Time to reup security suite - would love some input

[wandergirl]

I hope my words did not make you want to leave this forum. You have been a great help to me. I am only on a free trial and I may yet nix this whole set up if I am not satisfied. I found out that I still do not yet have the feature I purchased the package for: wifi encryption. If this is not solved soon - as I am being given more run around I am going to withdraw. I am getting very aggravated. Anyway that you for the additional information. I did have to reinstall my Malwarebites because the tech had bascially nixed that program in order to install the Comodo. I then had to get malwarebites support to make it work properly as they had disabled the computer from running automatic updates and scans. Anyway I am bummed about all of this crap anyway and you leaving makes me sad too. Good luck to you and thanks for your help.

 

[Bodaggit23]

I hope my words did not make you want to leave this forum.

Don't sweat it.

Kimsland was much too good for our forum, as stated in the "farewell" post.

 

[wandergirl]

More drama!

I thought I had everything solved with the new Comodo Pro HOWEVER when I went to scan for the first time without the support team, my computer crashed big time. It was the first time my computer did a check disk scan on reboot it was so bad. It did a check disk because one of the disks was unstable. So that was the end of the free trial for me. I connected back up with Live Support to explain the situation and find out how to cancel the subscription. When checking the status of my program, Brian did not see what the problem was. I had to explain that an antivirus program which cannot scan because it makes the computer unstable and crash is worthless. So I have a ticket in with them to cancel. I will report back if they still tag me for the charges despite the cancellation.

Meanwhile I had to go back to Dell approved security providers - AGAIN! This is the third time I have tried to move to a better quality security provider, only to have it be incompatible with my processor. I don't know if others have had this problem with an OEM computer or not. It would be interesting to note if so. Anyway, I was so sick and tired of this whole ordeal, I did go and reinstall my spy sweeper, and pay for the update to their security suite until my next resubscribe date in six months - which saves me some money now, and hedges my bets on how long my computer will hang in there. Ironically it works great without security software!

I would say this about the whole experience: If you have a newer processor, go ahead and try out Komodo. They do have great live support. If you have an OEM, you may want to check with your manufacturer first.

As far as the Webroot security suite goes - so far it is not eating up all of my cpu which is wonderful. The Komodo was trying for 150% of my cpu I think because it seized up like the dickens and support had to basically turn almost everything nonessential off in my systems in order to get it to run when they were installing it. My Webroot also does not conflict with Malwarebites - another plus. I am happy to at least be rid of McAfee which never caught ANYTHING and only ate cpu. Yes I know many of you pity me for paying for antivirus and having such a doggy program - blame it on Dell because nothing else works but software companies they are hooked up with.

 

[wandergirl]

Oh I would also comment that I have endured another 9 hour ordeal getting Comodo uninstalled and Webroot reinstalled, upgraded and reinstalled again.

 

[tlarkin]

I gotta ask one thing and I don't think I am clear on it. Is this your personal WiFi or is it a public WiFi?

If there is security on your WiFi you won't have to worry about it getting hijacked.

 

[wandergirl]

PUBLIC - I am only and always on public wifi systems since I live in my RV. Not only am I always on public wifi but the public wifi I use changes every time I move. Most places do not have any encryption at all or security. However the situation I described earlier about a gamer hacking into my system actually occurred on a WEP system. So I don't trust any public wifi period. I don't do online banking and I try to limit as much as possible any purchases. If there is an option to call to order, I use that.

 

[tlarkin]

PUBLIC - I am only and always on public wifi systems since I live in my RV. Not only am I always on public wifi but that changes every time I move.

OK, I got confused when you were talking about the kid that was playing games and you were kicking him off the router.

 

[Bodaggit23]

Comodo Firewall is great, their Antivirus is crap.

Hindsight, I know.

 

[linkin]

I'm going to vouch for AVG Free, but I HATE the new bland coloured control panel they made. You can also no longer exit the tray icon, which is REALLY ANNOYING.
It does have nice features and the free version is less of a resource hog than the paid.

If my parents weren't paying for it, i'd use something else. as long as it doesn't ask me to buy the full version every 30 seconds.

 

[wandergirl]

Well your not going to believe this! The stupid Webroot would not work either! I think I am going to scream! I have already put in for refund. I have reinstalled it several times. I thought all was well then when I go to boot up I get a black screen telling me to uninstall whatever I just installed. I had to go to safe mode to uninstall it. This is ridiculous. I don't know what I am going to do. I don't want to reinstall McAfee! Maybe I will try the Avira as I most like just should have done. It is free. I don't want to spend more money on crap that for some reason will not install. As soon as I remove it, my computer runs like new.

 

[wandergirl]

Well hopefully this will be the final update!
I tried Avira - I could not get the definitions to update. I got REALLY MAD. I uninstalled it.

I did a system restore to completely undo everything which had been "fixed" on my computer by Comodo. This was good move because functions were back to normal. HOWEVER because I had uninstalled spy sweeper and mcafee, they came back. I decided to just go back to stupid mcafee because at least I would have some form of security - since nothing else seemed to work at all. Unfortunately, I could not remove the webroot program. I had to reinstall the webroot program in order to have the uninstall feature function. HA! Since I had upgraded the spy sweeper to the security essentials, when I went to reinstall the spy sweeper, the company had upgraded my key as well. I could only install the security essentials! I freaked because I was concerned that their program would kill my computer since my mcafee was reinstalled and it could cause major conflicts. I had to disrupt my internet connection so that the webroot program would not completely download, but would however download enough of the components to uninstall the program. By disrupting the connection, webroot would install what had been download but the program would not be functional. I restarted in safe mode and uninstalled the program. Then I updated to the newer version of mcafee. While updating I got a note that there was still elements of the webroot on my computer. Thankfully I got directed to a page where I could download the tool to remove webroot completely. I needed that terribly since I could not find it anywhere at webroot's support site. After I ran that tool, I got the mcafee on. I had to reinstall malwarebites again because just downloading the webroot in order to remove it corrupted the malwarebites. After I got everything installed, I took a break for a couple days.

Tonight I booted up only to have my mcafee program treat my public wifi network as a home network. I had never had this happen in my life. When I got up with mcafee's support they gave me a tool to remove the network. We went through this twice. Finally they booted me up the ladder and the realized that mcafee did not save my settings when I downloaded the newer version of their program and had upgraded trusting the public network. So we had to "untrust" it.

Good Grief!!!!!! Please may I never speak of this insane situation AGAIN!

The good news however is that my free subscription to Comodo is cancelled by confirmation and webroot has issued me a refund! Thank goodness.

 

[techdude]

What kind of back up services?

If you want to sync documents between lots of computers you can try dropbox, which there is a free and pay for versions

www.getdropbox.com

Just get a external hard drive with massive storage. With online storage you have to deal with the speed of your internet connection, but with a external hard drive, you run at the speed of USB or Firewire.

 

[wandergirl]

Thanks for the suggestion. I think the external hard drive is the best option - especially being in public wifi on a continual basis. I can no longer use my webroot account - even the spy sweeper since the upgrade of my key, so I don't have their online backup anymore anyway. I could use the external drive anytime - unlike being dependent on reliable wifi.