Let me explain my security concept and ask some questions about yours afterwards. The most important part in my security concept is my knowledge. I know what I should do and what I should not do on the Internet. I know how phishing emails look like, I know when I should be doubtful of files that I want to execute and I do know how to select passwords that can not be bruteforced in a short period of time.

Firewall:

I do rely on a hardware firewall that is properly configured keeping many attacks away from my computer. I do however run no software firewall because I think this is a) not necessary because of the hardware firewall and b) could lead to attacks that are not there without it. Every piece of software installed on my system is a potential way to hack my system.

Anti virus:

I use the free AntiVir as a virus scanner. This is probably not the best choice in the world but good free scanners are rare. I keep it running all the time with automatic updates. Nothing compared to commercial products that update once every 30 minutes but good enough to react on all threats that make it on my system. My Knowledge prevents most possible ways of attacking my system with viruses and trojans anyway.

Encryption:

I have two hard drives with more than 500 gigabytes of encrypted data using the excellent Open Source software True Crypt. This is important to prevent local access to my files as long as the hard drives have not been mounted.

Spyware:

Something that I feel is overrated. I tend to run Ad-Aware and Spybot every other week to scan my system but I normally find some tracking cookies, that is all.

Rootkits:

The same can be said for Rootkits. I tend to use Rootkit Revealer or other products to check my system for rootkits but only occasionally. I would never put a Sony CD into my Computer anway ;)

Browsing, Email:

No Microsoft products if possible. I do use Opera and Firefox for web surfing and Thunderbird as my main email client. Both browsers are more secure than Microsofts Internet Explorer and Outlook. Maybe because they are better products, maybe because hackers like to concentrate on Microsoft products because more users are using them.

Did I leave something out ? What is your security concept ? Let me know, I like to read about software or tips that I never thought about in first place.