If you have an infection, stay out of the water until it is completely gone. Then, right after you swim, use drops-everytime! The specialty drops are usually alcohol with a 5% mixture of glycerine. The glycerine just helps the drops stay on your ear a bit longer. You can buy glycerine at the drug store, and mix it with alcohol yourself. When you clean your ears, don’t go deep into your ear canal. Your ear needs some wax to help protect it.
I supose the vinegar will help should you get a yeast infection in your ear. I don’t really know what else to say about that.
The drops are most important whenever you swim in lakes or oceans. I wnet through this speech every year with parents and kids on my swim teams. Every year some kid would come down with swimmer’s ear. I would ask, “Did you use drops or alcohol in the kid’s ears?” They would say, “no,” every time. It works, unless you have already become “chronic.”