Let me put the story this way (I may have already told this story on this board; for those that have already come across this, my apologies for putting you through it again).
I was using Internet Explorer because it was what my family was familiar with. However, one day, after downloading some old games like Lemmings, I started to see some odd things. I really don't know if it was the software downloads, or some web site my kids visited, or what. But I would enter information in a form, and when I hit the "Enter" key, my title bar would gray out (the window would lose "focus").
Then it got worse: On one of the message boards I sometimes visit, I posted a message, and went back an hour or so later to see if anyone had responded. To my surprise, I had all kinds of responses, mostly with the words "you pervert" in them. To my horror, I discovered that something was adding links to porn websites in my messages. I checked my personal profile on the web site (using Internet Explorer), but couldn't find where the links were being injected into the messages.
Mind you, I have ALWAYS had an antivirus program running in the background. But I learned a lesson about antivirus programs with all this.
To trace the problem, I installed several different spyware programs, but they picked up nothing. I went and installed Netscape and Opera at that time, and went back and checked my profile on that web site; to my surprise, in the entry for my favorite web site, it now showed a link to a porn web site. Whatever virus was on my machine was using a hole in Internet Explorer to not only provide links to web sites, it was exploiting that hole to keep me from being able to do anything about it with Internet Explorer. With Netscape, I was able to see the link, and delete it from my profile, thus "scrubbing" my profile.
So next I ran the on-line antivirus Panda (
http://www.pandasecurity.com/activescan.htm), and right away it detected a trojan keylogger (the reason my Internet Explorer window was losing "focus" whenever I hit the "Enter" key while filling in a form). I was using AntiVirus Guard (AVG) from GriSoft, but the free version is barely supported any more (I've found out the hard way).
I then downloaded MacAfee's ViruScan (free to military members through AFCERT), but it's constant scanning kept interrupting everything. I ended up downloading AntiVir (
http://www.free-av.com/), which immediately detected two more viruses that MacAfee didn't detect.
I ultimately downloaded Norton Antivirus (free to military members, but you have to download it at work and burn it to a disk to bring it home), and currently have it running.
So, to sum everything up:
Browsers --
IE - NO; if you want it secure, you have to continually watch for new updates
Netscape - Okay (clunky)
Mozilla - Okay (clunky)
Opera - Good
Mozilla Firebird - My favorite so far--but I'm gonna try that PhaseOut
Antivirus Programs --
AVG - although free, poorly supported, so NO
ViruScan - NO; interrupts what you're doing, and didn't catch
Panda ActiveScan - good; but you've got to be on-line to use it, so it can't prevent you from getting viruses
Norton - Good (but not free; costs about $50 for the general public)
AntiVir - Good (since I'm using Norton, I haven't experienced the support yet)
