Some Security Help Please

[leon]

Hi guys, I was wondering if anyone could suggest a good virus protection program that I could load on my up graded desktop.

Norton's seems to be always asking and telling me things, Normans sometimes doesn't want to play with other programs, and other than that I really don't know what would be suitable.

It dose not have to be the best or most expensive, as I really don't do much more than talk to you guys and maybe an email once a month if i'm lucky.

Other than that I just browse the camera and scope sites.

Thanks in advance.

Leon

[michaellxv (Michael)]

I just use AVG free, backups of important stuff and regular rebuilds.

[leon]

Ok Michael, I have heard of that one, will look into it, thank you.

Leon

[Octane (Humayun)]

Hi Leon,

As Michael mentioned, AVG is one. A couple of others are Kapersky and Sophos antivirus suites. I'm sure they come in free versions, too.

Any one of them will give you the basic protection you require from online nasties.

H

[Barrykgerdes]

I have been using AVG for a few years now and no problems.
Norton is probably a very good one but it is too intrusive for me and if you fiddle a lot with computers it can get out of control.

Barry

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

I am developing a lot of respect for Microsoft Security Essentials it is free as Microsoft finally realised that they shouldn't charge to keep their operating system secure it is thorough gets updated daily and does'nt affect the speed of your computer. I am very impressed with it and highly recommend it. And I dont work for microsoft and have been a big critic of them in the past. I cant stand Norton infact I recommend any one who has limited resources to steer well clear of it and even with the best system I shy away from it.

[Mick (Michael)]

I was using AVG free, but now I run Avast it's been very good.

[leon]

Thank you to one and all I have plenty to consider now.

Leon

[Chillie (Henry)]

I use Avast! It's free for personal use but you do need to register it every year. Registration is free.

http://www.avast.com/en-au/index

[bartman (Bart)]

AVG Freeeee
I have used it since 1995ish
No probs and only one incursion ( a few years ago) that was dealt with swiftly....
Bartman

[kustard (Simon)]

I've just recently been testing various AV engines for work. Here is a list of what I've found:

Nortons: Overly intrusive.
AVG: Good but misses some obvious trojans.
Avast: Not bad but also like AVG and misses some obvious infections.
Avira: Very good, free version have update issues but professional version is good (this is the one I recommended to work).
ESET Nod32: This is the one I use at home, it's very good. I recommend this one, they have a free trial to test but paying for it is good value and worth every cent.

You might also want to look at some anti-malware software like SpyBot S&D or MalwareBytes Anti-Malware or CCleaner (I use all three).

[multiweb (Marc)]

I have only ever used Norton Antivirus for over 10 years. I have to admit I am slowly running into problems with the latest versions starting with version 8.x onwards. The program seems to be more resource hungry but also conflicts with others and I've had some serious crashes needing a complete system restore from previous images so I'm also looking to move away from Symantec. I hear Zonealarm has an anti-virus now. I've used their firewall since day one and it's great so I might use them from now on.

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi

I use Avg but I dont think it catches everything because I think I got a very nasty trojan about two weeks ago.

It came from an email from ups.com. It looked completely legitamate but I was suspicious because I had not had any dealings with them. It was in a zip file. I inspected it with avg and it was pronounced clean so I backed up an image of my computer then opened the zip. It contained an exe file. I also investigated it with avg but no problem found. I was still suspicious so I looked at the hexcode under DOS but there was almost no ASCII type data.

I was curious to what it was so knowing I could kill the operating system and start again I ran the exe file. Nothing happened. I erased all the stuff and re-loaded my image thinking that all would be OK.

However I now believe it was trojan that hijacked my hotmail contact list (held by hotmail of course) as now I can't email any address on the contact list and I can't edit it. If the address is not on the contact list it appears to work OK

I also got back to UPS with the details and they confirmed it was not theirs.

I am investigating it at the moment.

Barry

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Work puts corporate editions of Symantec Antivirus and Firewall on every laptop. They put SAV on the servers they manage.

As long as there is enough memory and spare disk it just works. On this laptop the scan engine is currently using 142MB of RAM and about 1G of disk. It needs about another 500MB temp space when merging updates.

It seems that the home version is less stable (almost as if the home users are beta testers for the corporate edition), and the home systems quite often don't have the RAM or disk to cope.

[leon]

Interesting reading guys, thank you for yout responses.

Leon

[GrampianStars (Rob)]

Originally Posted by Chillie

I use Avast! It's free for personal use but you do need to register it every year. Registration is free.

http://www.avast.com/en-au/index

Leon
Avast finds more nasties than AVG

[leon]

Thanks Rob, I will look into that one as well.


Leon

[RAJAH235]

Hi Leon,
I use & highly recommend these...
Malwarebytes, > http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
Avast! > http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html
Super Anti Spy Ware, > http://www.superantispyware.com/
SpyWare Blaster, > http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/
Ad-Aware, > http://www.lavasoft.com/?langref=DE
All free, with no conflicts.

I gave AVG away after many years of use.
Too many glitches for my liking.
The same for Spybot S&D.
Try to do too much.

Stay safe.

L..