Hi John >> As explained on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitDefender and on >> www.bitdefender.com/PRODUCT-14-en--BitDefender-Free-Edition.html, the >> free version of BitDefender does not have realtime protection, which is >> a must for real protection. It's not a good idea to recommend this >> product to normal users. It's useless except to scan the computer if one >> wants to make sure one's normal antivirus program has missed something. > > I'm not sure how much good this real time protection provides. On the contrary, you need real-time protection even more on a broadband connection. If your AV doesn't have RT, it won't prevent any infection by any malware. > Perhaps it is because the setup here has a NAT firewall, Hosts file > protection, Spywareblaster and other measures keeping things out. > If a system was relying on dialup alone I would expect the problems you > mention. Such things are extremely rare here, and usually result from > doing something stupid. Firewalls and the other things you list do not prevent infections due to people running infected email attachments and infected programs they download, which is how most people get infected. -- -------list-services-below----------- Regards, John Durham (list moderator) <http://modecideas.com/contact.html?sig> Freelists login at //www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi List archives at //www.freelists.org/archives/pchelpers PC-HELPERS list subscribe/unsub at http://modecideas.com/discuss.htm?sig Latest news live feeds at http://modecideas.com/indexhomenews.htm?sig Good advice is like good paint- it only works if applied.