"Eustace" <emfril******.com> wrote in message
news:#Wo0kGV#JHA.3544@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...[color=blue]
> I just uninstalled the McAffee Security Center that came with my laptop
> and installed AVG antivirus instead. Is there anything else I need to do
> to complete the basic protection of my system?
>
> emf
>
> --
> It ain't THAT, babe! - A radical reinterpretation
> [url]http://www.geocities.com/itaintme_babe/itaintme.html[/url][/color]


AVG free is a fairly good antivirus program and should suffice with your
browsing as long as you practice "safe-surfing." No antivirus program will
protect you if you do not practice safe-surfing. There are a lot of people
who also like Avast. In it's earlier versions, I had issues with updating on
two of my 5 computers and so dumped it for AVG which ran without problems.

You need to ensure that your Vista firewall is functioning. It, again will
normally be enough to protect from the hacker's attempts to infiltrate your
system. There are free firewalls available to replace the Vista one if you
decide to go that route.
I use Zone Alarm from CheckPoint software:
[url]http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/zonealarm-pc-security-free-firewall.htm[/url]
on all my systems as it is free and it does a good job of blocking
outsiders. The only issue I have is the occasional failure of the program
to remember approved use of the intra or internet by some of my programs.

You also need to occasionally run mal-ware checkers. I use Spybot search
and destroy, Malware bytes and Ad-aware which can all be downloaded and
installed from these sites:

[url]http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html[/url]
[url]http://www.malwarebytes.org/[/url]
[url]http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php[/url]

There are others out there but again, be careful what you get and where you
get it from.

I heartily agree that you need to uninstall McAfee as it, as well as
Norton's programs, are resource hogs. I have always had issues with McAfee
not finding malware that even AVG found.