What Anti-Virus/Firewall program do you use - recommendations needed

I've used Zone Alarm for years but I know my account is expiring soon. And personally, although I think ZA is a good AV/Firewall program I think it's an intensive resource hog that has been slowing down my computer. I ran my reimaged desktop for a week without any AV/firewall loaded on it (it was on the net but I wasn't doing anything other than posting on DU) and my computur ran amazingly fast. But as soon as I downloaded Zone Alarm it went back to being sluggish.

So what are your recommedations for Firewall and Anti-virus?

Thanks!

I use the enterprise version at work, and the free version I can get as a Comcast customer (I know, I know).

I prefer to use a hardware firewall as opposed to a software firewall - my Linksys wireless router does the trick for that.

Along these lines, are there any anti-virus programs out for Windows Mobile devices? I ran a check on my smart-phone the other day, and it showed that it was infested with about a dozen varieties of spyware. So far I haven't found any solutions for this. :(

No McAfee, no symantec, no norton. I work for an ISP and they keep things out alright, like e-mail and the web.

(pardon me) NAT IS NOT A FIREWALL! If you have a firewall, an SPI capable box, from Linksys I'd like to know the model #, I'll start telling people about it. Software firewalls, while less awesome than hardware firewalls provide protection from both incoming and outgoing traffic and are an important component of any reasonable non-honeypot setup.

It's the final line of defense and damned good at keeping nasties from getting their hooks into ones system.

Windows, since XP, has it's own fire wall that is more than adequate. You can also download Spyware Doctor starter edition for free at MajorGeeks.com. That will provide you with rock solid computer protection and not cost you a thing.


Spyware Doctor SE


http://www.majorgeeks.com/Spyware_Doctor_-_Starter_Edition_d5790.html

Free AVG Anti Virus

http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download?prd=afe

I use a mac...

:P

Spybot Search and Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
AVG
http://free.grisoft.com/
Comdo
http://www.comodo.com/products/free_products.html
Those are the basics

Then there's Advanced Windows Care, Spywareblaster, either Firefox or SeaMonkey as your browser, Thunderbird for email if you use Firefox. These keep your system reasonably safe and trim.

The best one thus far was Panda. If I had to give grades it was a 10/10 with no issues and the best functions. It perpetually auto-updates virus definitions in the background every time it is connected to the internet! Yay! It catches everything. Yay! It isn't a resources hog. It's fully customizable.

I currently am running AVG 8.0 but I'm not a fan...not only is it slowing down my internet but it randomly blocks certain websites (without giving a reason...currently it's not allowing Monster.com). This is annoying me greatly because I used to be a huge fan of AVG but this current version is a let-down...it seems rushed to market and web-searches are showing that even security pros are having problems with it.

Before that I had the trial version of Kaspersky Lab's AV. It was alright, but not great. It was unintrusive but I never really knew if it was working or not. It didn't give me any sort of notice that my trial was ending and I went 3 days with no A/V because I didn't know it had disabled itself at the end of the trial.

Between those I had something called Quick Heal which got my computer infected with a nasty trojan and then couldn't find the POS to remove it. I ended up having to restore from a backup and manually fix my registry. The first thing I did was trash the Quick Heal. It lasted a total of 4 days.

I refuse to use anything made my Symantec or McAfee. I learned my lesson years ago...both would do better to divert the money they waste on ads and paying manufacturers to pre-install their software into designing products which aren't shitty.

I've used quite a few anti-virus programs and this is the only one that doesn't seem to slow down my computer.

You can download and use the program for 60 days, then you have to register using the registration key they send you. After that, once a year you have to renew your registration.

http://www.avast.com/

I have Vista and utilize the windows firewall.