Slashdot Mirror

I'm going to disagree on the userfriendly part with AVG.

...it seems really dated in terms of how it actually finds infection (ala scan only).

The parent's (Score:3, Informative) post seems to imply that AVG Free Edition does not have real-time/on-access protection/scanning as a free feature, but it does. It's called AVG Resident Shield. From Grisoft's Get AVG Free page (WARNING: promotional hype follows):

Some of the highlights of AVG Free for Windows include:

• Rapid virus database updates for the lifetime of the product
• Easy of use
• No system slow down
• Automatic update functionality
• The AVG Resident Shield, which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run
• The AVG E-mail Scanner, which protects your e-mail
• The AVG On-Demand Scanner, which allows you to perform scheduled and manual tests
• The AVG Virus Vault for safe isolation and handling of infected files
• And most of all ... great customer satisfaction!

* Installation and use in a network environment.

Nowhere does it say environment and I highly doubt that was what was intended and more than likely was a typo by the attorney. What is says in the license is "You must not use the program in a network or on more than one computer." If they didn't intend it to be used in a networked environment then why would they even include the internet updater since the internet is the biggest network in the world? The other reason I believe this to be a typo is because if you look at the feature limitations found here http://www.grisoft.com/doc/289/lng/us/tpl/tpl01#Li mitations it says:

"AVG Free Edition cannot be installed on server operating systems (such as Windows Server 2003), nor can it be used for the scanning of network drives."

By reading that it looks like they intended "in" to be "over" in the license and that was the attorneys attempt to say you can't use it to scan drives over the network. I think someone should contact them about that (I would but I purchased a license so its a non-issue for me).

I also don't see a problem with the single computer restriction. If it is going to be used on multiple computers owned by the same person then they shouldn't be a total freeloader and pony up the whole $109/2 years for the SoHo license which gives you 5 licenses so its only $10.90 per computer per year (there is also a 2 user package available). If you can't afford that then how can you afford to have so many computers (both purchase and/or if you got them for free pay for the electricity for all of them)? Also, the single user restriction should not be a limitation for a family that has children and computers for each child since each family member is entitled to their own single user license. This restriction is only an issue for the freeloaders who don't think that maybe the developers of the software might like to be able to eat something besides Ramen noodles all the time.

They've always had the free version. You just have to look for it. http://free.grisoft.com/

I also recommend the free version of AVG. Due to user-friendlyness, sheduling, set-it and forget updating, etc.

AVG also runs on Linux

AVG Free Edition is for private, non-commercial, single-home computer use only. Use of AVG Free Edition within any organization or for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited. (from http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1/)

AVG Free Edition is for private, non-commercial, single-home computer use only. Use of AVG Free Edition within any organization or for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited. (from http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1/)

pwned.

GriSoft (antivirus)

ZoneAlarm (firewall)

Ad-aware (anti spyware)

Windows Defender(anti spyware)

And don't forget windows solitaire!

Norton and Mcaffee both suck. I mean, they're both terrible, poorly written, resource-intensive programs. The best anti-virus software I've found is AVG Free Edition. Though, realistically, you only need AV software if you open email attachments and download stuff from websites that aren't obviously trustworthy.

For antispyware software, the only ones to use are Spybot and Ad-Aware. Again, you only really need those programs if you use Internet Explorer. Don't. Get Firefox instead.

What else is good and useful? VLC has been mentioned, it's the best media player. Some of these Powertoys are useful, especially TweakUI. For Instant messaging, Trillian is the best, though GAIM gets better all the time.

Other than that...games. I don't have any recommendations for those, you'll just have to find what you like. Have fun.

These are the first programs I install on every Windows machine I get my hands on. They serve a very simple purpose: to take care of all the Windows quirks and negate the need for any maintenance whatsoever:

1) AVG Antivirus: This is amazing, lightweight and updates almost every day (http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1);

2) CCleaner (Crap Cleaner): Removes all the "crap" that gets stored on Windows machines (unused and temp files) (http://www.ccleaner.com/)

3) Opera Browser: The best browser, IMHO. No need for for any any extensions, lightweight... it simply rocks. Oh, and mouse gestures with simplify you life! (http://opera.com/)

4) Foxit: Simple, no frills, lightweight pdf reader (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php)

5) Executive Software Diskeeper: Automatically and seamlesly defrags the hard drive and optimizes access time to most used files.

BTW, all of the above programs are free, except Diskeeper.

For me, thats basically it. I personally have no need for a software firewall, but if you do many recommend (Free) Black ICE (http://www.digitalriver.com/dr/v2/ec_dynamic.main ?SP=1&PN=10&sid=26412) or ZoneAlarm.

And before anyone asks, using Opera (rather than IE) I have NEVER had any Spyware problems, so no need for Ad-aware or Spybot S & D.

Using the above, you'll be alright and won't run into any mayor problems using Windows. Just make sure that you don't install any programs that contain spyware (Google for spyware before installing. If it does contain spyware I sure you'll find a suitable replacement that doesn't).

