It really depends on you or your family's internet browser habits and your ability to fix things when they go wrong.  For example, I am behind a router which provides a hardware firewall.  I don't open email attachments from unknown senders, and I have antivirus software that is updated every day.   I only dowload things from known trusted sources.  I do use the Windows built in firewall, but that is really just to keep Windows Security Center from nagging me about not having a firewall.   My kids have trained in safe internet browsing, but still, from time to time, their computers get infected with spyware.  So far, I have been able to easily remove the rare spyware that infects their computers, but I make them run Windows Defender anyway.  For myself, I would not pay the monthly fee for the protection offerred by your ISP.  You have to decide for yourself how comfortable and knowledgeable you and your family are about these security issues.  If you are a novice and haven't learned how to protect yourself and deal with the problems when they arise, then I would say that it is probably worth it to have that extra security.  Stil the purveyor's of trojans, worms, viruses, spyware and malware change their tactics almost daily, I would be suspicious of anyone claiming to be able to deal with a threat that has not yet been invented.  If you decide to try it, let us know how it works out.

 

Steve

PCC is Earthlink's anti-virus/anti-spyware/firewall suite. It is included with your monthly ISP fee. Attack Shield is supposed to be a more advanced, heuristic, magical protection application that costs extra (as you noted).

 

If you use PCC, you can't use your Norton anti-virus at the same time but you can use Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, and other anti-spyware apps with it.

 

PCC is a resource hog, takes forever to load at startup, isn't Vista-ready (yet), but it does mostly work and is "free" since you're already paying for it with your monthly fee for DSL.

 

That's all I know about PCC, and I've stopped using it in favor of other solutions. I won't suggest solutions for you because I'm not competent to do so, but a review of the anti-virus forum here will give you lots of possibilities!

 

Buena suerte!