Security Software Internet security suite for Windows?

logistopath

Molar Police
Staff member
Super Mod
I was going through the forums looking for updated recommendations for internet security suites, and realized that there weren't any, other than a few posts in sale threads.
So, what would be your recommendation for an internet security suite, now in 2020? Please try to answer the following questions, if you are recommending a particular software:
1. Does it include all-inclusive protection - like antivirus, firewall, VPN, parental control, adware/malware protection, etc.?
2. Does it impact the performance of PC/laptop? You could try to answer this from the perspective of someone who uses a PC with basic configuration - like an i3 machine with 4 GB RAM.
3. Is it a paid software? How much does it cost?

I know that there are many forum members who prefer not to use any security suite. Would like to know their views too, about how they keep their PCs protected, especially when it is being used by their non-techie family members or friends.
And finally, leave behind Windows and shift to other OS is not a good response.
 
I prefer Bitdefender for the security. Haven't used the vpn.

Vpn standalone services should be good. Top picks perhaps mulvad and Nord.
 
I got the Norton 360 recently from a forum member who was sharing multi pc license for 450 Rs. ( https://techenclave.com/community/t...net-security-for-365-days-5-available.191570/ )
Its an all in one and its very light on my laptop. Settings and finding things is a task but quite configurable. No issues in gaming performance.
I got it as it has VPN as well so Im sorted for around 1.5 years of the license subscription.
Very happy with it. No false positive and actively informs / blocks suspicious stuff. I have ublock origin on broswer so that takes care of things as well
 
Personally, I am satisfied with Kaspersky Internet Security, which I've been using for the past 7 or 8 years. It's validity will be expiring in a couple of weeks. Want to check out other options before persisting with KIS. My laptop is a 2nd gen i3 with 4GB RAM, and KIS doesn't cause any issues with usability even during full scan.

Norton seems to be a good option nowadays. Wonder how it compares with KIS and Bitdefender.
 
Personally, I am satisfied with Kaspersky Internet Security, which I've been using for the past 7 or 8 years. It's validity will be expiring in a couple of weeks. Want to check out other options before persisting with KIS. My laptop is a 2nd gen i3 with 4GB RAM, and KIS doesn't cause any issues with usability even during full scan.

Norton seems to be a good option nowadays. Wonder how it compares with KIS and Bitdefender.

Norton 360 sits at 80 MB memory. When I run scan, its another 90MB and CPU usage is 10 % on my i5 - 9th gen.
Compare it to your system usage. If not different relatively, then stick to KIS. I like the extra stuff with the 360 for the price which is why I went with it
 
I am also looking for something with parental control. How is ESET doing these days? My kid tends to click on random things while watching youtube on the family desktop ( an old Lenovo PC with 3rd gen i5 and 4GB memory) and I am sick of uninstalling weird search bars, add-ons etc. from Chrome and the very annoying inappropriate content pop ups everywhere.
 
I'm.using windows defender since 2011 in all my systems. Never even bothered to search or read for a AntiVirus ever.

Got no virus attack, no malware, no irritating format due to virus till now.
But from few months now Windows Defender is acting weird.

Its blocking the fake games (not using the P word) and all those files. I get that.

But it shows virus in One Drive, chrome setup, skype and my Adobe Lightroom, 7zip and what not, almost every exe file.

I can leave every thing else but why OneDrive & Chrome?
What do their setup has all of a sudden when it's already installed in system from months.

Also, once it detects Chrome. I cannot run it.
If uninstalled, I cannot install it again.

When I boot in safe mode : Everything works fine.

Today only wasted 5 hours in formatting the windows completely, the hard refresh and installing my stuff again.

Any idea?
 
@Sird you must have got infected and windows defender is legitimately alerting you? Did the problem occur again after you did fresh install of windows?

Remember, after fresh install, DO NOT again run any EXEs (software, games) that you had saved/backed up because they may be infected already. Just download everything off internet again afresh.
 
@Sird you must have got infected and windows defender is legitimately alerting you? Did the problem occur again after you did fresh install of windows?

Remember, after fresh install, DO NOT again run any EXEs (software, games) that you had saved/backed up because they may be infected already. Just download everything off internet again afresh.
This has irritated me like thrice in last couple of months and none of the time it was during an installation.
Like yesterday : I haven't installed anything in last 2 months. Only few games over Steam and Epic Games.

And then this happened last night out of nowhere.
Also, yes it is blocking games in Epic Games too.

So today wasted 5 hours fixing everything. And yes has installed everything fresh, thanks for the tip.
Today first time it was hard reset which deleted evry single thing from C drive. Before this I only did reset where data wasn't deleted.
 
I am also looking for something with parental control. How is ESET doing these days?
Almost all internet security suites come with parental control these days. No idea about ESET, but I've found Kaspersky and Bitdefender to be very good (haven't used the parental control though).
I am sick of uninstalling weird search bars, add-ons etc. from Chrome and the very annoying inappropriate content pop ups everywhere.
You need to install and activate the ublock origin plugin for your Chrome first. It'll ensure that pop-ups and ads are no longer displayed. Search bars usually get installed with free softwares downloaded from the internet. Always ensure that you opt for a custom install when installing new softwares.
 
