Best anti virus, adware etc?

I don't have any kind of anti-anything right now and think I will get one. I see AVG has a complete 7.5 for $52.95 yr. Norton is not well recommended by some. What do you pros use? I just surf and Email with my laptop.

Chas.

 

Everyone has favorites.

But I do not want one more second to go by with you on the internet without a working firewall and a working antivirus application. No matter what commercial choice you might make, make the choice today to install something:

There are freeware alternatives that are quite good. My favorite here would be Avast 4! http://www.avast.com/
AVG offers a freeware version that has pleased many: http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/

Understand how both differ from the paid version.

Now you have the leasure to go and shop. While I am no fan of Norton/Symantec Antivirus products, this has more to do with managing the products in multiple workstation settings rather than their effectiveness. On a stand-alone machine with a non-pro user behind the wheels, the product does as promised. In your review, I believe the strongest paid products out there are at the moment from Kaspersky and NOD32. But both products assume some expertise in computers that you may feel uncomfortable in their assuming for your case. I cannot recommend McAfee, but for the relatively new user I still can recommend Norton/Symantec, and AVG.

 

Chas,

I use AVG Free on all my systems. I use to have Norton's installed on them but I changed because Norton's was slowing them down. I have had no problems with AVG and have been virus free. For what you want, I feel AVG Free will work great. As Bill mentions, you should get something installed on your system ASAP. No need taking a chance. If you want to try something else later, remove what you have and try the new one.

Mike

 

Thank you Bill and Mike:

I went ahead and popped $27.50 for NOD32 but I'm not sure it has a firewall. My Gateway 450sx4 laptop XP Home has the Windows firewall in security turned on, isn't that sufficient?

The HELP in NOD32 is pretty clear about instructions though it is a pretty sophisticated system.

Chas.

 

Best Antivirus Adware Programs

Depends who you talk to everyone has their person favorites:

With Spyware Programs you generally run a number of products .
They all find diffirent things. Depends on the origin of the program and reporting of users to the programs owners.

Popular choices of the free programs:

- adaware
- spybot ( can be set for automatic starts and updates if have lan type connection either router or cable broadband)
- the microsoft xp program

commercial products:

- spysweeper
- pc tools spyware doctor
- Trend Micro Anti-Spyware


Trend Micro /Housecall ( PcCillin) has a spyware / malware online scan in the trend housecall online antivirus scan which is longer and a specific online spyware scan
- this of course assumes that you have not been overwhelmed with spyware and can go online

The key thing is to do the updates.

The spyware may well eliminate your ability to go to any antivirus or antivirus sites. You may have to download updates on another computer.
The spyware may prevent you from going to the more popular / well known anti spyware sites such as adaware but you will allow you to go to less well known anti spyware sites so that you can do your initial removal scans.
downloads.com has the latest adware definitons file.
You open it up and overwrite the current program definition file if you have to do update manually:

http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Definition-File/3000-8022_4-10622247.html?tag=lst-0-4

As said you often have to run a variety of anti spyware programs in sequence depending on your preferences . Updates are more than critical.
You may well a pest that is new and is not in the definition sets yet.
I got hit this week . Nothing removed the pest. Lots of fun. Luckily had a backup of my c drive. And data on partitions.

Antivirus Programs.
Again everyone has their favorites.
It will be interesting to see the comments and preferences of the experts here.
My basic preference is to stay away from the major mainstream product that novices / nubes swear by out of brand loyalty / innocence /stupidity
( read Norton).
Regardless I read an article that said that the main purpose of antivirus programs are to reassure the owners/users/ buyers and that antivirus programs are at best 10 % effective and that prevention is key.
The major problem now by far is spyware not viruses as much.
Again the key thing is not so much the product you use as the rigorous attention to updates.

My andectodal case in point was that several months ago a terrible virus came across my router from a computer i was working on. Very foolish of me.
It was a weekend of fun. I tried everything to remove the last vestige that would then reinstall the culprit.
The only product across the whole spectrum that did was the free AVG product. I was more than amazed and surprised all in all . I had thought that being a rather free mainstream product that this would be anything but the case.
Among the antivirus products to look at are

- Norton antivirus
- the Russian one that starts with a K with the long name
- PcCillin ( Trend)
- NOD32
the techs at my local Best Buy store ( whose main function are to remove spyware and viruses and inform customers it would be best to purchase a new computer all in all - like NOD32 for virus detection. Fast they say and catches a number of viruses that the others do not catch ( again read Norton the market / retail leader ).
- McAfee ( also another mainstream product)
- AVG it used to be that the free products had to have the updates done manually whereas their paid version would no updates manually. This would limit real life virus protection in computer novices.
There is no shortage of antivirus products for others hear to recommend to you. Updates are critical. Regular scans are critical. The background scans going on all the time will catch a lot but they are not as thorough as a full scan and may miss some.
As well there are online antivirus scans such as the trend housecall scan which dell used to recommend.:

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/


Interestingly here is the Wikipedia reference to spyware.
Things are so bad on this front that Wikipedia is considering a whole new discussion on spyware products that have similar names to well known antispyware products that are themselves spyware;
What is amazing that Wikipedia itself lists 14 known culprits that would fool most users and that this is only the known lists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware

The recent proliferation of fake or spoofed antivirus products has occasioned some concern. Such products often bill themselves as antispyware, antivirus, or registry cleaners, and sometimes feature popups prompting users to install them. They are called rogue software.

Known offenders include:

errorsafe
Pest Trap
SpyAxe
AntiVirus Gold
SpywareStrike
Spyware Quake
WorldAntiSpy
Spy Sheriff
Spy Wiper
PAL Spyware Remover
PSGuard
Malware
WinAntiVirus Pro 2006
WinFixer

Here is a link to an excellent podcast on the origins, history and treatment of this curse of spyware.
This fellow recommends a sequence of antispyware products:

adaware,spybot and the microsoft product:


http://www.twit.tv/sn7

as I said my feelings are it is best not to know the name Norton. Also the more current list of Norton Antivirus products since 2003 seem to slow computers down ( especially important in older computers). They seem to have hidden software that remains even after the product is removed.
I do not know about commercial Symantec antivirus products and their distinction from the retail products.
Lastly the Wikipedia article points out the symptoms of spyware - reduced online internet speed, cpu and hard drive overuse. Users who are infested often purchase new computers since their computers seem to become very slow in today's terms..

 

Hello Chas,

At the moment NOD is a Anti Virus only.

There is a suite (firewall included) being beta tested.

NOD32 forum at Wilders: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/index.php

As a inbound firewall, WF is as good as any, the issue is outbound monitoring. I personally use firewalls with that ability as much for controlling legitimate programs/processes attempts to connect as for catching any potential spyware that got on the system.

Regards - Charles

 

Try Avast!

Hi, i currently use Avast! from www.avast.com it's free and is very good i think.