Hi, panais.
Please stick to one thread with your questions. It is much less confusing that way.
CarlTR6 answered your questions here: What's the Best Anti-virus?
As to the extra question, ESET Smart Security is a suite, making it an "all-in-one" program. However, it is still recommended that you maintain a second anti-malware software. Since you already have MBAM, you can keep that for occasional scanning as well.
The main problems ESS suffered related to it's firewall not running effectively under Windows 7. This has been fixed and the product now is back to it's high standard. I don't use the whole suite, just NOD32 so can't speak from personal experience however, a number of sites have reviewed the updated product and it's rates very highly. This is from only a couple of days ago.
From Computer Security Systems | Compare Norton Products, this is how Norton's Identity Protection is described:
Identity Protection
Block hackers from accessing your computer
Blocks phishing websites
Identity Safe securely stores and manages your login and personal information
Guards against keyloggers with automatic login and form filling
Authenticates popular shopping and banking sites
Identifies unsafe Web sites in your search results
Panais, rather than buying a security suite, which you do not need in my opinion as what you are currently running is more than adequate, I recommend that you invest in a router, even if you have only one computer. A router's built in hardware firewall offers much better protection and security than any software firewall. This would be a much more sound investment of your money. There are plenty of folks here that can help you set up a router if you run into trouble.
And you can run a software firewall along with the router's firewall.
ESS will give you good security. it's just that the firewall will cause some slowdown on networks, at least for some ppl. If you dont do a lot of LAN transfers and such, you probably wont notice. If you want better security, and for less money, get eset's NOD32 antivirus and pair it up with Comodo's free firewall. Comodo can be a pain to configure for some users, but they have a decent forum where you can find help. Once you get it set up tho, you'll more than likely never have to worry about infections again. This is the setup i switched to, and i'm very happy with it.
i have used Eset for years and used the smart security package since release , i have raved to everyone about how good it is..until now
the wife got a memory resident virus residing in a .dll file , eset found it during every startup scan but said it couldnt be removed , every half hour or so the wifes pc would just restart (yes it was the virus the laptop is fine)
i downloaded , installed and ran the free version of malwarebytes , it scanned , found , quarretined then on a reboot deleted the virus..........Nod32 isnt "all that" and if you have the firewall set to automatic mode and not interactive you might as well turn it off altogether
now im not recommending malwarebytes , far from it , its not the best out there but thats not the point
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