I have installed Kaspersky Internet security and activated trial for 30 days. When it expires, uses Kaspersky reset tool to get a trial again activated for 30 days. Its 2 minute work every 30 days.

 
@Sird you must have got infected and windows defender is legitimately alerting you? Did the problem occur again after you did fresh install of windows?

Remember, after fresh install, DO NOT again run any EXEs (software, games) that you had saved/backed up because they may be infected already. Just download everything off internet again afresh.
Hey and it happened again.
Below is the report as per MalwareBytes scan:


Virus.Neshta, C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\GOOGLE\CHROME\APPLICATION\83.0.4103.97\ELEVATION_SERVICE.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\GOOGLE\CHROME\APPLICATION\83.0.4103.97\INSTALLER\CHRMSTP.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\TASKS\OneDrive Standalone Update Task-S-1-5-21-3592476761-2277663755-1260390641-1001, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, , , ,
Virus.Neshta, C:\USERS\XPLOD\APPDATA\LOCAL\MICROSOFT\ONEDRIVE\ONEDRIVESTANDALONEUPDATER.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\TASKS\GoogleUpdateTaskMachineCore, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, , , ,
Virus.Neshta, C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\TASKS\GoogleUpdateTaskMachineUA, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, , , ,
Virus.Neshta, C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\GOOGLE\UPDATE\GOOGLEUPDATE.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\PROGRAMDATA\PACKAGE CACHE\{C6C5A357-C7CA-4A5F-9789-3BB1AF579253}\LAUNCHERPREREQSETUP_X64.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\STEAM\UNINSTALL.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\USERS\XPLOD\DOWNLOADS\7Z1900-X64.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\USERS\XPLOD\DOWNLOADS\STEAMSETUP.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\USERS\XPLOD\DOWNLOADS\CPU-Z_1.92-EN.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\USERS\XPLOD\DOWNLOADS\CHROMESETUP.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\USERS\XPLOD\DOWNLOADS\INSTALLBACKUPANDSYNC.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\USERS\XPLOD\DOWNLOADS\HWMONITOR_1.41.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\USERS\XPLOD\APPDATA\LOCAL\TEMP\CR_3614F.TMP\SETUP.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,
Virus.Neshta, C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\GOOGLE\CHROME\APPLICATION\CHROME_PROXY.EXE, No Action By User, 7426, 645219, 1.0.25176, , ame,

I don't understand why steam, one drive, 7zip, google chrome, google drive. Full sunday wasted.
 
Hey and it happened again.

Did you do a full fresh re-format and re-install of Windows from installation ISO?

After that DO NOT use backup EXEs from your C:\USERS\XPLOD\DOWNLOADS folder, just download all your software again freshly.

If this infection came back even after doing this, then try to get a new download of Win10 ISO itself from a different PC (friend etc) and then do fresh OS installation.

But first try Neshta virus removal steps as posted by vyral in previous post.
 
@vyral_143 tha ke will try and post.
Did you do a full fresh re-format and re-install of Windows from installation ISO?

After that DO NOT use backup EXEs from your C:\USERS\XPLOD\DOWNLOADS folder, just download all your software again freshly.

If this infection came back even after doing this, then try to get a new download of Win10 ISO itself from a different PC (friend etc) and then do fresh OS installation.

But first try Neshta virus removal steps as posted by vyral in previous post.
The download location mentioned was empty after fresh install and every single software was freshly downloaded. I've even deleted all the old .exe softwares from my backup drive.

Don't no what is causing what.

Yesterday's summar : Literally wasted whole Sunday, could have played games! [emoji20]
Finally last night found a 2015 version of MalwareBytes and that fixed many things within 5 minutes.
Later version of MalwareBytes shows installation completed but the folder in C drive is empty, no matter how many restarts and whatever tried.

What was fixed after Malware bytes :
Task Manager started to open
Regedit started to open
Nvidia drivers were showing some weird DLL error and wasn't opening. That's also fixed.

I've decided to not install any Adobe products for sometime.
But need to find why is it showing Google, vlc, OneDrive and even steam games as Virus!
 
Must be something you downloaded like those "fake games" (not using the P word) :D
Post automatically merged:

Delete all those and redownload them?
Post automatically merged:

But if you redownload you will just be redownloading the virus again.
 
In the link, it mentions about It might also target removable storage devices and network shares.

You may want to check on this too as well as any other drives/partitions too.
 
Sorry for late post but I wanted to try things for few days + been a real bad and hectic last week.

1. I've only installed Stem (CS:GO) and Epic Launcher for games and no software.
2. I'm not even downloading movies or anything else that includes a patch or something like that.
3. N oexternal drive/pendrive is connected.

Today:
1592299028707.png


Again EpicGamesLauncher seems to be the infected one. I'm not playing any games through it, only CS:GO.

And now got this sometime back:
1592299111267.png


Any more clue?
 
Samsung Evo SSD 128gb
C Drive : Windows
Home for steam and epic games installer.

WD Green - 1TB
3 partitions
Home for all installed games.
 
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