Anti-Malware
Obviously, you'll find us positive about our own software for this purpose, Spybot - Search & Destroy, which should protected you well.
A very important advice when downloading any anti-malware application is to check the source of the file and the validity of the application twice. Do not use sponsored links on search engines for example - cheaters often try to sell inferior software "trials" labeled with the name of well known other products. Others are rogues that have only superficial functionality and might even install malware themselves to show they would detect something others are missing. A list of known fake or rogue applications can be found at Spyware Warrior.
Also, make sure the manufacturer of the solution you intend to install is a member of the ASC and does adhere to its standard (not all do, see below).
Anti-Virus
The classical area of protection that anyone knows about, initially centered on detecting files only, so we would still not recommend on depending on the malware protection from your AV (nor from that of your anti-malware - you'll need both).
Standard precautions to avoid the classical viruses haven't changed in a long time: do not open files you receive on disk or by email unless you scanned them with your antivirus application first. Do not open files a stranger sent you at all, nor files that seem to be coming from known persons, but are not accompanied with a personal letter (your friends machine might be infected and sending them out automatically). Verifying downloads by comparing their hash to one displayed on the website of the manufacturer is highly recommended (you can for example use our FileAlyzer for that purpose).
Our recommendation in this area would be Avira Anti-Vir.
Products we cannot recommend are:
A special bad place is earned by Symantec for their CEOs opinion about how much your privacy really should be worth.
Firewall
At the moment, we cannot really recommend any firewall product. On the one hand, we've (at some point over a long time, not continuously) experienced problems with all of them we tested and would not feel comfortable e.g. recommending a firewall that kills the system. On the other hand, we do not really believe in those one-thing-for-all solutions, where firewalls include anti-virus and anti-spyware applications that are often not as well maintained as dedicated solutions and may conflict with other installed security software.
After much thought, we've decided that we simply could not find any third party software firewall we can currently recommend with a safe conscience. The Windows Firewall could be regarded as sufficient for sensible Internet users; here's a pictured walkthrough by Microsoft. We'll update this part with better information when we come across it.
Spam Filters
If you've got an up to date version of your email application installed, it'll already come with a sufficient spam filter. If you enable it and it doesn't lead to good results immediately, you might have to "train" it for a few weeks by manually flagging spam emails. And the best protection against spam still is to deal sensitive with your personal data. Check twice or thrice where you leave your email address.
Obviously, you'll find us positive about our own software for this purpose, Spybot - Search & Destroy, which should protected you well.
A very important advice when downloading any anti-malware application is to check the source of the file and the validity of the application twice. Do not use sponsored links on search engines for example - cheaters often try to sell inferior software "trials" labeled with the name of well known other products. Others are rogues that have only superficial functionality and might even install malware themselves to show they would detect something others are missing. A list of known fake or rogue applications can be found at Spyware Warrior.
Also, make sure the manufacturer of the solution you intend to install is a member of the ASC and does adhere to its standard (not all do, see below).
Anti-Virus
The classical area of protection that anyone knows about, initially centered on detecting files only, so we would still not recommend on depending on the malware protection from your AV (nor from that of your anti-malware - you'll need both).
Standard precautions to avoid the classical viruses haven't changed in a long time: do not open files you receive on disk or by email unless you scanned them with your antivirus application first. Do not open files a stranger sent you at all, nor files that seem to be coming from known persons, but are not accompanied with a personal letter (your friends machine might be infected and sending them out automatically). Verifying downloads by comparing their hash to one displayed on the website of the manufacturer is highly recommended (you can for example use our FileAlyzer for that purpose).
Our recommendation in this area would be Avira Anti-Vir.
Products we cannot recommend are:
- Kaspersky Internet Security 2008 & 2009
- McAfee InternetSecurity 2008 & 2009
- Trendmicro Internet Security 2008 & 2009
A special bad place is earned by Symantec for their CEOs opinion about how much your privacy really should be worth.
Firewall
At the moment, we cannot really recommend any firewall product. On the one hand, we've (at some point over a long time, not continuously) experienced problems with all of them we tested and would not feel comfortable e.g. recommending a firewall that kills the system. On the other hand, we do not really believe in those one-thing-for-all solutions, where firewalls include anti-virus and anti-spyware applications that are often not as well maintained as dedicated solutions and may conflict with other installed security software.
After much thought, we've decided that we simply could not find any third party software firewall we can currently recommend with a safe conscience. The Windows Firewall could be regarded as sufficient for sensible Internet users; here's a pictured walkthrough by Microsoft. We'll update this part with better information when we come across it.
Spam Filters
If you've got an up to date version of your email application installed, it'll already come with a sufficient spam filter. If you enable it and it doesn't lead to good results immediately, you might have to "train" it for a few weeks by manually flagging spam emails. And the best protection against spam still is to deal sensitive with your personal data. Check twice or thrice where you leave your email address.
It was even mentioned in my first and third draft. That it didnt make it has basically three reasons:
Being constantly asked if application X may load library Y is something even more difficult to decide for the standard user, since it does not only happen during installations, but can happen any time (DLLs are sometimes dynamically loaded only when they're needed). Not a bad concept, but nothing I would recommend to some of my friends who "just want it to work", and to those technically interested only if I had a lot of time over the next to answer their phone calls