It's strange to see Mac users asking about "amazing Windows software" because aren't mac users mostly Windows converts? Windows PCs have been about half the price of Mac machines for about a decade. I figured the reason people paid that premium for a Mac is for the quality that they have over Windows PCs. Also, the notion of Mac people now wanting Windows software shows that Apple's plan could backfire. Isn't the whole Boot Camp thing so that Windows people can now have an opportunity to switch over to Apple without losing all of the software they've grown accustomed to?

Anyway, to keep this on-topic, some amazing Windows software is
Spybot Search and Destroy - great spyware killer
AVG Anti-virus - self explanatory
iTunes - great software for organizing and playing your music. Also has a built-in store where you could purchase new stuff.
Konfabulator - great widget program with tons of free downloadable widgets online
Photoshop - The industry standard photo editing software, but it's pretty expensive.

AVG:
http://free.grisoft.com/
Ad-aware:
http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Editi on/3000-8022_4-10399602.html?tag=lst-0-1
Spybot Search and Destroy:
http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000 -8022_4-10401314.html?tag=lst-0-2
Hijack This!:
http://www.download.com/HijackThis/3000-8022_4-103 79544.html?tag=lst-0-1
Firefox:
http://www.firefox.com/
Trillian:
http://www.trillian.cc/
Spywareblaster:
http://www.download.com/SpywareBlaster/3000-8022_4 -10486084.html?tag=lst-0-1
And just about anything from:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/index.html

First app I'd buy is vmware (hey, it might be free now!) so you can run OS X on it.

No, really, all seriousness aside, I am a big user and fan in XP of:

• Photoshop Elements. Make sure you're looking at version 4 at least. I'm quite sure this is also a Mac product, so if you're already playing with that in OS X, never mind. PSE is a light version of Photoshop for about 1/4 the price depending on where you purchase. It has most of the digital manipulation functionality I need, and interestingly has some features VERY useful not found in Photoshop.
• AVG Anti virus for antivirus. I'm using the free version -- so far I've found it excellent, and haven't had any problems with the machine at all (note: it's a good idea to ensure you have de-installed all of the commercial products in the meantime -- aside from not working very well, they can step on other running anti-virus programs).
• the Ubiquitous OpenOffice, and it's free. It can be a resource hog, but I've not had any Office product installed on my XP boxes for years now and never had a need, and OO just keeps getting better.
• The OpenCD which includes browsers, all kinds of cool and fun free software. Pick and choose, these'll take you a long way.
• Picasa for organizing and sharing and printing (and minor editing) pictures. I wasn't much of a believer in this one, but because of its simplicity I recommended and installed and consulted this for friends and family. And finally was hooked -- it really does a great job for all of the organizing I need. (I believe it's probably on the OpenCD). It may not rival the iPhoto (or whatever OS X has), but it's a sweet product.
• MoodySoft Screen capture software. I do a lot of work requiring quick and easy screen captures. This one's not free, but it's not expensive either, and I've tried about a gazillion different products, so far this has been the best for me.
• Any combination, or even full suite of cygwin software. If you have ANY scripting needs, to get real work done and already know shell and unix utils, this is ESSENTIAL (and, it has an excellent X Server).

This is really a tiny partial list. It's a shame I have so many programs I like to run in XP, cuz I always prefer the linux or some variant of unix environment. But, this is a small sample of what gets me through an XP kind of day.

Theres something most folks will overlook (and I'm looking past the flamewar)

The first couple of stops should be to AVG and Firefox

Being a mac user, you know windows has viruses, and well firefox speaks for itself.

Whats wrong with multiple AV software packages installed?

I can understand your point with regards to multiple software based firewalls, thats redundant. ;-) But multiple AV software is a good idea, and one that I subscribe to on my only Windows machine.

Having said that, the 2 I use are AVG and ClamWin. Not exactly bloated in the same way Symantec Norton Internet Security is.

There is no guarantee that a single AV package is going to get all viruses. Just the same that something like Ad-Aware isn't going to get all Malware on its own. So it often gets combined with something like Spybot S&D. In my opinion, it is far better to hedge your bets.

On the flipside, a software firewall is better than nothing, but I personally don't rely on them. Multiple firewalls are pointless and more likely to cause problems that provide a functioning service. So I understand your point in that regard.

Far better to get a machine that is specifically set up for the purpose of providing firewall services and only firewall services. Or, if people must use Windows, get the Windows version of Checkpoint FW-1 instead of Norton Internet Security and do things properly ;-) But I'd still prefer to see it on something like a dedicated Nokia IPSO box thats been properly hardened.

leading vendors such as Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro,

AVG Free works quite well and has removed Trojans that Symantec couldn't.

Score one for AVG (http://free.grisoft.com/). Much as I liked McAfee (back in Win98 days), I stopped using it due to (1) huge memory footprint, (2) onerous yearly fees.

People percieve paid software to be superior to free alternatives because A: nothing could go wrong with paid software and B: if something did go wrong, obviously the company would indemnify / rectify / fix the problem.

Likewise, the perception is that the more expensive the software (and the bigger the box it comes in) the more protection you are afforded. And that the company won't suddenly decide to change direction / stop supporting the software / etc.

