There are a lot of stand-alone products that work well if you keep them updated as much as you should. Life is hard enough by the existence of malware all over the world and though some spyware are more on the identity theft side of the law, they are still malware and should be treated as seriously as other forms of malware. True to this, some of them open doors for more serious threats, being used as a litmus test by hackers to probe the internet for vulnerable computers and mobiles. They may already be within your computer system or network without much fuss, so firewalls and other intrusion prevention systems are a must to keep you safe from all of these threats that plagues the net. (more…)