Best All in one Internet Security?

[Andrew932]

Been using Norton Internet Security 2005 for about 5 months now. Very impressed despite all the bad feedback about it. Blocked a serious worm going through IE a few weeks ago. Detected 1 virus and deleted automatically. Runs extremely well on my 1.5 GIG RAM machine

McAfee would be my worse. Although I found it effective when I used it a few years ago, couldn't remove a virus that somehow got on my PC and then errors started appearing.

[atomizer]

i didn't vote.

personally, i detest anything 'norton' however. way too many problems and it embeds itself way too deep in the OS. i don't think it's worth crippling the system in order to protect it. i like the idea of an all-in-one app, but i haven't come across any that caught my attention. here's my personal preferences...

ClamWin - http://www.clamwin.com/ - FOSS

ClamMail - http://www.bransoft.com/clammail/clammail.html - FOSS

Kerio Personal Firewall - http://www.kerio.com/ - free version available

Edited January 18, 2006 by atomizer

[DigeratiPrime]

thats easy, ive tested each one. ZoneAlarm Internet Security FTW!

ZA has the best firewall and antivirus; it also has webfiltering through BlueCoat. ZA also had relatively low memory consumption and running processes/services.

Norton is the absolute worse, I have used 2002, 2003,and 2005 and each was progressively worse. I can't imagine how bad 2006 is. Worthless software.

BTW your missing BitDefender 9 Internet Security.

Here is some data i collected from ProcessExplorer.

These values of memory (working set) usage appeared stable.

Name | Version | Proccesses |

ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 6.1.737.000

vsmon.exe 24,472

isafe.exe 10,992

zlclient.exe 4,296

TOTAL=39,760kb

BitDefender 9 Internet Security

bdss.exe 21,232

xcommsvr.exe 3,124

bdnagent.exe 920

bdmcon.exe 16,324

livesrv.exe 4,392

vsserv.exe 18,116

bdoesrv.exe 1,640

TOTAL=65,748kb

Norton Internet Security 2006

Panda Platinum Internet Security 2006

F-Secure Internet Security 2006

PC-cillin Internet Security 14.0

I will consider testing/researching the other software mentioned in the poll.

Edited January 18, 2006 by DigeratiPrime

[Andrew932]

i don't think it's worth crippling the system in order to protect it.

Lol, Norton Internet Security 2005 came free with my PC when I bought it. Decided to keep it on because it hasn't given me any hassle. Blocked anything nasty that has tried to get on my PC and has some nice features. I don't really want to try and attemp to remove it otherwise it's bound to ruin the system.

If I thought it was that bad I would uninstall it and have a firewall and antivirus, but have always preferred to have an all in one set-up.

"ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 6.1.737.000

vsmon.exe 24,472

isafe.exe 10,992

zlclient.exe 4,296

TOTAL=39,760kb

BitDefender 9 Internet Security

bdss.exe 21,232

xcommsvr.exe 3,124

bdnagent.exe 920

bdmcon.exe 16,324

livesrv.exe 4,392

vsserv.exe 18,116

bdoesrv.exe 1,640

TOTAL=65,748kb"

Thankls for the stats. I suppose Norton will be far more then 65,748kb?

[DigeratiPrime]

Thankls for the stats. I suppose Norton will be far more then 65,748kb?

I will install Norton 2006 on this pc to compare, after i make a backup image with Acronis because Norton is going to ruin my perfectly setup pc.

[atomizer]

Lol, Norton Internet Security 2005 came free with my PC when I bought it. Decided to keep it on because it hasn't given me any hassle. Blocked anything nasty that has tried to get on my PC and has some nice features. I don't really want to try and attemp to remove it otherwise it's bound to ruin the system.

kind of adds an exclamation point to my first post, doesn't it?

i had a box at at work that was so hosed and so s-s-s-l-l-l-o-o-o-w-w-w because of 'norton security 2005' it was a pathetic joke. i probably spent well over an hour trying to uninstall it, both automatically and manually. another joke. seems there's a lot more complaints as well.

it may work fine on your system, but plenty of others have plenty of problems.

this isn't directed to you, but to everyone: just because something is popular doesn't mean it's worth a toot.

/atomizer steps off his soapbox, slips on a 'norton' CD, falls into a box of ready to incinerate AOL CD's and breaks his neck.

[Andrew932]

i had a box at at work that was so hosed and so s-s-s-l-l-l-o-o-o-w-w-w because of 'norton security 2005' it was a pathetic joke. i probably spent well over an hour trying to uninstall it, both automatically and manually. another joke. seems there's a lot more complaints as well.

It may be a problem if you get a problem in trying to contact them but as long as it's working there shouldn't be a problem? When I encounter a problem I'll install something else.

Having said that an article I found was pretty disturbing;

http://www.trimmail.com/news/elsewhere/data/1137037560.93/

http://digg.com/security/Symantec_caught_embedding_rootkits

New article as well.

Then again you could also say McaFe are upto something and the same with Avast and Grisoft...they could be one big virus spreading company just to make money out of people.

Back to Norton, I bet there are just as more people happy with their software as being unhappy. People have the tendancy to complain but never compliment

Edited January 18, 2006 by Andrew932

[LLXX]

Norton is definitely the worst. Their antivirus even misses some virii that others catch.

Actually, I don't use any resident security program. I find that it just slows down the machine and takes up unneeded memory. I just secure my browser and use a hardware firewall.

