Anti-Virus and Spyware Advice Needed

Hey Everyone,

I read through a quite a few of the posts in this forum and I realize that this is a bit of a repeat but I have some specific questions I hope someone is willing to help me with.

I take care of a network that consists of two 2003 servers, 18 local pc's, 1 local mac, 3 remote access pc, 2 remote access macs. I am trying to address a growing need for proper anti-virus and spyware protection. The pc's all run on XP pro and the macs run on various OS versions.

I am primarily concerned with upgrading the PC's. Currently we have a combination of Norton and AVG.

So the question is what would you recommend for Anti-virus and for Spyware?

Thanks in advance for those willing to take the time to respond

Steve.

 

There are a lot of user's which have mixed-to-negative opinions about Norton, but since I have used it in a corporate environment for the last 5 years, I will share my experience. I don't disagree with some of the opinion's, but that's for a different thread.

We have a mixed environment as well. win98, nt4, w2k, w2k3, server & workstation, something like 35 computers. One of the things I quickly realized was administration. Norton has a "Corporate" edition. Basically you buy a box set which has a command center and is loaded on one deisgnated pc...in my case a server.

The command center is used to either push updates to client pc's, or have the client pull def's from the command server, thereby keeping the client pc upto date. Updates can be scheduled or ad-hoc. Additionally you can configure AV application access rights from the cmd-ctr...ie make so users cannot disable active scanning You can also schedule system scans.

There are so many things you can do with the command center...I could go on. Point being, you should consider a product, ANY PRODUCT, that has a central administration center. I have our cmd-ctr search for updates daily and push updates to LAN pc's every 8 hours +/-

Spyware vendors are starting to pickup on this concept for coporate users. I don't know what version it currently is, but last fall (2005) I demo'd CA eTrust Pest Patrol Anti-Spyware Corporate edition. It was a dog I was extremely dis-satisfied not only with the product, but also customer service. I don't seriously I will ever invest in CA spyware product's. Furthermore the home version of PestPatrol requires the user logged in to have administrative rights or the product won't function properly. This came straight from CA. I wrote them a letter explaining how "counter-to-best-practices" this methodology is.

C'mon now...NO HOME USER SHOULD EVER BE IN ADMIN MODE...AND ON THE INTERNET...PERIOD

However, there AV product I found to be faster than Norton and a little easier.

CA also purchased the right to rebrand the ZoneAlarm firewall and call it ezArmor. Still a good product.

2-out of 3 ain't bad.

just my 2cents

 

Thanks Jedi,

I can definitely see the command center saving me some time. I just want to make sure I make the best choice so I am not wasting time un-installing and reinstalling software

CrazyKid

 

slightly off topic...

If you have a machine with a decent processor and more than 512 mb ram, look at the free version of VMware. VMware is a virtualizer. Very Basically, you can setup either a single pc or a network "with-in" the local system. Once you have the VM installed, you then install file-based version of an operating system for testing. Again very basically...you can create a virtualized machine with-in the running machine...windows with-in windows.

Using this concept you can test software on a VM before actually installing it locally. You should also have the option to create a base VM and save this. Once you fire-up a running VM, you install the software you want to test. You will then have the option to save the settings...or not. You can also copy the VM file as a backup.

Really cool stuff.

But back on topic. I am not suggesting that Norton should be your choice, rather, Norton has worked well for me. The point being, if you want to remove the responsibility and administration from the client...go with a central administration system. Norton is not the only company with this concept. I beleive McAfee does this, as well as others.

~ Don