Microsoft One Care

[ruby27]

I have used the OneCare free trial and have been reasonably happy, previously I used Zonealarm and another free one that I can not recall.

I am due to either pay and renew Onecare or go back to Zonealarm.

Given that I am not very good on technology, is Onecare a reasonable option to purchase. Or is there protection that is equally good

thanks for any advice

[vehelpfulguy]

You mention Zone Alarm but the problem is that ZoneAlarm make a number of products and you dont say which you have (had).

At the simplest Zone Alarm offers just a firewall (Free) which I use (as do many others)

But Zone Alarm also offer anti virus, anti spyware and their full Security Suite (all for a fee) so I am not sure which of these you had.

I have not used OneCare but it seems to include anti virus, anti spyware, firewall and other features so there is a lot of overlap with the full Zone Alarm security suite.

Like many people I do not pay for ANY security software (all free) and I have never had a problem so you could consider going down that route.

I will cover free security briefly in my next append

[vehelpfulguy]

The 2 MAIN things to protect against are viruses and unauthorised internet access.

For Viruses run an anti-virus program. I use AVG V8 which is free for home use. Updates every day and I have never had a problem.

It scans my incoming mail for viruses and has found and corrected a few and also has a spyware scanner.

For unauthorised internet access I use the free version of Zone Alarm. Again, never had a problem and works very well.

Those are my 2 main programs.

I sometimes also use

* Adaware (free) for spyware

* WinPatrol (free) for monitoring my computer

There are other products like Spybot earch and Destroy for finding spyware.

But generally, for the average home user free security software is fine.

[vehelpfulguy]

I have dug out an old PC Pro magazine (Feb 08) where they review security suites (including One Care).

Their winner was Kaspersky Internet Security 7 which got 6 stars out of 6.

OneCare only got 4 stars out of 6 and they say "A big improvement from Microsoft but there is still some way to go" (the last release they said was awful).

It says it needs to improve before they can recommend it.

The thing is for people like Kaspersky security is their main business, for Microsoft it is just a sideline.

[ACtheTROLL]

my steganos (same engine as kaspersky) has 10 days to go

so - I looked round and to buy from kaspersky costs �40.00

if you google
http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=kaspersky+i nternet+security+2009&scoring=p
(I'm not recommending any seller - but I won't buy software from e-bay - and as I pressed the button the moon passes over the sun ;-)

now I'm not recomending this 'cause technically an oem version is for new hardware .... I saw new system - and I was in the process of rebuilding my machine ....
but I didn't make the connection - until it was too late (a bit slow sometimes) - so by mistake I ended up with a KIS three user license for �11.69
(I do buy quite a bit from eclipse anyway ... so ...)

[ruby27]

Thank you very much for the answers

I had used free Zonealarm and free AVG, but I had experinced some problems - so was lacking confidence in them. ( I had lost internet access until I uninstalled them and installed Onecare. However the problem may well have lain with me rather than the system I was using.

[maviscoull]

i have One Care and think its great. �37-99 for up to 3 pc's is good too. i will renew it again next year.