That description of the poodle cracked me up!

ali

Hi Guy's and girl's. Ok, I have been followeing this post and the first night it was presented, I went into my control panel and got rid of Norton. I then downloaded the free versions of Adaware and Spybot, search and destroy. I am not real sure how to use them though. Advice would be great. For now, I have been starting the search in each program manually. They run for about an hour plus....is that normal. At the end it just says complete or something to the effect. Once or twice it showed something, but I wasn't sure how to get rid of it.

Honestly, I've got lots of questions about many subjects, but the security thing is pretty important. Ok, so, Norton is gone, the 2 other programs are installed. Will I always have to launch them manually?

I also have Mcafee. I have only subscribed to one program and that was Registry Mechanic. It seemed to speed up a lot of stuff. I do not subscrib to Mcafee but the pop ups keep showing up. Is it something that I will want to uninstall? Why?

I don't understand all the different programs to start with.

Let me ask this. Sorry for being such a newb!
What is the purpose of Spybot?
What is the purpose of Adaware?
What is Norton suppose to do?
Same question of Mcafee?

I read about Kaspersky. Is that a free program? What is it's purpose?

I only ask so I am clearer about what I need, what you recommend and why I need it.

Thanks a bunch

Carl

Hi guys/gals....

I would have to agree with both James and Davin and whoever else here is involved in some sort of IT work (I think Craig is also) that you absolutely must have protection (antivirus and antispyware) if you are online.

sandelman, the purpose of all of those products is to provide protection for you while you are online. The adaware and spybot programs detect the badware and the norton and mcafee products provide virus protection for both your online surfing and emails.

The Kaspersky product can provide both of those solutions for you if you care to purchase the combo. AVG does the same if you pay for their product.

I have not had the experience of identity theft and hope to never have, but I have spoken with a few people who have experienced it and let me tell you, there is definitely some paranoia about even connecting to the internet after one has gone through it.

Personally, I use a product from CA (computer associates) that includes both a/v and a/s protection. I use it on all of my computers (I think that is 6 of them last time I counted).

One of the things that I have learned in my years of tech support is that it is ALWAYS the end user who has to be wary of what sites you/they are visiting. I have, both purposely and unintentionally, infected my computers with virus' and spyware/badware. You don't want the stuff!

Why did I do it purposely? Just to see how well I am able to rid the machines of the crap or if it's just better to reformat and reinstall and also to have to ability to speak of the issue with first hand knowledge.

Well, as James mentioned, I will look forward to his ebook coming out and read it.

Hi guys/gals....

I would have to agree with both James and Davin and whoever else here is involved in some sort of IT work (I think Craig is also) that you absolutely must have protection (antivirus and antispyware) if you are online.

sandelman, the purpose of all of those products is to provide protection for you while you are online. The adaware and spybot programs detect the badware and the norton and mcafee products provide virus protection for both your online surfing and emails.

The Kaspersky product can provide both of those solutions for you if you care to purchase the combo. AVG does the same if you pay for their product.

I have not had the experience of identity theft and hope to never have, but I have spoken with a few people who have experienced it and let me tell you, there is definitely some paranoia about even connecting to the internet after one has gone through it.

Personally, I use a product from CA (computer associates) that includes both a/v and a/s protection. I use it on all of my computers (I think that is 6 of them last time I counted).

One of the things that I have learned in my years of tech support is that it is ALWAYS the end user who has to be wary of what sites you/they are visiting. I have, both purposely and unintentionally, infected my computers with virus' and spyware/badware. You don't want the stuff!

Why did I do it purposely? Just to see how well I am able to rid the machines of the crap or if it's just better to reformat and reinstall and also to have to ability to speak of the issue with first hand knowledge.

Well, as James mentioned, I will look forward to his ebook coming out and read it.

Ok...I am off of my soapbox...thanks for reading...

Ron

Ok, so now that I have the free versions of Spybot and Adaware,
I seem to have to run them manually. Adaware 2007 says many times, something else running Bla Bla and so the program won't run, however the Spybot runs fine.

It sounds like the kaspersky may be a good program then....but $79 seems like a bundle of $$$. I've looked inseveral places and can't find it cheaper. Any idea's?

If I purchase Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 for a year at $79 do I need the spybot and adaware if it's a complete program?

One last thing, is there updates that are more reasonably priced for following years?

Carl

Hi, I'm answering in a rush, I just though for general definitions the articles here

target="_blank">http://anti-virus-and-internet-security.blogspot.com/

might be useful to you, as they were written for the purpose of being easily understandable to those less familiar with the subject.