My brother and I have been debating as to what type of Endpoint Security I need for my home network. He believes that I am in need of several different high end security programs all of which I’ve used at one time or another and been less than satisfied with but he insists I simply need to reconfigure the programs so that they do their jobs properly. I am on the other side of the fence on this however as I’m a big proponent of the “use one program” theory. There are a number of excellent Internet Security programs that can in one application tackle the duties of many others combined.

It seems very popular these days for vendors to exclude key options and tools in their programs so that you’ll come back and purchase your programs counterpart for complete coverage. My brother would have you believe that this isn’t done on purpose but rather because software can’t be programmed to do all these jobs in one Computer Security application. Until I had stumbled upon a nifty program named Blink Personal Edition I had begun thinking that my dear brother was right.

I found Blink while doing some Security Research in hopes of finding a program or two that would give me the protection from viruses and the like that I need. Most of the initial results where that of lesser programs that did little more than present an attractive yet confusing user interface. Blink however was different from the other in that, one it is offered as a Free Antivirus Software download at the eEye website, http://www.eeye.com. This along made me happy but it was its broad functionality and thoroughness that really got me excited. I ran Blink along with my tried and true older PC Security Software to see what it would detect. Blink picked up over ten different infections that my older applications didn’t see. In addition to that Blink was able to quarantine a number of infections and exterminate them which is more than I can say for my older programs.

After downloading, installing, and testing the program I headed over to my brothers to have him download the program. I wasn’t looking to make him eat his words mind you but rather wanted to show him a really impressive piece of Computer Network Security in hopes that he would adopt it like I had. Needless to say however he did not believe me when I told him that Blink not just found and eliminated threats more efficiently than its older brethren but also carried intrusion prevention tools that identified and kept those same threats from coming back.

It wasn’t easy to convince him otherwise but I did manage to coerce him into downloading the program. After the download I had to somewhat force him to do an immediate install so that I could show him what it could do. Reluctantly he did as I asked and we began by having Blink scan his registry, memory, and hard drives for problems. When Blink turned up no threats he scoffed at my earlier comments and said “see it’s no different than any other Desktop Security program”. I had to point out though that he had just run a scan with four other programs of the same nature and removed all of his infections and so I had him configure the intrusion prevention options and we then perused a few websites to see if we could pick up any viruses or spyware. To his surprise and mine again, when we re-scanned his computer there where no threats to be found. He attributed this to not visiting enough websites, while I of course sites Blink as the reason.

I’ve now used Blink for quite some time and while I know my brother is using his copy he still argues with me over the topic of just how many programs are necessary in the fight against viruses and the like. He claims that he does enough Security Research to know better than I, but I oh so politely remind him that he has not deleted Blink from him computer so it must be doing something right for him. The argument will likey never end but I have yet had to use any other security application other than Blink since I installed it. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t either though he’ll never admit it.