A free security software which does everything for me?

[mouskydude]

Hello,i look all over, and im so confused.
I need an FREE anti-virus and firewall, but all these settings seem very confusing, and the same goes for all pop-ups asking me what to do, aint there any out there what makes it own decision to keep me safe and runs super fast which uses hardly any system resources? so it will leave a novice user alone and sort everything out for me? please help me...

 

[Rusting In Peace]

It doesn't matter what security software you have installed; if the user isn't educated in computer security then they are the biggest security weakness.

Rather than letting a program make all your decisions for you, I'd strongly recommend you learn more. Read wikipedia entries and ask questions on these forums. People are very helpful here and most will take the time to explain things in detail.

Whilst I'm sure it's not the answer you want to hear it will help you in the long run.

 

[davcon]

What O/S do you run?

 

[mouskydude]

i have Windows 7. Thanks rusting in peace, i appreciate you honesty, but are there any still, because i also wanted to give it friends, and they hardly know anything about computers, so it would be likely they may allow everything what pops up. Wont this be worse? and how often does someone try to hack a home user, is it common? Is the lastest mozilla firefox better and more secure than the new ie9? and what do you think about comodo internet secuirty? it just recently got its vb100?

 

[Rusting In Peace]

Yeah just pressing "allow" to everything is just as bad as having no security installed.

It's all about gain. No one will sit and try and "hack" your or my machine if there is no clear benefit. So home users rarely see such attention from someone manually trying to gain access. More often, users will come across generic, passive attempts like links to malicious websites, malware, spyware etc.

Every browser is as insecure as the next! With each release there are security fixes but there are also added features which may new introduce security issues. What I will say however is that cost still comes into play here. A malicious code writer is far more likely to write something for the most popular browser because it will affect more people and is thus likely to be more beneficial to them. I'd probably recommend using Firefox with the noscript add on installed.

I've used Comodo for a few years now and it does have the popup feature that you don't really want. However I think it can be configured to leave the user alone. By doing this though you run the risk of it making false positives as well as false negatives. That is to say it blocks programs that are actually ok and allows through things that should be blocked!

So I'd recommend using the following:

Firefox 4 with Noscript installed.
AVG Free
Comodo Firewall
Malwarebytes to run occasionally.

 

[mouskydude]

Thank you so much for your help, great awnsers too, exactly what i was looking for, great info 'Rusting In Peace', big thanks for all your help, your a star!

 

[davcon]

I use MSE which integrates with Windows Update.
Very easy to use and i've been virus free since installing it in Dec 2009.

 

[Rusting In Peace]

big thanks for all your help

No problem buddy, happy to help!