I am curious what you all think are the better pieces of software security wise.

What are your reccomendations and why?

Please give pro's and con's it would be greatly appreciated.

also .....

once I install all my applications and get the machine setup to my liking I am thinking of changing my account settings/permissions via the start > run > control userpasswords2 setting ... which do you reccomend to keep my pc running upto par at its best?

thank you all in advance.

In firewall terms, I'm fond of Sygate personal Firewall, (which is free, though I preferr the pro version). Apart from being free, it's highly configurable, and is aimed at a market of slightly more advanced users, which means you can set various permissions/blocks for any file. It also controls both incoming and outgoing traffic, and given that I serve my internet connection directly to my housemates machine, I don't have to worry so much about her getting infected with something, as I have the added security of knowing that even if she got infected in the first place, my machine is pretty safe for it, whether it's a worm, virus, or whatever. The one con I've found is when it goes wrong. On rare occasions (I've been using it (and installed it on 3 other machines) for a few years now and seen it a total of 3 times), it can crash down and never start again. When that happens, it's a case of just reinstalling it.

In antivirus terms, I'm fond of AVG. it's free (though again, I preferr the paid version), it updates regularly (almost every day sometimes if I let it!), and it's resident shield stops files from acctually doing anything the moment an infection is found in them, which can limit the damage done, and in all honesty, back in the days of surfing the darkest corners of the web where all the script-kiddies live (though I was never one myself), it saved my bacon a few times! I've never really seen a downside, though everything has one so I don't see why this should be an exception. perhaps somebody else can think of one.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at with your second question though.

By changing the account properties, I am hoping to prevent certain nasties from being able to infect my system. I am just curious if anybody else has thought of the account properties as an alternative and if it is as successful as I hope. If I were to get Sygate (paid version) would you be able to help me configure my firewall ... maybe even remote assistance into it so I can observe you maneuver through the software?

I rpobably could if I knew enough about your system/network, but I'm certainly no expert. What I've learned I've learned purely through experience.

In fairness, Basic firewall configuration in Sygate isn't that difficult. Even a beginner can get a sence of which traffic to allow and which to deny when the firewall asks them what to do. As time goes on the firewall asks less because the most common applications will already be set. The harder part is setting precise network rules - but on a simple network a simple case of setting an advanced rule to allow all traffic between 192.168.0.1 - 129.168.255.255 may be sufficient in Sygate. Sygate Personal Firewall will block many known attacks anyway in such a case if the appropriate options are set. It's mainly common sense.

I would say though, that the free version may well be good enough to meet your needs, so don't go paying out for the full version unless you need to. Give the free version a try first. The program isn't really hard to navigate, and I find I acctually rely on it to monitor internet/network activity quite often too. You should pick it up quite quickly. Of course, if you set it up to ask for what to do, and something pops up that you're unsure about, you can always ask what it is and what you should do. Plus, if you get it wrong, it's not hard to change it afterwards.

As for control userpasswords2 I'm not sure which account properties you'd be thinking about changing. Personally, I manage all my accounts through the Microsoft Management Console (right-click on 'My Computer' and click manage on the context menu).