Which is the best vista firewall/antivirus program?

[etqg]

hiyall.
just inquiring as to peoples opinions on the best firewall/antivirus program, I'm using vista "ultimate" any and all of your suggestions are welcome.

p.s. anyone who suggests avg will be deleted.

[Hans Olo]

Any and every "software firewall" is a bad joke from a hacker's POV. Get a decent router, problem solved. I know, that's not the answer you were looking for, but it's the only answer a honest IT guy can give you.

[yeti]

I use a really good one called "Ubuntu".

[JFK]

I agree with Hans Olo.

[etqg]

have a good router, but i'm just looking for something computer-side for a little extra defence, to make sure things aren't connecting to wherever, programs aren't running without me saying so, which is something that a software firewall is good for. finding a good antivirus can also be a problem as different programs seem to pick up different things... problem is which one picks up them all ? i found a thread suggesting avira which i am currently testing the free version seems to be much better than avg for obvious reasons.

[damage]

Ubuntu doesn't come with software firewall installed or configured by default last time I checked, maybe things changed. BTW, hardware firewall aka, router with SPI and stateful based firewall, are also a JOKE, actually, your better having both (soft and hard, in layers), but the most important is, if you want to get the best out of your firewall, you need to know how it works, how to create rules (correctly), and get used to managing it, most people don't care to do this.

if dealing with a software firewall, and software in general, exploits are found all the time (remote exploits are the golden nuggets), by non-employee's. You can block all the ports you want, you'll always need to use some service port, or your essentially doing nothing.

THERE IS NO SECURITY, get used to it.

If you care for your date, BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP.

If you are just looking for virus protection (not necessarily prevention), then avast works. Just so you feel comfortable, you can run avast, and also occasionally, run clamav portable (of course updating it before scanning). Remember, all current A/V technology is based on "signature detection" databases, so you have to depend on the software provider to release these sequences as soon as they can, but many, actually, ALL OF THEM, miss many signatures, that is why I suggest multiple scanners based off different providers.

I would also suggest you look into vmware server, trust me, you'll like it if you've never heard of it before.

If your looking for a linux distribution that comes configured out of the default install with firewall and other security features, try SuSE (redhat based).

Good luck.

[JFK]

Once you *think* you have your router set up correctly I would suggest taking some "quality time" with the shields up online utility by Gibson research company which can be accessed from this page :

http://www.grc.com/default.htm

( scroll down to "shields up" )

[etqg]

thanks damage. good info, much appreciated.

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thanks jfk.

[JFK]

(11-09-2009 10:07 PM)etqg Wrote:  thanks damage. good info, much appreciated.

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thanks jfk.

YW... Just a side note, when I was setting mine up I had several ports which reported that they were closed when in fact they were not...

"Shields up" helped me diagnose that and eventually I did manage to close them all, with the exception of the ones I use for torrents ( which I have reassigned to obscure numbers )

edit to add - a quick recheck of my first 1056 ports...