First Build, Need reccomendations on best internet protection/security

i7 920, Nice processor! I just love new pcs... gonna upgrade myself too soon, when the boss lets me... lol.

Choice of antivirus can be a very personal thing. I have always used freeware, and have not been disappointed. I was and am a big advocate of Avast, but of late I have been running Avira and it hasn't disappointed. It is lighter on resources and has a very high success rate with detection and removal... I have read a few reviews where it rated higher than most paid for AV programs.

I would recommend not to look at security suites as they can be very resource hungry (although the i7 probably wouldn't even sneeze at that). You can build your own. The firewall that comes with 7 is very good. Free Antispyware / malware applications are extremely good. Malwarebytes Antimalware and SuperAntiSpyware rate very high also.

All that said, the very first thing I do with a new rig is get an imaging program. There are a few free ones out there but I haven't tried them. I use Acronis True Image myself, it is the only security software I pay for.

I set my pc up exactly how I want it. All of my must have software is installed. Then I create an image of my system, a grandfather image. This is the one I want to restore my pc to if I ever get my pc in an usable or undesirable state with system bloat, unwanted software or even malware infection. There is also the option of creating father and child backups too... where the system is backed-up incrementally or differentially. The grandfather image (and ideally father / child) is always saved to an external HDD.

Anyways that's my 2 cents or 2 dollars worth.

I'm sure you will get plenty of tips from other users to take into account.

Have fun with your new rig. Sweet.

Oh yeah... One more thing I have in my security arsenal is Winpatrol. It is free too and is basically like a system administrator tool. Only lets what you want running to run, and there are many other system configuration tools in the one app.

thanks for the info  

I 2nd the vote for Avira. I've used norton 360 for a few years. When it expires, I'm not renewing because I've been so impressed with the combination of Avira and Malwarebytes.

Best to use a number of different types of anti virus/malware rather than relying upon 1 particular application on its own to protect you i.e. layered protection, or defense in depth. I personally use 5 different types of anti virus/malware software. Between them, I like to think my pc is 100% safe from malware, or very close to 100%.

Not a good idea. There are certain AVs that don't get along. They will hog resources and bog down the PC. They can also see each other as threats and try to block each other.

Avira is real time protection. Malwarebytes is good for cleaning out infections. The 2 work well together. But I wouldn't use Avira in addition to something like avast, avg, mcafee....

^^^ I 2nd aford10's response.

2 resident antivirus scanners can cause conflict and system instability.

However 1 antivirus plus whichever antispyware / adware / malware apps is fine.

Neither would I. But I would use Avira in combination with Malwarebytes, SuperAntispyware, Spyware Blaster and UnhackMe.