Antivirus

[cassiya]

Fellow Shedenders!

Im in the process of upgrading my crappy Dell desktop to a new laptop. My query is what is the best antivirus/firewall out in the market?

I've been using McAfee for the past year: never again!

Cheers!

[dkw]

Fellow Shedenders!

Im in the process of upgrading my crappy Dell desktop to a new laptop. My query is what is the best antivirus/firewall out in the market?

I've been using McAfee for the past year: never again!

Cheers!

i prefer kaspersky at the moment, though i would also consider f-secure. if you go for a free one then avg free.

[Dubzz 6]

AVG gets my vote :(

Mcaffee is a no go for me as well. ;)

[geezer]

AVG gets my vote :(

Mcaffee is a no go for me as well. ;)

Doesn't Mcaffee play for Celtic?

[Oblivion]

Kaspersky is it for me. Its cheap (get the 3 user one and share it with 2 others, comes down to about 5-6 pounds per year) and effective. I'm a download-holic and grab large amounts of mp3's and movies, so having Kaspersky is like have Cech in goal, great safety net.

Never get McAfee and Norton. Ever.

Panda is pretty good too I heard.

[The Moos]

I'm using F-Secure, but only because I get it for free from my brother.

It's good and so far has stopped all viruses. But it has a problem with a file called "fssm32" (or something like that). At times it takes up alot of the memory and really slows down the computer. I've upgraded so I have 4gb ram and that helps a bit, but it's still annoying.

But it seems it's not like that on all computers. Don't know why though.

I think it works better on Vista though.

[Essien's Strike]

i work in pc world and i get 5 people a day who have had viruses wreck their windows.

get:

free virus protection: Avira Antivir

free trojan cleaner: A Squared Free

free spyware cleaner: SuperAnti Spyware

get all 3 and run them weekly or fortnightly.

neither mcaffee or kaspersky or webroot are good enough on their own, and AVG is worse than it used to be forget that.

[Lofty]

i work in pc world and i get 5 people a day who have had viruses wreck their windows.

get:

free virus protection: Avira Antivir

free trojan cleaner: A Squared Free

free spyware cleaner: SuperAnti Spyware

get all 3 and run them weekly or fortnightly.

neither mcaffee or kaspersky or webroot are good enough on their own, and AVG is worse than it used to be forget that.

Interesting. You work in PC World and you don't even mention a firewall.

I'm still running Sygate Pro, which with a little tweaking, is as solid as any firewall out there -even though Symantec did their best to kill it off. Unfortunately, it doesn't (so I'm told) work with Vista.

Comodo gets best reviews of any free firewall, but last time I tried it, the programme had difficultly coping with a dynamic IP - every time I connected, it would see the connection as a "New Network". I don't know if this has been resolved in newer versions - I'm happy with Sygate.

Be careful with A Squared Free, which has a tendency to throw up false positives. It also flags various forms of "greyware", apart from keygens and the like, these also include perfectly legitimate programs, such as password recovery apps and so on.

Spyware: I'm running Spybot S&D with SpyWare Blaster - both free and both do the job very well.

AntiVirus: Plenty of decent alternatives to the big unmentionables out there. The best, in my opinion, being NOD32, which, if you can't find/don't trust a cracked copy, will cost you around £23 per year. The last freebie AV I ran was Avast! which I found ok, but which failed to prevent infections on a friend's PC.

[Essien's Strike]

Interesting. You work in PC World and you don't even mention a firewall.

I'm still running Sygate Pro, which with a little tweaking, is as solid as any firewall out there -even though Symantec did their best to kill it off. Unfortunately, it doesn't (so I'm told) work with Vista.

Comodo gets best reviews of any free firewall, but last time I tried it, the programme had difficultly coping with a dynamic IP - every time I connected, it would see the connection as a "New Network". I don't know if this has been resolved in newer versions - I'm happy with Sygate.

Be careful with A Squared Free, which has a tendency to throw up false positives. It also flags various forms of "greyware", apart from keygens and the like, these also include perfectly legitimate programs, such as password recovery apps and so on.

Spyware: I'm running Spybot S&D with SpyWare Blaster - both free and both do the job very well.

AntiVirus: Plenty of decent alternatives to the big unmentionables out there. The best, in my opinion, being NOD32, which, if you can't find/don't trust a cracked copy, will cost you around £23 per year. The last freebie AV I ran was Avast! which I found ok, but which failed to prevent infections on a friend's PC.

vistas firewall plus the hardware firewall in the modem will do fine for most non-pc literate ppl. too much information just confuses them.

