Dump F-Secure?

[AusDog]

F-Secure seems to rate poorly so I was thinking about replacing it with Personal Armor Free and Avira Free and just dumping F-Secure. I get it free from my ISP and that seems to be what it is worth. It also locks up the installation of some applications. Last nite sitting in email and nothing downloading my CPU usage jumped to 98% and the computer was locked for about 5 minutes. Could have been software updating but thats the first time I ever saw the CPU go wild. Would the combination of Personal Armor Free and Avira free with a hardware firewall be enough to protect me? I was considering RegCure as they had big claims but the trial broke my OLE for my printer to everything. A friend at Spybot helped me get rid of some trojans but I didn't do it quite right.

[tashi]

Hi there,

These topics may be of interest as members give their own experiences.

Firewalls - Any Advice? (http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=18603)

Anti Virus Programs (http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=9289)


A friend at Spybot helped me get rid of some trojans but I didn't do it quite right.

Could you enlarge upon that please, thanks. :)

[md usa spybot fan]

AusDog:

I can not comment as to whether or not you should "Dump F-Secure".

Assuming that by referring to "Personal Armor Free" you are actually referring to "Personal Online Armor Free" by "Tall Emu" and not some knock off product named "Personal Armor Free" (i.e. "… Armor …" vs. "… Online Armor …").

I am personally using Personal Online Armor Free (2.1.0.131) and Avira AntiVir Personal (8.1.00.295) without a hardware firewall and I am satisfied with the protection the combination provides.

In addition, I use the following as protective measures:
Spybot's features:
TeaTimer.
SDHelper.
As well as Immunization.
Javacool Software's:
SpywareBlaster.
SpywareGuard.
Microsoft's Windows Defender.
Note on Personal Online Armor Free: Although it is rated the best in "out of the box" firewall for leak tests (outbound communications), I believe that rating must be tempered by the skill/knowledge of the user to understand what they allow or disallow when Online Armor requests decisions via pop-up dialogs.

[honda12]

Would the combination of Personal Armor Free and Avira free with a hardware firewall be enough to protect me?

Yeah, that combination is sufficient for most users (note about Avira free AV - When testing I found it was quite slow to update (free servers are busy) and also an advertisement pops up after update - but I did test this when v8 was first released so Avira may have made some changes)


I was considering RegCure as they had big claims but the trial broke my OLE for my printer to everything.

Yeah I personally believe that you should never use registry cleaners as I have not seen a single 'error being fixed' or a 'computer's performance increased dramatically'. I view it as more of a placebo effect, where we are made to feel good when we see that loading bar rise up and that reassuring dialogue box saying 'Errors Fixed!'. Someone should just make a program that just has a loading bar and a dialogue box at 100% to see if this is true.
^
|
|- Errm yeah, a little ramble :laugh:

[AusDog]

Sorry it's been a while but it seems like I'm always up to my butt in aligators. Lot of water under the bridge in the interim. I have tried every free anti-virus prog and firewall out there. I finally decided on Avast and Comodo only the firewall. The constant message about so and so is doing this and do you want to let it drives me nuts. I wouldn't have told it to do what it's doing if I didn't want it to do so.
The reason for this post is that I have had this virus or Trojan before and got rid of it but everytime I use SmitFraudFix and run Avast before OS loading, Avast dumps half the computer. Works but boy is it a pain. This Bug should have a name because I can tell when I have it. Everytime I open a RAR or Zip, when I go to close it RAR says another program has altered the contents of the files that were used and do you want to put the added material into the archive. I guess that could be the program that I ran from inside the archive has made changes to itself but I don't think so. When it starts doing it it does it with every RAR or Zip.

[drragostea]

AusDog, I would not recommend using the tools such as ComboFix and SmitFraudFix without supervision. It could seriously trash your machine, rendering it unbootable (in extreme cases).

I have to say Comodo Pro Firewall's Defense + is a powerful tool (although it can drive you crazy with the prompts) that can protect against the installation of rookits and spyware. Like keep them at bay. It would be like the "NoScript" in Mozilla Firefox if I had to compared D+. Once you get used to it, D+ will be like nothing. You can disable it anytime.

So you were saying, you have a malware infection?

[AusDog]

Avast AV see's anything touched by Smitfraud as having the "SmitFraud Virus" and thusly deletes it. Avast dumped 20 gigs of stuff and I had to dump 30 gigs of back-ups. I guess it's a Trojan that I get rid of and then it will re-appear a good bit later. I think it's a re-infection by the same "bug". Suddenly when I have it, any RAR or ZIP that I open, Rar says another program made a change to the data in the archive and would I like to include it into the archive. Trojan?

[drragostea]

So you were saying, you have a malware infection?
It may or may not reappear. It would depend if it was completely disabled and removed.

You may want to consider starting your thread in the Malware Removal Forums to purge this threat.