Best Computer Protection

There is no single best computer protection program. I realize that this may sound a little controversial, but it's true. Go to the websites of specialized computer protection companies with security suites like Norton Internet Security and McAfee Internet Security and they will of course tell you otherwise. It's only logical that they will explain to you that their particular computer security product is the only one you need. We wouldn't expect Symantec to tell you that in some cases you'd be better off with a McAfee product would we?

Best Computer Protection – combined products?

This isn't to say that you should go and install multiple antivirus protection softwares or internet security suites on your pc in order to have total protection. Installing multiple security products certainly isn’t best practice.

In fact, installing multiple security products on one pc will have you suffering from system problems, because the actions of product A may look suspicious to product B, and vice versa. You certainly don't want this to happen, because when two security tools start blocking each other's actions, that's when you will start having a hard time keeping your computer performing at its best.

The truth is, however, that new viruses and new internet threats are released on the internet every day. You can even find specialized toolkits that allow you to build your own virus! Can you imagine that? With a few clicks of the mouse you indicate what you want the virus to do (randomly delete files, destroy the hard drive's master boot record, …) and out comes a new virus that has all the "features" that you selected. Luckily those kinds of viruses are relatively easily detected by most antivirus softwares.

Some are more sophisticated

The real threats come from more specialized kinds of virus developers and every now and then a new virus gets released on the internet that is just so new that even the best computer protection and antivirus programs don't even recognize it as being dangerous. I personally have witnessed situations where antivirus product A didn't recognize a certain virus, whereas antivirus product B on the same computer was able to detect the dangerous malicious software and eliminate it. This was of course after uninstalling antivirus product A first, before installing product B. As I explained above, it isn't the best idea to have more than one computer protection software installed on your pc. (I deliberately left out the real names of the computer protection programs, because they don't really contribute to the point I'm trying to make in this article and I don't want to give bad credit to any particular computer security software)

Can we decide that, in the above anecdote, product B is the best computer protection program and that product A is inferior? Well, it's a little more complicated than that, because with the exact same two products I have also seen situations with malware infections where the infection went unnoticed by the other product.

What you can take away from this is that every antivirus program can drop the ball occasionally under certain circumstances. That's why it's worth investigating the idea of saving some money by using some of the lesser known (and less expensive) pc security products (plus a decent internet security firewall like for instance the ZoneAlarm Internet Security firewall) and using some common sense when working with the computer. Yes, the best computer protection strategy is one where we combine common sense with reliable software.

Common sense? Maybe you have already seen the types of websites that have flashy banners screaming "free wallpapers" or "free downloads" or "congratulations, you are the 1000000th visitor, click here to collect your prize"

If you stop and think a minute about that, wouldn't you agree that these messages sound at least partially suspicious? Especially if you go back to those sites the day after, and you are still the 1000000th visitor. Hmm, fishy if you ask me.

I would like to suggest to you that if you just slightly adapt your behavior when using the internet, and combine that with a non-mainstream (read: cheaper), but decent computer protection program, you will save money and enjoy a speedier computer at the same time. You will get so much more out of your time spent on the pc and after all: the internet isn't so much different from the real world. In the real world we also teach our kids not to trust strange people that offer them candies. So wouldn't it be only natural that on the internet we also think a moment before we decide to click on flashing free gifts banners?

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