hello. its obvious that both its a must for a general security but
iam curious if u had only one to select…which one would u trust: the new avast 5.1 with shields or one strong
firewall? (personaly i use privatefirewall)
ps. the avast 5.1 shields are like a kind of HIPS?
In a situation where I am forced to choose, Avast! > Firewall.
Largely since my router has a firewall already, with only inbound protection, but that is good enough for many.
When would there ever be a situation where you had to choose between one or the other ?
Sorry but this is too far fetched to be in any way a realistic proposition to be serious. Any half decent system would be capable of running both and more, so there should be no such restriction.
This is a chicken and egg scenario almost you can’t have one without the other.
first of all i didnt say we must use only one layer for a good protection. maybe iam new here but iam not newbie
in computer security area. so before u judge in a hurry that its not a serious proposition, u should read carefuly
that i tried to figure which one adds more protection for the present and the future threats,to be more clear
lets suppose antivirus+firewall(+HIPS)=90% protection. which of 2 adds more security to system,avast 5.1 shields or
strong fw+HIPS ? my opinion: fw+HIPS 70% +casual antivirus 20% =90% protection.
do u know about the future threats? the signature based av will be useless soon, as the zero-day,exotic botnets,drive-by,polymorphic-viruses,nation state viruses, new malware type called “stealing reality” etc. so i ask to avast experts to tell me if avast shields behave like a good HIPS defence,cos i tried avira and i found that only my firewall did the whole job against my zero-day mal. keyloggers, HTTP mal etc. so dont be so sure that its 50+50%. i dont want for the front line only siganture based av, but behavior based, protected system modules, HIPS etc. can avast offer this kind of defence? (i mean free avast)
regarding behaviour monitoring, avast is behind the competition and must catch up.
Why ask what is a totally unrealistic hypothetical question, firewall or antivirus (either or) if it isn’t your intention. I’m never going to select one over the other as they are both required.
Who was judging you, there is nothing in my post about you the person, but about the question.
Now you are changing tack as there was zero about which one adds more protection for the present or future. So I don’t know where I was meant to read more carefully to find what you didn’t say.
I commented on what you said.
I agree with DavidR that it’s a pointless question - use both.
I did (due to naivety) once partly put the issue to the test though, and on that basis I suspect that if your browsing habits are limited to known sites, and you don’t need any incoming connectivity, and don’t load media from unknown sources, the firewall is probably more important.
(I ran a system loaded with Norton for over a year with no definition updates. The firewall was running - when I finally got a new AV there were no threats detected).
Unfortunately know sites doesn’t mean clean sites as the proliferation of hacked sites is one of the most frequent means of infection now. Hacking a site with a higher visitor number is obviously a greater benefit (target) for those trying to exploit site security.
Your firewall won’t do a thing about that, nor will it cater for infected USB sticks.
When I ran my accidental experiment USB sticks were well outside my technical comfort zone (and budget)! It was floppies or nothing ;D