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Hi Jim,
I think lot of people are getting into that situation, of having that view. Part of the problem is that a lot of the stuff is necessary if you want to protect yourself, where a few years ago, not so much. Redundancies complicate things if a person goes to the point of thinking they need several programs that do basically the same thing.
I've got one each ...
1. AV - DrWeb 2. PFW - Outpost 3. Trojan - Trojan Hunter 4. Spyware - SpybotSD 5. Startup Monitor 6. Script Sentry
That looks like a lot to me there on the page, but only three need updating, and the other three operate transparently. Of the three updates, DrWeb is quick and painless (literally a few seconds on dialup), TH takes a bit, but usually isn't a daily occurrence, and SpybotSD isn't bad and isn't often enough to be a bother. It helps that two of the three updates are a click away in the tray. I also tend to update (all but DrWeb) "when I think of it" rather than jumping right on every announced update. It's good to know they're available, but nothing is going to blow up if I don't get around to it until the next day or whenever.
I used to have this theory on risk management, and how people unconsciously made their decisions. First, the more likely an event will occur, the less severe the negative consequences - that (and its inverse) seems to be a rule. But, big but, most people make their risk assessment decisions based on the likelihood, not the severity of the result. To me that's backward. It's why (if you have any sense) you wear a seatbelt in your car.
Kind of interesting how this theory fits with home computing on the web. Just what are the negative consequences? Is losing everything, or allowing your computer to be used by a 3rd party for evil deeds that big a deal to you? You could make the argument that it's not, especially if you've got remote copies of your files. For me, I have a hard enough time keeping this thing running without letting some stranger have his way with it, and I think I've got a workable, reasonably efficient plan. It's obvious that it's easy to go overboard with it though, and knowing that, there's plenty out there who would take advantage of people's insecurities and lack of information on what the threats really are/are not.
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