Anti-Virus recommendations

[danielsun]

Originally Posted by asimov

Yep, Limewire sucks. You won't know the song or the movie is infected until the download is completed.

Yep, Limewire which I think is now Frostwire is a virus factory.

I have used AVG for many years but now use Avast along with Malwarebytes and Spybot Which I think between the three they do the job.
My mum got that dreaded "MS REMOVAL TOOL" Fake virus program which is just a virus itself and a total scam!!! It shuts everything down and you have to go into safe mode to get rid of it!

[asimov (John)]

Hopefully antivirus programs have advanced a bit since I last used AVG & a few others. In the early days, AVG would allow the virus in & THEN warn you that you had a virus! That scenerio is no good for anyone, & I wanted something that ABORTED THE CONNECTION instantly if there was an incoming nasty. Avast was the only (free) one around 3 or 4 yrs ago that you could setup to do that. I've stuck with it ever since.

Edit: And I wouldn't be without Spybot S&D these days either. The Teatimer app. is great.

[Heath (Heater)]

Eset Nod32 is a non obtrusive and effective antivirus. I use it for my business and at home. Not expensive and very good service from local support

[alistairsam]

I'd recommend McAfee. We use it for our enterprise of over 3000 nodes (enterprise version), we've trialled the home products and it was better than symantec and some others. their signatures are released much quicker.

http://promos.mcafee.com/en-au/lp/3p...aspx?cid=67304

else, look at kaspersky. i've not used it but have heard a lot of good things about it.
https://www.kasperskyanz.com.au/

also lookup antivirus reviews by cnet and others. reviews usually give a good idea.

[multiweb (Marc)]

I'm a long time user of Symantec Norton products but I have to admit the latest versions since 2009 have been ridden with glitches and serious problems so I moved to Zonealarm Internet security. I've always used their firewall program and recently switched to their Internet Security program. So far so good.

[Tiotion (Jack)]

I'm gonna be turned into Swiss cheese for this but I like Norton Internet suite on windows systems. It's not as intrusive as 360 in that it doesn't put it's fingers in everything on your computer. The ~$80 yearly fee is a bit of a pain but it's a small price in the grand scheme of things.
My sister was using free AV software and got infected by a virus that uploaded about a gig of data in an hour. Only found out because we hit our download limit in 3 days. So after that we switched.
Perhaps it's peice of mind placebo cos it's paid but yeh. Works for me

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

I've been using BitDefender for the last couple of years. It has worked brilliantly and is very unintrusive. I have never noticed any slowing down or hugging of resources, so I'm happy with it. I think it costs some 50 USD for a yearly license.

[xstream (John)]

I used to use ESET Nod32 when I was running windoze but now use ESET Cybersecurity for Mac. Both have been faultless, more than worth their cost.

[scagman (John)]

Originally Posted by alistairsam

else, look at kaspersky. i've not used it but have heard a lot of good things about it.
https://www.kasperskyanz.com.au/

also lookup antivirus reviews by cnet and others. reviews usually give a good idea.

I use kaspersky on all my machines and find it works well.

John

[g__day (Matthew)]

I've gone with Avast Internet Security V6 for awhile now - seems to work fine!

Before that I used Zone Alarms Pro - twas okay but there was no 64 bit version for a long time - so Avast displaced it!

[Barrykgerdes]

I have AVG which seems to work OK. However I tried a program called stopzilla which appeared to be safe (backed up before I tried it). I ran it (took all night) and it found 91 assorted virii, worms, spyware, adware etc. Of course it would not remove them till I registered for payment.

I have a list of the programs it found and some of them are rather strange as they exist in some old DOS batch files (rabio search enhancer) that I know are only ASCII and I have looked at the hex code which has no problems. Others are obviously real and were not found by AVG in a full scan. However I tried to run one and AVG immediately told me what it was and moved it to the virus vault and would not run.

Another one is a virus called "comet system comet cursor spyware". It is a compiled version of a quickbasic program I wrote. The code is writen in ASCII (no virus there) and compiled with the qbasic compiler and does not appear to have any problems. There is no virus in any of the other programs I have written and compiled in qbasic. This program runs OK

Anyone with further information?

Barry

PS I did this testing after I had trouble with a friends computer infected with the "windows recovery" virus

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by g__day

I've gone with Avast Internet Security V6 for awhile now - seems to work fine!

Before that I used Zone Alarms Pro - twas okay but there was no 64 bit version for a long time - so Avast displaced it!

Hi,

I hope I've got this right...

Zonealarm is a firewall, which is different to an anti-virus program, and really you must have both.

Malwarebytes is one of the best, but the freeware is an online anti-virus scanner, it swoops from the clouds and cleans your PC, then it zooms away and does not stay.

To get Malwarebytes to take up residence in your PC and watch out for nasties, you need the Pro version which is $25. This will be the best money you ever spent if you get a rootkit in your PC (I did - OMG). These dreadful things burrow right into Windows, into the OS core, send your passwords to East Berlin, and are a real trial to eradicate. Being a paying customer gets you first priority with their Tech Support, which is really expert.

Another good diagnostic scanner is DrWeb Cureit!

There are two leading sources of assistance if you get a really serious virus in the PC,

http://forums.malwarebytes.org/

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/

On either of these (often the same experts there) you can open a thread and get advice. The number of different tools they bring to bear is amazing, and as mentioned, if you have paid (MBAM that is), it gets a same day or next day response.

Comb through these forums to get an idea of how best to armour your PC. It seems nowadays you may need not one, but two complementary anti-virus tools, although beware of spending unnecessarily.

Cheers