I am confused about Internet Security. So please guide me with utmost honesty (Please don’t fool me because I am naive about Internet Security). I am a housewife (who used to once work as a Foxpro Programmer. But later I quit the job and started taking care of my home and family). So although I am a good foxpro programmer (and not entirely naive about using a PC) I don’t know much about internet. Lately, I have started using Internet. Now, I have come to know that viruses, worms, spywares, malaware, adware, etc. can attack my personal computer even if I open my emails. In order to prevent this from happening I should have anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc. installed on my personal computer. I have also been advised to install something termed as ‘firewall’. Besides, there are so many products (McAfee Anti-Virus, Norton Anti-Virus, E-SET Safe, Trend Micro, Quick Heal, AVG, Kaspersky, etc.) And if I visit these companies’ websites I see they have multiple products that they are manufacturing. For example, I installed AVG Free for home users. But the company also sells a paid version of that Anti-virus software and also selling something termed AVG Internet Security. Similarly, McAfee sells something termed Security Center. Now, I am all confused. I have several questions:

Question #1: Which is the best Anti-Virus software currently? I am confused about which of these softwares should I buy? For example, should I buy McAfee Anti-Virus or Norton (which one is better? I don’t know and so I can’t make up my mind). Now, McAfee and Norton are just two examples. In reality, in the market place in anti-virus category itself there are several products. So an expert may tell me that I should neither buy McAfee or Norton; but instead choose Kaspersky because it is best anti-virus currenty around. So I feel you should guide me seriously about which is the best Anti-Virus software available as of now.

Question #2: What is Internet Security? For example, several of these companies have their Internet Security Softwares. Now, does that mean that if I buy Internet Security Suite of a company it will give me full protection from Viruses, Spywares, Worms, Trojans, Malaware, Adware and what not and will this Internet Security Suite also install its firewall or whether for a firewall I will have to search for another company? Which is the best Internet Security Suite/Software currently available.

Question #3: What is a firewall? What purpose does it serve? Now, my Windows Vista also has a firewall (that perhaps got installed when my PC came pre-installed with MS Vista Home Basic). Now, is this Vista firewall not enough as a protection? And which is the best firewall software currently?

Thanks & Regards,

Anita Mallya.

Antivirus applications are useless and don’t offer protection, because they operate retroactively instead of proactively.

Think about it. If you were a virus writer, wouldn’t the first thing you do be to test it against all the major antivirus applications to make sure it can get by those? And when you release your virus at 1:35 PM, how would the antivirus definitions have a definition for your virus at 1:35 PM exactly? Or even at 2:00 PM? There’s no way.

Apart from having outdated virus definitions, antivirus applications also try to guess what are viruses based on file attributes, and that just leads to a lot of false positives that get people into a panic over nothing ("I have tracking cookies? Oh no!") while also not getting all viruses either.

Bottom line, antivirus is a waste of resources and even money if you spent money on it.

If you want to real internet security, here’s what you should do, in this order:

1. Set up and use almost exclusively a limited user account. Very few viruses target a limited user account, since they want to get their hooks into Windows’ system files and registry, but even if they did somehow manage to compromise the limited user account, you could simply delete that account and start a new account instead of having to reinstall Windows to get rid of the infection.

2. Google the term "social engineering" and read the first five results. Almost all malware infections rely on tricking the user, as opposed to exploiting security holes in the operating system.

3. Do not download pirated software, music, or movies.

4. Install Windows updates automatically.

5. Use Firefox with the NoScript extension installed.

6. Use strong passwords (no dictionary words, no numbers associated with you).

If you do all that, you won’t get infected, especially #1 and #2.

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