Hey nwcarter,
Real-time protection
McAfee is not a great product,mainly because it doesn't have any strong zero day malware prevention layers.
You should try
Avast 7 Free , because unlike the competition (MSE and Avira) doesn't only rely on traditional prevention techniques to stop malware, and here I'm talking about the Auto-Sandbox and File reputation system : https://blog.avast.com/2012/03/20/autosandbox-why-are-you-annoying-me/
Another solid security product is
Comodo Internet Security,this is all in one product so you'll also get a very powerful Firewall and a Host Intrustion Prevention System.Like Avast, Comodo will auto-sandbox unknown files so it has a very high prevention rate.
As a general knowledge,it's important to know that most infection rely strongly on social engineering, basically you'll need to run them so that they can work.
If you practice a smart online behavior then you should really decrees your chances of getting infected. You can read some tips on how to avoid infections here: http://malwaretips.com/blogs/how-to-easily-avoid-pc-infections/
Browser protection
My advise would be to avoid using Internet Explorer 8 as it's a very target browser by the cyber criminals....
Below you can see some browser plugins that you should add to your web browser.
WOT (Free) -
link
To help you avoid malicious sites you can use Web of Trust (WOT) a website rating browser plugin. After you add it to your browser make sure you only visit websites rated "Green" by WOT
Adblock Plus for Google Chrome (Free) -
link
Adblock Plus for Google Chrome is a content-filtering extension for Google Chrome. Adblock allows users to prevent page elements, such as advertisements, from being downloaded and displayed.
On demand scanners
You should uninstall Adware as it's detection rate is not very good, you can replace it with HitmanPro,Malwarebytes,ESET Online Scanner or SuperAntiSpyware.
You should
always upload all your downloads on virustotal.com and perform a scan with your on-demand to be checked for malware!
VTUploader (Free) -
link
To upload a file to VirusTotal, you can visit the main analysis site, click the Browse button to select a file from your hard drive, and then click the Send file button. You can make this process even easier with the free VirusTotal Uploader utility. After installing it, you can simply right-click any file under 20MB and choose "VirusTotal" from the Send To Windows menu. The scan results will display in your browser as usual.
Hitman Pro (Trial ) -
link
An on-demand scanner using multiple anti-malware engines and cloud technology. It offers unlimited free scanning but once you use it to remove detected malware it switches to a 30-day trial version. I recommend using it after you've scanned your hard-drive with the other products you have installed
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free (Free)-
link
This product utilizes Malwarebytes powerful technology to detect and remove all traces of malware including worms, trojans, rootkits, rogues, dialers, spyware and more.
Virtualization:
Even if you submitted a file to virustotal.com and it said that it's clean , you'll need to run it in virtual environment because sometimes infection can be so new that security vendors don't have signs for it.
Virtualization software will allow you to browse the web or run another application in a completely safe environment. This is especially useful when visiting high-risk web sites, whether accidentally or deliberately, as the Web browser will be completely contained within the virtual enviroment, preventing any damage to your computer.
A sandbox can also be used to run any other applications which you think may be suspect - you can run the program inside the sandbox to determine whether or not it is safe while remaining completely protected against any malicious actions that it may try to carry out.
I strongly advise you to install Sandboxie and use it for when you're browsing the Internet or running shady/unknown programs(not that you should do that but...
) . Alternately you can try
BufferZone PRO (Free) , another great virtualization software.
Sandboxie (Free/Paid) -
link
Sandboxie runs your programs in an isolated space which prevents them from making permanent changes to other programs and data in your computer.
Always run suspicious of freshly downloaded files in a Sandboxie to verify that he download isn't compromised!Sandboxie will replicate perfectly your operating system so all the files should run without any problems in it.
