Browser security

[Skuzzy]

Most of the time it is email.

Two up and coming Antimalware products to keep an eye on are Carbon Black and Cylance.

Correct me if I am wrong, as it has been a long time since I did anything with the Internet using a normal consumer setup, but if you disable HTML in your email and ActiveX/Active content controls in the Internet Options->Advanced control panel, that should prevent emails from automatically embedding malware/spyware.

[WaffenVW]

Windows 10 comes with its own AV called Defender. It's similar to MS security essentials for Windows 7.

[BaldEagl]

Windows 10 comes with its own AV called Defender. It's similar to MS security essentials for Windows 7.

It IS Microsoft Security Essentials.  Go to All Apps/Windows System/Windows Defender and open it.  It's the exact same interface as MSE with no changes whatsoever except the name.

[Skuzzy]

At one point Defender was the malware/spyware application and Security Essentials was for anti-virus work.

Has Microsoft merged them in 10?  I hated MSE (Security Essentials).  It messed with far too many applications and was not very good at being an anti-virus solution, but it is free.  ARRRRRRGGGHHH!

[BaldEagl]

It looks just like MSE but is named Windows Defender.

In multiple places it refers to Virus and Spyware definitions (for instance your Virus and Spyware definitions are up to date) but on the update page under Did You Know it also mentions malware definitions.  IIRC that's the same as MSE.

It appears the sum total of Windows Defender is MSE and Windows Firewall.

[Bizman]

At one point Defender was the malware/spyware application and Security Essentials was for anti-virus work.

Has Microsoft merged them in 10?  I hated MSE (Security Essentials).  It messed with far too many applications and was not very good at being an anti-virus solution, but it is free.  ARRRRRRGGGHHH!

That happened already in Win8.

[Vulcan]

Correct me if I am wrong, as it has been a long time since I did anything with the Internet using a normal consumer setup, but if you disable HTML in your email and ActiveX/Active content controls in the Internet Options->Advanced control panel, that should prevent emails from automatically embedding malware/spyware.

Not for Outlook 2013, in fact I couldn't find an option anywhere to dumb it down to text only.

[Skuzzy]

Not for Outlook 2013, in fact I couldn't find an option anywhere to dumb it down to text only.

So they removed that option.  How rude.

[BaldEagl]

I've now moved all my computers to Avast Free with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free and added Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit Free to my laptop.

I wasn't aware of Anti-Exploit but it looks like a worthwhile additional level of protection.

[EDIT]  Uninstalled Ant-Exploit as every time it ran there was an annoying notification telling me how protected I was and no way to turn it off.