I am using Avast Professional v4.8 with Home Server management.
Finally a product that is friendly to the machine and does not get in the way. Very good performance in nabbing the bad stuff. I run it on all the machines at work and it does stop infections.
Well I've given Avast a test run for the last day on my lad's PC
and it seems to be better as far as browser speed goes compared
to AVG.
Another issue worth mentioning, I installed two completely separate
'net nanny' type packages on his PC, only to find AVAST found
a known trojan in both self extracting EXEs....Nice one!
yeah well i have been using AVG for many years now and it has always been great up until the last few updates it made my computer go haywire and i couldnt even get into my computer at one stage after a long late night of finally deleting AVG, my computer has been perfect ever since i might give AVAST a go too
Steve - I suspect that those "trojans" are probably heuristic false alarms. Especially if it was software that you paid for, and was made by a reputable company.
Wait until rootkits become more popular, and they start writing themselves into firmware on videocards/soundcards - don't laugh, it's most certainly do-able. Pretty much can't get rid of the suckers without removing hardware and buying new stuff to replace it.
As to AV - I can pretty much guarantee that if I really wanted to, I could find software on the net to write viruses that would get past pretty much every AV on the planet. If you really want to be safe, don't have a computer. Seriously. As Hudson in Aliens said:
"it's the only way to be sure".
Jen - I'd say your problems are stemming from a very tired Windows XP system, and possibly viruses on it. Ignore the fact that you had AV software installed on the system, in reality, it means jack you know what. I found conficker on my dad's PC, and he had McAffee AV (up to date too) on his system...so much for that ;-) Oh, and Trendmicro's online AV and Norton's online AV found jack, it was up to Kaspersky Labs online scanner to find it.
I have no experience with AVAST, but it does rate very well - few false alarms, catches a very high percentage of both known and viruses in the wild. There are other tools to employ to help keep an eye on your system, but you have to know what you're doing and know what is right, and what is wrong on the system. I can usually tell from a quick scan of HKLM\software\microsoft\windows\cur rent version\run in the registry what is right, as well as from processes, system startup files (start > run > msconfig.exe), services etc.
This sort of thing is why I prefer a UNIX or UNIX like system - security by design. There's nothing like a freeBSD jail chroot system ;-) mmm actually, Solaris containers will do the trick as well.
The net is not a safe place. Not even on the safest platform, especially with cross platform scripting like JavaScript, Java, perl, php. PHP is notorious for being insecure, although php5 is better by all accounts.
Anything connected to an Internet connection can be cracked. Note the correct term is crack/cracking, not hack/hacking. Hacking is something completely different, ask RMS and he'll give you a drilling about it.
I was using AVGfree for years, then I got an Acer laptop and read worrying things about AVG and Acers... so I'm running with nothing at the moment. Might give AVAST a go, cheers for starting this thread Steve.
Been using Spybot S&D for years too, but for some time now it's never found a single thing after a scan... which is a little worrying!!
yeah well i have been using AVG for many years now and it has always been great up until the last few updates it made my computer go haywire and i couldnt even get into my computer at one stage after a long late night of finally deleting AVG, my computer has been perfect ever since i might give AVAST a go too
I've had a couple of instances of AVG being nobbled by something, no AV is perfect and there's always some clown out there who thinks its clever to write something to do damage.
One thing I have come across with AVG is, if you are upgrading to a higher version, remove the existing one, deleting the user settings and leaving the virus vault intact. Do a full install of the latest version. Have had instances of just upgrading over the top of the old installation screwing everything up.
Bill
My mate in Bunbury has used Avast for some time and is very happy with its performance, give it a go Jen.
so many haters of norton and i dont know why? ive used norton corporate edition for yeeears and not once has it failed me, its free installs/uninstalls in a minute not a memory hog no browser hicups no subscribing for updates free lifetime subscription acually to both program and virus def $$ free free free
sounds like most norton users tried out nortons bloatware versions of av eg system works norton360 and such
I have the best antivirus software available. i have not had any problems at all for more than 5 years. I would strongly recomend it to any one. It's called DO NOT CONNECT YOUR MAIN COMPUTER TO THE INTERNET EVER. Get an old one for surfing,
I have the best antivirus software available. i have not had any problems at all for more than 5 years. I would strongly recomend it to any one. It's called DO NOT CONNECT YOUR MAIN COMPUTER TO THE INTERNET EVER. Get an old one for surfing,
i might give AVAST a go too 