[Lofty]

vistas firewall plus the hardware firewall in the modem will do fine for most non-pc literate ppl. too much information just confuses them.

That may be fine for people running Vista who use a router to connect. I couldn't tell you about Vista's firewall, but to be any good at all, then it would have to be a vast improvement on the one that comes with XP.

Routers have firewalls , modems don't.

[Essien's Strike]

That may be fine for people running Vista who use a router to connect. I couldn't tell you about Vista's firewall, but to be any good at all, then it would have to be a vast improvement on the one that comes with XP.

Routers have firewalls , modems don't.

the vista one is fine, plus yes the router firewall.. i generalised the term modem because most customers just know that word.

at the end of the day %80 of people get the nastys by falling victim to spoof links, downloads, or infected P2P files. or from dodgy websites.

the firewall isnt the most important part of their protection setup, and the 2 provided by the OS and router are generally fine.

[Lofty]

the vista one is fine, plus yes the router firewall.. i generalised the term modem because most customers just know that word.

Which doesn't say a lot for customers, or for your company's policy, for not explaining the difference.

at the end of the day %80 of people get the nastys by falling victim to spoof links, downloads, or infected P2P files. or from dodgy websites.

the firewall isnt the most important part of their protection setup, and the 2 provided by the OS and router are generally fine.

That's four different sources for a start. Traditionally, firewalls were more effective at blocking trojans and the like, but nowadays of course there's a crossover. The Vista/router firewall combination may be fine for people running Vista and connecting via a router, but not for people with neither. Me for instance, I run XP Pro and will continue to do so for as long as possible. My current intention is to avoid Vista completely, and I hope at some time to get Mac OS running on a PC, which is possible, by all accounts, but I'm yet to give it a try. I also connect via a BT Voyager 105. Not bad for a modem, but there are also countless thousands of people still using Sagem or Speedtouch modems, the kind that used to be given away by the likes of Tiscali and Virgin Media.

What I'm saying is, that your response may be fine for your customers buying a new, suitably equipped PC, but otherwise you will often have to look a little further for the answers.

[Essien's Strike]

Which doesn't say a lot for customers, or for your company's policy, for not explaining the difference.

That's four different sources for a start. Traditionally, firewalls were more effective at blocking trojans and the like, but nowadays of course there's a crossover. The Vista/router firewall combination may be fine for people running Vista and connecting via a router, but not for people with neither. Me for instance, I run XP Pro and will continue to do so for as long as possible. My current intention is to avoid Vista completely, and I hope at some time to get Mac OS running on a PC, which is possible, by all accounts, but I'm yet to give it a try. I also connect via a BT Voyager 105. Not bad for a modem, but there are also countless thousands of people still using Sagem or Speedtouch modems, the kind that used to be given away by the likes of Tiscali and Virgin Media.

What I'm saying is, that your response may be fine for your customers buying a new, suitably equipped PC, but otherwise you will often have to look a little further for the answers.

ok ok, look i do explain why a customer needs a modem router and what they are, i was just generalising, avoiding unneccesarily stating the obvious - i assumed youd just know i was referring to a modem router which of course contains a hardware firewall as part of the router. the modem can be seperate if they happen to have a non usb modem, then i will sell them a standalone router if they want wifi or switching.

as for the firewall, for the most part you cant stop someone physically downloading and running a spoof file or being phished into some link somewhere, thats user error.

the firewall stops potential unwanted accesses either from within or without, but they do not have a large definition file as software does which will block the lions share of everyday nasties which a customer will get. since they will have an OS+router firewall setup, and Norton,McAffee and Kaspersky which we sell have packages which have firewalls, that is suitable for the price a customer wants to pay and the amount of hassle they want and the amount of knowlege which they have in order to live with a firewall.

for a lot of people a purchased firewall will hamper their life because they dont understand it and creates more problems than it would solve in a year of protection.

and im not arguing either we both know the importance of security, but theres horses for courses, innit :P

[Lofty]

ok ok, look i do explain why a customer needs a modem router and what they are, i was just generalising, avoiding unneccesarily stating the obvious - i assumed youd just know i was referring to a modem router which of course contains a hardware firewall as part of the router. the modem can be seperate if they happen to have a non usb modem, then i will sell them a standalone router if they want wifi or switching.

