Firewall or Anti-Virus?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Arif Mehal
  • Start date Start date
Arif said:
Which is better, a Firewall or an AntiVirus program? .
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These are only a mere few individual and valuable constituent pieces
of your system's overall protection plan.

Is a good NAT router better than antispyware protection?
 
1PW said:
These are only a mere few individual and valuable constituent pieces
of your system's overall protection plan.

Is a good NAT router better than antispyware protection?
Click to expand...

No..
 
Which is better, a Firewall or an Anti-Virus program? .
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That's like asking which is better, a steak dinner or a Cadillac car.
A firewall and an anti-virus program each do two different things and
should not be compared this way. You should have both.

I recommend using the Windows firewall and either NOD32 (if you are
willing to pay for it) or Avast (if you want freeware).

Also note that you have mentioned only two of the three kinds of
necessary security applications. The third type is anti-spyware, and
because none of these is near perfect, everybody should run at least
two of these (but not at the same time). I recommend MalwareBytes
Anti-Malware, and Super Anti-Spyware (both free).
 
1PW said:
Correct. Apples vs oranges.

I was playing devil's advocate here Mike.
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It's kind of like asking, "Which is better a Ford or a sandbox?"

--
JimL

If some scientist doesn't think it makes sense, then it doesn't make sense;
ergo, nothing makes sense, because someone found fault with every theory
ever developed. Ecc 1:14
 
Which is better, a Firewall or an Anti-Virus program? .
Click to expand...

A firewall and Anti-virus programs have nothing to do with each other,
they perform different functions and don't do the same thing.

A firewall is for blocking traffic.

Anti-Virus software is for blocking and removing malware.
 
Your computer - you choose ; whichever you like .
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Except don't use Norton, they suck. I'd recommend AVG or Avast for
antivirus and Zonealarm for Firewall. Also make sure not to install
more than 1 antivirus program at a time or your computer is going to
hate you.
 
Your computer - you choose ; whichever you like .
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"Your computer - you choose whichever you like" is certainly an
appropriate answer when talking about programs like browsers, e-mail
clients, word processors, and so on. Differences between such programs
are primarily in features and user interface, and what features you
need and you like are far and away the most important factors.

But when it comes to security software, choosing by "whatever you
like" is the worst way to do it. The main factor in security software
is effectiveness in protecting you, and they are far from equal in
this regard.

And to answer Arif Mehal's question, yes, they can be from different
companies. I am almost always against choosing any kind of suite of
software, whether it's security software or any other kind. You should
choose the best and most affordable of each type--anti-virus program,
anti-spyware programs, firewall--regardless of who makes each. In my
earlier message in this thread I recommended which to get in each of
those areas.

When it comes to office suites, I recommend choosing what works best
for you, and that varies depending on your particular needs. Having
those programs come from different companies is just fine. As an
example of what I mean, I personally prefer Corel WordPerfect to
Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel to Corel Quattro Pro. Your
preferences may be the opposite of mine because your needs are
different, and that's just fine
 
Arif Mehal said:
Which is better, a Firewall or an Anti-Virus program? .
Click to expand...

They are two different animals providing two different sets of functions
for you. You need both. You also need an arsenal of say 3 different
anti-spyware applications to take care of malware that AV doesn't look
for.
I'd suggest looking them up on Wikipedia.com if the differences
aren't obvious to you. Lots of people are in your boat, so don't feel
bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti_virus
are good starting points with good links and references.

HTH,

Twayne`
 
Hodges said:
Except don't use Norton, they suck. I'd recommend AVG or Avast for
antivirus and Zonealarm for Firewall. Also make sure not to install
more than 1 antivirus program at a time or your computer is going to
hate you.
Click to expand...

Zonealarm is good. Reliable, stable, relatively easy to use/set.

Norton AV 2009 is great and is vastly improved in 2009, and superior to
most.

You can indeed "install" as many firwalls as you like, but do not have
more than one firewall monitoring your connections in real time.
Whenever anything works in real time, you want it to be only one app at
a time.

Just for completeness, there should also be about 3 anti-spyware tools
on your system too, to use for scanning for things that AV doesn't find.
AVware finds little else than viruses and each malware/spyware detector
has its own strengths but so far no one has created one that covers all
the bases. If you want opinions on which ones are the better ones, just
ask; you'll get lots of responses. There are quite a few good ones out
there and most are free.

HTH,

Twayne`
 
1PW said:
These are only a mere few individual and valuable constituent pieces
of your system's overall protection plan.

Is a good NAT router better than antispyware protection?
Click to expand...

No, but it's a good adjunct.

HTH,

Twayne`
 
Twayne said:
No, but it's a good adjunct.

HTH,

Twayne
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I apologize Twayne. This was asked & posted facetiously.

The foundation for safe computer use is based on all the theories and
practices we've outlined here. Neglect any one of them, and failure
will certainly find its way to your system.

We may not agree on the specific choice of brands/products but we're
probably in definite lock step on all the basics.

Respectfully,
 
No, but it's a good adjunct.
Click to expand...

But a quality NAT router is better than a SOFT firewall that you don't
understand how to use properly or where you run as a local Admin
account.
 
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