UKC

My ISP was taken over by Talk Talk. They are now discontinuing the old package. Part of the new package they are offering includes a downloadable internet security element that is said to provide Antivirus, Firewall, Antispyware and Antispam. Currently I use AVGfree for much if this. Should I use the TalkTalk offer?

In reply to harold walmsley: Generally, these days, the firewalls on the ISP servers are pretty good at stopping stuff getting in from the outside. Stopping stuff getting onto your PC when you click on stuff can be prevented by now clicking on dodgy sites or opening dodgy emails.

I can't help feeling that anti virus software is slowly becoming defunct, especially now that the likes of Microsoft and Google are creating software that doesn't contain quite as many holes as it once did. Here at work, we have to deal with more issues with people's antivirus software stopping our software from working than almost any other problem.

In reply to harold walmsley:

I assume you're talking about Windows? Microsoft now themselves make their own anti-virus/anti-malware/etc. s/w freely available: google for 'Microsoft Security Essentials.' That should do the job you want.

In reply to abcdefg:
I assume that the Microsoft, AVG and TalkTalk systems will all do the job to a degree. The question is which would be best or does it not matter which (i.e. are all likely to be good enough)?

In reply to harold walmsley:


I know nothing about the Talk Talk s/w, and I can't say which of the alternatives you're considering would be 'best' for you. Functionally, of course, all of these things do similar jobs.

My *advice* is to use Microsoft Security Essentials now that - finally! - Microsoft has addressed this general issue, and started to provide such s/w as part of its general Windows provision. (Had it done so earlier in the piece, the overall lay of the land would be different of course. I assume it's late to the party for commercial reasons, among others.)

Anti-virus s/w hooks deeply into the guts of the Windows, and can be the cause of mysterious bugs in the running system. We can *probably* trust Microsoft to introduce fewer such bugs than do other vendors of anti-virus s/w: after all, they have complete access to all details of the OS.

Whichever s/w you decide on, if you do decide to change the s/w, make sure you completely remove all traces of the 'old' s/w before installing the 'new': not doing so is another well-known way to introduce bugs and problems to your system.

Does that help? Good luck, in any case.