So I’ve finally got this new beast up and running, and don’t know what the best anti-virus software is. the family pc had mcaffshit, and i’ve vowed to never use it again.
right now i have avg free on here, and i’ve heard good things about it. (eg, it’s tens of times better than norton and mcaffshit)
so should i keep this on here or is there some other, better program that i could use for free?
(i’m going to have ubuntu on here soon in addition to vista rc1, but for now I only have vista. )
well, should you get any viruses, and need to have them removed, HiJack This is supposed to be “the shit”, because you can post the results from the program’s system scan on an anti-virus forum (usually they’re free), and the virus experts typically can tell what needs to happen from there.
as for protection, i know of know “the shit” other than what i’ve heard about avg.
i perosnaly use a combo of windows defender and Norton firewall… (yes i know not a very good choice) but i haven’t had a virus in hek knows how long
I really think Avast! antivirus is a great program. It has found stuff on my computer that Norton missed, plus it’s free. I think you might have to register to get a key, though. But it will run on Vista because it is 64-bit capable, and I just found out there’s a Linux version too!
Second that.
I’m on Linux now, and therefore need no antivirus…because it’s linux, and I closed down all the non-critical ports. Also, I have a packet level filter for all my incoming traffic. However I did use avast back when I was on XP.
Real good protection from what I remember. Much better than macaffe (or whatever it’s called) that much I can tell you with 100% certainty.
Im using Trend Micro PCcillin, Works great alot less bloat then norton and macafee
Avast is excellent. I’ve used all the other well known ones. Norton, McAffee, PC Cillan, they all suck.
Avast:
Free registration for home use
64 bit
not bloated
Linux version, etc.
I am running McAfee Corporate on a domain, and it is really clean and runs well.
Maybe only the single user standalone version is bloated.
Before this we had Norton Standalone and it was very top heavy.
NOD32 is the best anti-virus out there. The price is just right for this wonderful piece of software.
http://www.eset.com is the website. You can try the program out for a while, and I assure you that it’s the best. It’s anti-spyware, anti-adware, anti-virus, and anti-trojan. It also acts as a firewall.
This may seem like an ad, but it’s not. It’s my real opinion.
I used to get a small virus about every month or so, and spyware too. Once, I had this trojan/spyware that was really hard to get rid of, and when I got NOD32 it vanished.
So, if you want free anti-virus software, you aren’t going to find anything like NOD32. AVG is not that good, and it doesn’t even protect against trojans. Spybot: Search and Destroy is ok, but not great (it didn’t get rid of a few nasty pieces of spyware that NOD32 did). Ad-Aware is not that good either, it deleted some important files of mine and I had a lot of trouble fixing the damage.
I have used Norton anti-Virus before, and it’s ok. It’s about half the speed of NOD32, but it does an ok job. The technical support, however, sucks. In fact, Symantec’s technical support is the worst I have ever encountered. And, we bought the software that was described, specifically, to have a license for 2 computers. It was a bit more expensive, so we read carefully to make sure that it was what we thought it was. But, when we tried to install it on both of our computers, it didn’t work. The technical support people were hard to get to, and not very helpful. We finally learned that this version would not work on 2 computers. After having more trouble with the software, we gave it up for good.
And that’s my $0.02.
i support using avast as well. iv used avast for the last 12 months after i got a virus that norton said didnt exist on my system. iv been virus free for over a year now.
I’ve been using ClamWin for several months on mine and another computer and haven’t had any problems… Which isn’t really saying much. I’ve kind of been hoping something would pop up so I could see how effective it is. Has anyone else had ClamWin catch anything?
i’m installing avast now, then i’m gonna run a scan.
quick question for you Avast users: when it shows you items, it’s generally safe to click Repair/Delete right? I know that with HiJack This you don’t want to just repair everything it shows you (because some of them are important system processes), but Avast doesn’t have that problem, right?
I’m a computer service technician by trade, and for customers that need an anti-virus solution (I usually consider it temporary in lieu of something else), I recommend ClamWin. It is actually quite adept at catching alot of different things, though it may need some setting tweaking. I once cleaned a computer of 3,400 different infected files (I think that’s my record.)
~K
I’ll stick my nose out here and say that the “anti-virus software” that I run is … nothing.
In fact, I’ve become quite adept at whacking McAfee in the key-parts until it finally and really un-installs itself, which as you may know can take quite some doing.
If you set up your system properly, you don’t need to have any anti-virus software, and it doesn’t matter if that system is Windows or OS/X or Linux or what have you. Here are the main things you need to remember:
And … that’s it. Now, the files and registry keys that a virus would want to modify are locked-up or backed-up.
avg anti virus, zone alarm firewall, lavasoft adaware se,
covers most problems before they even start.
M.A.
NOD32 was the best reviewed home anti-virus program on the web when I built my computer 7 months ago