We have McAfee free with Comcast and in order for it to actually let me play some games I had to change the settings on the firewall a bit. I did and actually set a tighter security level. Everything worked fine earlier today, but now I can't send or receive anything in Outlook Express, connect to Windows Live Messenger, or connect to Xfire. We're switching to AT&T tomorrow. Is there any way to fix this, or did the stupid firewall block us from those things? I tried turning off the firewall and connecting, but no luck.

Pretty much any non-corporate/enterprise software from Symantec and McAfee is garbage.

I wonder if we'll get anything with AT&T. If not, does the Windows security system work?

What, Windows Firewall? Sure, it works. You rarely need a software firewall, though.

I thought Windows had stuff besides Windows Firewall, like antivirus protection.

I really want to fix this though. Is there any way without disabling McAfee? I wonder if even that would work, or if I have to open ports for those programs.

Uninstall McAfee, and don't worry about it. McAfee isn't worth fixing.

But we still need something for virus protection, so we can do things like virus scans. Is there anything with Windows that will do that?

My mom and dad also use this PC, so I'll have to make sure it's ok if I uninstall McAfee.

Look up AVG Anti-virus. It's free and works well.

My mom said we'll be getting Norton AntiVirus with AT&T. Will that plus Windows Firewall work? I'd like to get rid of McAfee now, but we'd have no AntiVirus protection until tomorrow. Is it really necessary?

You don't need Norton. Just tell her to stop opening spam e-mails and downloading coolcursors.exe

Actually none of us do that, we just want it to be sure.

I don't think it'll hurt to turn on Windows Firewall and go a few hours without antivirus software.

+1

Somewhat on topic
Avast! is free and an amazing anti-virus.

Norton is worse than McAfee.

Get AVG or Avast if you must have free. Get NOD32 if you want the best.

Norton will make your PC run like ***. Get AVG Free if you don't want to pay for something. The new version (8) is pretty great, they integrated the anti-spyware component from the paid version into it. Just don't install the AVG Toolbar when it asks you during setup. It's a pain in the ***.

If you want something a little better, get Kaspersky. You don't have to get the $80 Internet Security edition, you have the Windows Firewall already which is fine. The Anti-Virus version of Kaspersky was also on sale at Best Buy for $19.99 last time I checked.

what he said.