Vista - Am I protected enough?

I suppose you can never have too much protection, but I would be interested to know if what I have is good enough or not enough

I have got

Avast (could not go with AVG as its such a chore to shut the processes down)
SpywareBlaster
Spybot Search and Destroy
Windows Defender (although I am not sure if this is any good, read somewhere that this was the program responsible for Nvidia Card users getting the famous "....... driver has stopped responding" error, its currently enabled on my system, but I am yet to have a long playing session, so I can't say if this error still comes up with or without Windows Defender.

Come to that, the driver error may not have anything to do with the Windows Defender.......I tend to believe everything I read so maybe someone more wise to this can say whether this is true or not.

But my main question is, do I have enough to protect my Computer?

Cheers

Jekyll and Hyde

The best (and only IMO) protection you can have is a good backup system, and common sense.

Anti virus is only as good as the latest definition, and therefore IMO not great protection to begin with.

As I have limited knowledge (although I know what a backup is) I don't know how to go about getting a back-up system, let alone if anything went wrong, how to make use of the back-up system

My common sense I like to think is very good though, without meaning to boast lol

Jekyll and Hyde

You didn't mention what firewall you were using, can I assume you use Vista's inbuilt firewall ?

I think it's good to have a layered defence myself I have NOD32 anti virus, Windows Defender which is built into Vista and I have set to run at 10 o'clock every morning, SpywareBlaster which had a new update today with another 63 making 11052 in the database, SuperAntiSpyware Pro and the Vista Firewall.

I do still have nearly 2 years left on my subscription for Online Armor firewall but when I got Vista they didn't have the Vista version ready so I haven't got around to installing it on here yet

There is also Lavasoft's adware 2008 that might catch what spybot have missed.

Ad-Aware 2008 Free - Lavasoft

Hi Joan,

Yes you asume correctly, I do have Vista's Firewall, sorry I tend to leave important things out, not that I am doing it on purpose, I just lose concentration and things go out of my head, I cannot afford to buy anything like this because my financial state is poor so I have to rely on free programs from the Net, but in the past I have never known what is ok with Vista and what I should stay away from, tendancy to go with hearsay from others that probably have'nt a clue, then I get into a right old pickle.

I used to use Adaware for XP and forgot about that so thanks mansrm81

I never have anything set to a schedule as alot of times the PC is off due to my being ill, so I felt there is little point in doing so, and tend to just run the programs when I feel like it, not the best thing to do I know, but due to my circumstances its the only way for me to run these programs

I nearly sh@t myself with surprise when Windows Defender actually picked up a potential nasty. I thought to myself, OMG defender actually does something

I thought it just blocks programs that I want running.

I think it is possible to be over protected. You should really stick to one firewall and only have one AV on real-time protection.

Hi Jekyll and Hyde,

Have a look at the site below created by Joe53 of the Dell Forums for some very useful info on (Mostly) Free Security Software.

Free PC Security Software

Best of luck, RD.