zone alarm...and then....

[lvr989]

when you've bought the super dooper software which grinds everything to a stop....they send you an e-mail saysing....suffering from spyware?....want to
buy our spyware elimintaor...........I'VE JUST BOUGHT YOUR SOFTWARE WHICH
BESIDES SLOWING MY MACHINE TO HALT, SUPPOSED TO STOP EVERYTHING
HARMFUL......NOW YOU'RE TRYING TO SELL ME SOMETNING TO STOP SOMETHING THAT THE SOFTWARE YOU SOLD ME (WHICH WOULD STOP EVERYTHING) SHOULD HAVE ALREADY STOPPED......BUT YOUR NOW SAYING THAT IT WON'T.......!!!!! IF I COULD COMPLAIN TO SOMEONE OTHER THAN
E-MAIL..... OR A SUPPORT LINE THAT COSTS ME $80 A MINUTE.
is there no alternative?

[Saratoga]

Yes. You've got the Hardware or the Software option.

If you're on broadband, get a NAT router with built in ADSL modem, and that will protect you from most of the inbound threats.

Otherwise there are other free software firewalls aroun, and then of course there is google to help some problems... ;)

Free is the operative word here :) AVG is free, so is Adaware & Spybot S&D....

However, with the amount of bugs out there in the world these days and getting worse all the time there is one final peice of protection which is well worth at terminating 95 percent of the virus and hack threads out there.



















It's called Linux :D :D :D :) :)

[Bryan]

It's a common misunderstanding that firewalls will block spyware, adware and a virus, this is not the case however as each handles its own department.

Firewalls block access to ports on your computer.

Adware scanners remove adware.

Trojan scanners remove trojans.

There are some "all in one" applications out there but in my experience they are never as effective as each dedicated application and usually a system hog too.

If you want a really good level of protection against webpage based threats such as a virus, adware or trojans then invest in Adaware SE version (requires purchase) which has a memory resident blocker for adware and bad cookies, spybot S&D which also has a memory resident blocker for trojans and AVG which will control any virus. (NB: neither of the resident apps are enabled by default so make sure you enable them in the options)

I run all 3 together and haven't been infected for a very long time as it catches them before they even transfer to my machine.

You may also want to change browsers if you use IE as that is also full of holes, if you like how IE works then try Maxthon as it's based on IE and is everything IE should have been.