For various reasons, I find myself running Avast, AVG and ZoneAlarm on a very old, slow PC. Thing is, it's now almost stationary. I'm not kidding when I say it takes around 15 minutes to be able to boot up and connect to the internet.

I want to keep Avast, as it's picked up stuff that others haven't. Can I safely remove the other two?

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One should NEVER install more than one virus killer on a PC. You can have as many anti-spyware scanners as you like, but anti-virus programs can't live with each other. I have never been a fan of Zone Alarm, I much prefer Sunbelt's Personal Firewall although I don't use any software firewall on my PC, even the M$ one is disabled. I have a stateful firewall in my router after all. Avira Antivir is the virus killer I am using at the moment, I also have M$ Defender running as anti spyware and now and again I give my machine a scan with Malwarebytes Antimalware.

Personally, I tend towards the view that software firewalls are only really necessary if you connect directly to the Internet via a modem rather than through a router with a decent built-in firewall.

It's my experience that adding and removing antivirus programs exacerbates Windows rot more than just about anything - I'd be tempted to rebuild the machine.

Hello Elton,

You will have no problems removing AVG and ZoneAlarm

Do you have a Router? Or do you know what Modem / Router you have?


I personally think you will be fine with Avast and Windows Firewall, you will be even better off if you have a router thats got a built in firewall, most have this feature (such a the BT Home Hub)


Good spyware programs are Malwarebytes as corydoras suggested, and i still like Spybot

If the integral firewall on the router is configured correctly and working, it should prevent anyone seeing you, so you are guarded against inbound threats and attacks.

But........

If you've picked up a virus which has not yet been detectd, and the virus attempts to send data out, you will not recieve any warning of unauthorised traffic attempting to leave your computer (ie details of passwords, bank accounts numbers etc).

For protection against that you really do need a software firewall on your machine in addition to the router firewall.

I've removed AVG, which has made things so much quicker.

I still have ZA configured.

I have a BT Home Hub thingy - reading above, it would appear that it has its own firewall. How do I check/configure this?

Cheers,

Elton