Internet Security - What do i need?

[Oh_Mutants]

Ok after finally getting fed up fo paying for Norton every year i've decided to go a different route. I've downloaded and installed AVG free edition & Zone Alarm (free), and already have Spybot & Ad Aware on my PC to check for spyware, & PeerGuardian for when using torrents. I have to be honest though and say i'm really not up on the tech side of PC's at all (installed most of these on the advice of a friend), so am wanting some of you guys' advice on whether this will be enough or i'm missing something important, if those programmes i have are all good enough etc etc Oh, and should i have Windows firewall on or off as i now have Zone Alarm
really appreciate any advice on this, thanks in advance

[Hohum]

Turn off Windows firewall if you're using Zone Alarm, you don't need both. AVG is alright, my personal preference would be Avast though (just is more configurable I find).

[Oh_Mutants]

Cool. Just to show up my lack of knowledge more, do i need to configure Zone Alarm to allow Xbox Live & PS3 online gaming to run as well as it was before? Tried a game of R6V online & it seemed a little more laggy than usual, or is this likely to be just coincidence?

[Pilotwings]

Im no expert but all i do is use zone alarm free and then use the free trails of ZA security suite etc when ever i like.

And whenever ive ever got something really nasty on my pc that nothing shifts i would Download some top of the range software and then tell them a few weeks later that it didn't work and get my credit card refunded like im entitled to.

[anephric]

Bear in mind if you ever want to get rid of ZoneAlarm (which I did years ago, cos it's leaky as feck) it's a horror to completely uninstall. An absolute horror.

Personally, I use Comodo Firewall, which takes a little more setting up for the novice user, but is miles better, more secure, and less of a resource hog. Before that, I used Kerio, which isn't really supported any more, but again has a small resource footprint and is better than ZA, imo.

For antivirus, I've tried loads but my main priority is a balance between effectiveness and, again, resource hogging. BitDefender, NOD32 and Kaspersky all slowed my system down far too much for my liking, and on the free front I've only ever really used AVG or Avast. Considering, these days, most reviewers big-up AVG as having about a 10% better detection rate than Avast I tried using it for a month or so a while back (after using Avast completely successfully for two years or so) and immediately got a nasty XP reset virus that AVG patently couldn't shift, even in safe mode with up-to-date definitions. I reinstalled Avast (with month-and-a-half old defs) and it shifted it in 5 mins. QED. AVG sucks donkey balls.

For spyware AVG is pretty good, and you get a month's free realtime protection before it defaults back to the basic package, and Superantispyware seemed pretty good when I used it too. Don't use Comodo's BOCleaner, even though it's free (including realtime) because it never picked up on anything ever. I don't bother with Spybot anymore because it seems so hideously out of date and the realtime Tea-Timer protection caused more problems than it prevented, though the immunisation feature is pretty good. I still use Ad-Aware in combination with others mentioned.

AOL offer a free cut-down Mcafee antivirus and firewall here, if you're interested.