The danger of not having Antivirus and Internet Security tools

I fully agree with the thought that if every single computer in the world had an up to date security software package, and every single user of that computer had knowledge of how to protect their information, viruses would become things of the past. However, that will most likely never be realistic. Virus', Malware, Spyware, Botnets, Rootkits... They are some of the biggest pains you will ever face on a computer system. They can steal data, ruin the Operating System and destroy your life. Yahoo! Tech posted an article a few days ago regarding a server farm that had been housing stolen data. They pretty much summed it up when they said, "Getting hacked is like having your computer turn traitor on you, spying on everything you do and shipping your secrets to identity thieves." The article can be found here: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090315/ap_on_hi_te/tec_inside_a_botnet
and I suggest that you read it if you have a few minutes.

I have tried quite a few different antivirus and Internet Security software packages over the last 3 years. Everything from AVG, DefenderPro, Kaspersky, McAfee and many many others. So far, my favorite would be Kaskpersky but it is a lot of work to initially set up. I've owned it for about 4 months now and I haven't had any issues with it letting malicious content in. It's a bit pricey though and can frustrate users who don't have patience or time to devote to getting it set up. McAfee has been pretty helpful as well and is a little less expensive. I had a few issues where it wasn't pulling updates down from the server but I got that resolved by calling the tech support. AVG is probably the next on my list of ones to trust. It worked, but I didn't care for the user interface. And finally, DefenderPro. The 15in1 package was awesome the 10in1 is good but the 5in1 is too basic. Most people wouldn't use half of the stuff on the 15in1, but it gets the job done for a fairly decent price. I did have a few issues where I upgraded from a previous version and it didn't install correctly. This had a very negative effect on my computer. It made the alg.exe process start for every file that it scanned on my computer. I would start scanning and would have 300 processes running in no time that I couldn't kill! Not the most pleasant experience. :-P Other than that, all of them kept the malware at bay. I don’t routinely surf dangerous web sites that are know to have malware though. I did test them out by infecting my system with the Antivirus 2009 and Police Antivirus 2009 viruses. All of them were able to remove these with no problem. The only virus that I did have a problem with fully removing was a couple of Vundo variants. I will post about them some other time though. They can be nasty buggers to get rid of!!

Well, that’s all for now. I will try and post something tonight, but as I’m living out of a hotel I may not have enough free time.