Anti virus

[Shox Dr]

I used to swear by AVG, but in the last few yrs it has become bloated. Run XP Pro using std windooes firewall etc.

Use Chrome for t'web

I run Magic mail Monitor for email, so I can delete and/or read emails while still in my POP box before they get anywhere near my PC.

Not had a (daren't say the word) for yrs.


But then I don't go sniffing around t'web

 

[mike os]

AVG just totaly ignored whatever i had.....or could not deal with it

 

[keith19]

"bitdefender or norton?"

Have had customers who swore by - and at - both.
One gentleman from warmer climes regularly used to lock himself out of his Norton AV machine, and would panic and call us in to sort it out. A bag of worms, it was not a popular job, as he would stand by watching, anxious he might lose some information, or that we might take awhile and charge accordingly.

When asked why he didn't change to something less complicated, he said he had paid for it, and was therefore going to use it. We reckoned he liked to go into the control panel in Norton and fluff about changing passwords and settings....

Bitdefender had a better record, sometimes had issues with registering itself, and occasionally missed stuff that Norton or AVG would catch, but ran solidly and didn't seem to cause big slowdowns.

Of the two I'd choose Bitdefender, if I had to pay for an AV. But why pay?

 

[Robotstar5]

Ran AVG for years then tried MSE on a clean install on Mrs Robo's PC, worked well so used it on this one after installing new HDD, also run Malaware & Spybot regularly.

 

[pedrobedro]

A friend rang up today, can you help I have a trojan. He brought his laptop down and it took 2 hours to get it up and running again. It would have been quicker to format and reinstall Windows. The offender was Live Security Platinum which installs itself as an anti-spyware and disables all .exe extensions and installs a proxy so you can't open anything or go anywhere without it activating. Malwarebytes got it in the end but it took a few tries. Do an online scan with Trend micros housecall occasionally as well just to keep safe.

 

[Welderpaul]

The offender was Live Security Platinum which installs itself as an anti-spyware and disables all .exe extensions and installs a proxy so you can't open anything or go anywhere without it activating.

Thats exactly what happened to mine last night.

 

[Ed.]

Also +1 for Avast, and just for the record, Macs do get viruses.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/...hat-macs-dont-get-viruses-20120703-21ei4.html

 

[CRB]

Also +1 for Avast, and just for the record, Macs do get viruses.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/...hat-macs-dont-get-viruses-20120703-21ei4.html

'Tis true, but they are very, very few and very, very far between. Windows is easy to get into, and there are many more WinPCs on the planet, so it makes sense to attack the easy target rather than spend time attacking the few, and better protected Macs and Linux PCs.

I use both W$ and Ubuntu(Linux). Every week or so I get updates for W$, security this, security that. Now you may say "That's good, they are on top of it" My version of W$ is XP. 2002 SP3. I only 'upgraded' because I was unable to run certain W$ programmes or get new drivers For example, I needed to reinstall my HP Laserjet 1200 printer. The disc would not read, so I went to HP Support to download the file. 'HP do not support Win98 because W$ have discontinued support' End of. I got the file from elsewhere but ?tail wagging dog?

My Ubuntu machine is running hardware which is ten years old and can do everything which my W$ machine can, except run TurboCad. Updates are rare and very rarely need a restart. I do not ever remember having any virus/malware to contend with. The FREE software, Open Office etc will open all W$ files, and save them as such. In fact I think it will go back to Lotus.

It does sometimes take more work but it is worth it.

http://distrowatch.com/ free to try any of the hundreds of versions, all based on the same basic kernel.

 

[keith19]

Live Security Platinum is just one of a huge family of these fake AV programs, Some info here:
http://www.fakeavremovals.com/live-security-platinum-removal-guide.html

More detailed info here:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...platinum/9d1e13ab-91f1-4972-83da-f2c5c69c97cb

 

[wheresmejumper]

Thats exactly what happened to mine last night.

yep,me too about a week ago.caused an awful lot of bother

initially thought live security platform was a microsoft program

 

[Premiershipman]

+1 for Avira, have it on all my machines at home. Not resource hungry and updates regulary and zaps anything dodgy.

 

[rtcosic]

Two years on - what is the current recommendation?
Something is bothering my PC - seems to be running in the background and chewing up resources.
As I simply read a 'static' page of the forum my hard drive light is constantly flickering. Firefox and Word 'lockup' for minutes at a time.

 

[Wozzaaah]

Avast!
I've tried pretty much all of them and it's the one I feel is the most secure and it doesn't slow my system down too much.
Do a ctrl+alt+delete and start task manager, switch to the processes tab, then click the memory column so they're listed largest to smallest amount.
That will tell you what processes are using the most memory and from that you may be able to see if any are rogue ones.
If you're unsure of any, take a screen grab of the entire list and post it on here.

 

[ajlelectronics]

Nobody seems to have mentione Zone Alarm. It is a free firewall and anti-virus. I went off AVG when they decided that they were entitled to hijack your browser.

 

[Rickt]

One of the best free anti-virus programs is Avira . Been using this for many years and it's excellent . Another program that's a 'must have' on your PC/laptop is Malwarebytes . This one is for the malware/spyware/ransomware that you can get while trawling the net .

 

[Rocketman]

My view is just pay for internet security and just run one program instead of running a load of programs - free anti virus program, free firewall program and free malware program. Makes no sense to me compared to paying a few quid a year for a single solution.

 

[Wozzaaah]

My view is just pay for internet security and just run one program instead of running a load of programs - free anti virus program, free firewall program and free malware program. Makes no sense to me compared to paying a few quid a year for a single solution.

What internet security?

 

[Rocketman]

What internet security?

What internet security? You mean which is best package best? Well other than the reviews you read for given versions each year it's very hard to say.

 

[Wallace]

I used AVG for years on my Pentium 4 PC but as time went on they added more functions that started to slow things down and I had one or two attacks that bypassed AVG so I tried Avast. That seemed to slow the old machine up even more than AVG but now I have a faster PC it's fine. I also run Malwarebytes and CCleaner regularly. CCleaner needs some cookies saving such as this site if you set the login to stay logged in.

 

[Wozzaaah]

What internet security? You mean which is best package best? Well other than the reviews you read for given versions each year it's very hard to say.

I thought you were talking about a specific one.
Norton is the one that seems to be pushed the most but my experience of it is that it's one of the worst, I won't ever use it again.