as for the firewall, for the most part you cant stop someone physically downloading and running a spoof file or being phished into some link somewhere, thats user error.

the firewall stops potential unwanted accesses either from within or without, but they do not have a large definition file as software does which will block the lions share of everyday nasties which a customer will get. since they will have an OS+router firewall setup, and Norton,McAffee and Kaspersky which we sell have packages which have firewalls, that is suitable for the price a customer wants to pay and the amount of hassle they want and the amount of knowlege which they have in order to live with a firewall.

for a lot of people a purchased firewall will hamper their life because they dont understand it and creates more problems than it would solve in a year of protection.

and im not arguing either we both know the importance of security, but theres horses for courses, innit :P

A modem router? Hmmm I really think you need to differentiate. Still, whatever you call it, it's a definite step up from selling machines with either Norton or McAfee pre-installed, both of which should carry health warnings. I've heard that Norton 2009 is less bloated and faster than previous versions - but I'll believe that if and when I see it.

There's not really an argument here, because we are speaking from very different viewpoints, yours being that of a retailer or retailer's employee who's concern is his customers, and the products sold - if you don't stock Eset or whatever, there's no earthly reason why you should recommend it - mine being that of an end user and of someone who's been setting up machines (hardware and software), often for a fee, sometimes as a favour, for several years, all the way back to 486's, Windows 3.1 and beyond.

[Essien's Strike]

belkin, netgear, d-link all sell Modem Routers for ADSL broadband lines which say Modem Router on the box. i mean, i had a 400 baud modem and my own bbs running on a 286, things changes and nowadays pc's are also the domain of the uninitiated as well as long-time users. ppl who walk in dont wanna spend any money either. they want "the internet" on a laptop for £300 and thats it. explaining you need a little more to keep the system running well makes them look at you like youre trying to rob them. then they come in and tell you they turned the pc on and it says "no operating system found" cus they have 40,000 viruses from Limewire. and they want their money back.

and machines still come with nortons or mcaffee demos in and also office trial too :P

[mad_mac]

I used a link Lofty provided me to get rid of Norton, and then installed Avast (I use Vista), and then Spyware or was it Spybot...So far, pretty good. I don't mess with any torrent sites though, so I think that helps avoid some viruses?? however, I do share music files and it seems fine so far

[monterrey jack]

Way behind on this one :mellow: but being serious the best answer (if you can afford it) is get a Mac. I have a cyber and all but mine are PC's and at one stage or another all (but mine) have suffered a virus. The day will come when someone will hit mac with a virus but I bet it is way of yet. Normally I will not allow music sharing but gave way last week and loaded Ares for a customer (I have a mixture of ZA and Norton security suites) The next day I had to reformat the computer !!

[Kerry]

Way behind on this one :lol: but being serious the best answer (if you can afford it) is get a Mac.

When you point out the May being a good suggestion then I'd say Linux is the even better choice. I have no virus scan on my linux system, even not a high-end-password a la "$JKDTdcjdk()?(§J (<--- the safe secure password of the modern b-net user shall look like this I've read in a tutorial) and in my nearly 8 years with Linux I've never encountered a problem with a virus. Now the local government here even uses it. I guess not because of the security really :P but because of the price but that's yet another thing :D

[dkw]

dont get a mac for gods sake, you intsantly start wearing tank tops and shirts and have pens in your shirt pocket. NERDS!!!!!!

[bonetti]

dont get a mac for gods sake, you intsantly start wearing tank tops and shirts and have pens in your shirt pocket. NERDS!!!!!!

My business runs on Macs and there is nothing wrong with Morris Dancing

[dkw]

My business runs on Macs and there is nothing wrong with Morris Dancing

oh there is and you know it.

[Mike O]

I spent £1200 on a top end mac last year and I hate it. It's rubbish at running multiple MS office packages without crashing, doesn't have Outlook, won't run the Entourage alternative that came with it and feels like a great big toy.

Of course, working in design as I do, the rest of the team all use them but my view is that they don't do the business at business.

Humbug

[bonetti]

I spent £1200 on a top end mac last year and I hate it. It's rubbish at running multiple MS office packages without crashing, doesn't have Outlook, won't run the Entourage alternative that came with it and feels like a great big toy.

Of course, working in design as I do, the rest of the team all use them but my view is that they don't do the business at business.

Humbug

Think you got a duff one Mike - PCs are 'Janet and John' compared to Macs