advised people to stop using.

I recommend Opera personally www.opera.com although Mozilla is another
fine browser.

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