India Broadband Forum

India Broadband Forum

Today I’m a peaceful person, well at least from the computer security point of view. What’s more is that I carry out online financial transactions with complete peace of mind. Having seen countless people losing their login information for maybe a social networking website or even giving up their credit card details to a hacker in some other part of the world, it becomes a necessity to have some level of security while going online particularly from windows operating system based computers. One should be aware of the countless hazards which they expose themselves to as soon as they connect to the internet. Be it a virus, a Trojan, a keylogger…. the list is endless, and the person affected to the full fury of hackers is the windows user. I used to be a troubled man… virus infections every few weeks, system hangs, whole system formats, believe me I’ve seen it all! So one would assume it’s impossible to be fully secure while online, but thankfully I’ve found the feat quite achievable and the best part is that’s its completely free of charge!

For a secure online experience, all you need is a good antivirus, and a bidirectional firewall with HIPS (Host Intrusion Prevention System). Having tried most of these solutions in the past 5 years, I’m glad to say that I’ve landed on the perfect antivirus that is the Avira Antivir Personal Edition (Free for home use). As far as the firewall goes, it’s Online Armor Free Edition. Avira has one of the best detection rates in the industry (occasionally throwing up a false positive as well) and my system formats were already down to once or twice in a year after I installed this great application on my computer. However the infections completely ended when I installed Online Armor. It is one of the best free bidirectional firewalls available. What that means is that it will filter all outgoing and incoming traffic on your system, meaning that an application would require the user’s consent before connecting to the internet, including any malware trying to transmit your credit card details or login information to some hacker or maybe even trying to download more malware after your system has been infected. But this would only happen if the malware gets past Avira as well as the HIPS. What the HIPS does is that it would require the user’s consent before any piece of unknown and possibly harmful software runs on your computer. Hence the user can identify strange activities on their systems and block the virus before it even has the chance to run! Hence saving you the time as well as the agony of performing a cleanup operation after your system has been infected.

I do not say that it is absolutely impossible for your system to be infected, but this setup is one of the most secure, while maintaining system performance, available.

itsmemad

Nicely explained.

I believe that a good antivirus + a good bi-directional firewall + a good antispyware + windows defender + windows updates are more than enough to secure your Computer from a malware or a hacker.

Right now I'm using Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 (paid) which has all the first three features (improved from the previous versions). Never formatted the Computer since last 10 months. No infections.

imrock

dude use 2010. its latest.

Vasundra

Does the free version of avg avast kaspersky provide any help?

meetdilip

Avast is good. AVG not recommended.

itsmemad

I know about it. Heard good reviews on this forum itself. However, I'm too lazy to upgrade it.

Vasundra

Ok but I did mention free I'll try using kaspersky 2010.

itsmemad

There is a trial version of Kaspersky 2010 for the period of one month on its website. However, some third-party vendors do provide time-to-time 3 months or 6 months Keys on their websites. Maybe you can try here: Free Kaspersky Antivirus 2010 license key for 6 months (Free 6 Months kaspersky antivirus genuine and legal!)

imrock

rajan1310

15 char rule was made to avoid single "lol" posts, here is a solution to that problem