[Jeremy]

Not going to vote for any of them since I don't use All-In-One's. A router with strict settings, Sygate, Opera and common sense. All I need.

[DigeratiPrime]

Just like LLXX and Jeremy I dont use any anti-virus or firewall software on my pc.

I surf the internet with Firefox and the NoScript extension. Also I forward all my email through gmail so google can worry about the attatchments.

If something did go wrong its very easy for me to roll back the pc thanks to my Acronis True Image bootcd. Peace.

Edited January 18, 2006 by DigeratiPrime

[oneless]

Bitdefender 9 pro Plus

[DarkShadows]

I own full licenses of both Zone Alarm Internet Suite 2006, and Norton Internet Security (2002, 2004, and 2006).

I find Zone Alarm 2006 has the strongest Firewall with the most granular controls per web site. I also find it still allows for faster PC performance.

However, a huge downside is when you get an alert regarding a new web site, it doesn't let you know the site name, or take you its entry on the site list. It just lets you know what things were blocked, not were they came from. Some web pages pull objects from like 3-6 sites, and you need to see the site names so you can tweak things accordingly (I lock down everything an open it back up web page by web page).

Zone Alarm anti-virus scheduler is weaker than Norton's. It's anti-virus scheduler cannot be scheduled for off-hours unless the PC remains fully on 24/7 (i.e. it cannot go into S3 standby mode). Also, unless I missed something, a user must be logged in to perform an anti-virus scan. That blows small office or home office out of the water, where several people may share the PC but only one person administers the PC.

Zone Alarm Ad blocking does not appear as strong as Norton's, especially with web sites that use Macromedia Flash or Shockwave Advertisements.

I find that the Norton Suite strong in everything that Zone Alarms is weak in (and vice versa).

I prefer Norton Anti-Virus mainly because I can use the Windows XP Scheduler Service to schedule anti-virus definition updates and scans. I typically configure the PC to go into Suspend To RAM Standby (S3) after 30 minutes of inactivity. Then using the Windows XP Scheduler, the PC is woken up every night at 2:00 AM, it first downloads the latest viruses updates, then scans the entire system, then goes back to S3 Standby 30 minutes after it completes. I also use Windows Backup the same way at 4:00 AM. A user need not be logged in for either to run.

Norton has **** good advertisement blocking. The firewall is adequate, but the Interface to the advanced web site settings has been chunked up over the past few versions (I still prefer 2002 because all the site settings are together in one place, and are accessible by the tray icon menu). System Performance also has taken a noticeable hit successively with each version from 2002 to 2006.

Until I can figure out how to get Zone Alarm to sing and dance to the Windows Scheduler the way Norton can, I'm sticking with Norton for my customers. But I do look forward to the Day when the Zone Alarm scheduler grows up in that area.

I do not use either suite's Anti-Spam offerings, since there are much better independent anti-spam software solutions. I have customers using Norton's Parental Control, but I have not yet looked in-depth at Zone Alarm's equivalent. As to uninstalling: I have one the very PC I type to you now (in this order)

• Installed NIS 2002 (right after build)

• Uninstalled 2002 (year or so later)

• Installed NIS 2005 15-day trial (late 2004)

• Uninstalled NIS 2005 15-day trial (late 2004)

• Re-installed NIS 2002 (decided to stay with 2002)

• Uninstalled 2002

• Installed NIS 2006 15-day trial (a couple months back)

• Uninstalled NIS 2006 15-day trial (when it expired)

• Installed Zone Alarm 2006 15-day trial

• Uninstalled Zone Alarm 2006 15-day trial (when it expired)

• Installed NIS 2004 free (90 days) with my motherboard, but never used

At no time did any of these packages generate system stability issues, or not uninstall cleanly. All toolbars and buttons were gone from IE and WE, the registry settings were gone, the program files directories were gone. However both have impacted system performance, though Zone Alarm not as noticeable.

But like others here, I don't do too much stupid on my PC, and I also spend most of the time behind a hardware firewall. However I must test applications like these because I support customers who will not pay for hardware firewall (which these days this makes little sense since they are nearly the same price as a software firewall). And yes, when I test these apps, I disabled my hardware firewall.

Rather, I think that the biggest security threats today are not viruses, Spam or intrusion attacks so much as Ad-ware and Spyware. There is so much junk coming in it's silly. And not a single anti-spyware software does the job. I personally use 4 of them: the one included in Zone Alarm or Norton suite (both of which are lame, Microshaft's Antispyware BetaForLife, SpyBot Search & Destroy (which has the best Immunize function), and Yahoo! toolbar Anti-Spy. All for of these have caught something on my system that the others have never caught. Any ad-ware is rampant, more than you think.

No software does anything about (nor do I read anything about) what I call "Link Tracks". When you browse, a web page and click a link to another site, watch your Address URL blank: many advertisers are resorting to using double links: like this:

http://SomeAdvertiser.com?fdfrr4rvv/&link=http://TheSiteYouThoughtYouWereGoingto.com

And these things really take a long time if you have locked down the advertiser's web site in your Firewall.

Culprits include Tribalfusion, ATDMT, DoubleClick, and many others.

Oh, I didn't vote in the poll because I don't know enough about the other suites to pick a worst suite. To me Zone Alarm and Norton Tie for the strongest, each has strengths over the other and weaknesses under the other. But I can't knock any of the others having never used them.