Yet time and time again this is shown not to be true. McAfee uninstalls arbitrary files on your computer (how'd that get through testing?) and just tells users to re-install from backup... exactly the kind of calamity the software is supposed to prevent. Part of WinNT5 was found to violate someone's patent, and anyone using that particular (admittedly rare) function had to pony up to the original patent holder or write a workaround.

As far as I can tell, the "little guys" software tends to be better in general than the big boys. Why? Because they're still trying. Before Norton was Symantec, they struggled to create an amazing toolkit of software tweaks that really did some great things. Now that their position is secure, they've hardly updated the suite to even work with XP, let alone taken advantage of the fixes and hacks that smaller houses have found. McAfee, once a nimble little company making a great little product, has been bloating for years. The more developers you add to a project, the less anyone knows about what the system is doing.

A free alternative that has been around for a long time:
AVG Antivirus
There are others. Please post 'em below.

I take it you haven't heard of AVG. They already detected it (without releasing a new signature) on Janurary 16th. How? Simple. Heuristics. Oh, and they do a free version.

http://www.grisoft.com/

As a test, I installed Norton SystemWorks 2005 on a Windows 98 computer with 128 MB of ram. It bogged the machine down, and I had to uninstall it. Later went with AVG.

For the home-users I support I always install AVG-free, great package. The only disadvantage is the updater for winme/win98 stations, having to download a 2 MB updatefile a couple of times a week is a pain in the ass for people with a 56k modem. At some offices I use f-prot. Hardly any recources and I didn't have a slip-through up till now. Mcaffeee, Norton and Sophos were all memory-hoggs is my experience...

SpamBayes is a free open-source plug-in for Outlook. It's tiny. No reboot. It gets things wrong a little for the first week or so as you start to train it, but it very rapidly gets much better. Just remember to occasionally check your Junk Mail and Junk Suspects folders for any proper mails that slipped through, and that you do have to cut it some slack while you're training it. After a few weeks, it's extremely accurate. Coupled with AVG Anti-Virus, and your Outlook experience gets rather better.

Recommended.

Aegilops

1. FreeBSD router running NATD and IPFW
2. AVG Free Edition for system scans and e-mail
3. Firefox 1.5 for browsing the Internet

Someone else has mentioned this in another thread, but check out AVG http://free.grisoft.com/ Does auto updates, and I've never had to futz with the scheduler.

I have seen more problems caused by Symantec's software then I could count. I feel that if you have to run Windows then any extra layers of protection that you would need can be provided by free applications online. For example: Ad-aware, Spy-Bot, AVG Anti-Virus, ZoneAlarm, and the best firewall protection, SmoothWall.

Plain and simple answer for AVG Free - If you've updated since Jan 16th, you're good to go: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

Hello,

A bit of searching came up with the following free or trial versions of anti-virus programs which are capable of detecting and removing Win32/MyWife (née CME-24):

Alwil - Avast! 4 Home Edition (free for personal non-commercial use)
ESET - NOD32 trial version (30-day evaluation)
Grisoft - AVG Free Edition (free for personal non-commercial use)
Kaspersky Lab - Anti-Virus Personal 5.0 (30-day evaluation)
McAfee - VirusScan (30-day evaluation)
Microsoft - Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (KB890830) (free)
Panda - Titanium Antivirus 2006 (30-day evaluation)
Sophos - Anti-Virus (30-day evaluation)
Symantec - W32.Blackmal@mm Removal Tool (free)
Trend Micro - PC-cillin Trial Version (30-day evaluation)

I'm certain other readers will look up and post links to additional vendors, too. Ob-disclaimer: I happen to work for one of the companies listed above, so there.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

A bit of searching came up with the following free or trial versions of anti-virus programs which are capable of detecting and removing Win32/MyWife (née CME-24):

Alwil - Avast! 4 Home Edition (free for personal non-commercial use)
ESET - NOD32 trial version (30-day evaluation)
Grisoft - AVG Free Edition (free for personal non-commercial use)
Kaspersky Lab - Anti-Virus Personal 5.0 (30-day evaluation)
McAfee - VirusScan (30-day evaluation)
Microsoft - Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (KB890830) (free)
Panda - Titanium Antivirus 2006 (30-day evaluation)
Sophos - Anti-Virus (30-day evaluation)
Symantec - W32.Blackmal@mm Removal Tool (free)
Trend Micro - PC-cillin Trial Version (30-day evaluation)

I'm certain other readers will look up and post links to additional vendors, too. Ob-disclaimer: I happen to work for one of the companies listed above, so there.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Or an actual antivirus program like AVG Free? It's for linux and windows too...

Another reason may be that Microsoft's hardware partners - Dell, HP, and so forth - already have contracts with existing AV software providers to issue "six month protection" with every new computer purchase. If those contracts are long-term, it doesn't make sense for MS to add a component to Vista that their hardware partners can't contractually let them load on the machines.

As for me, I'll stick with AVG, thanks. http://www.grisoft.com/

I use a combination of both the previous programs mentioned and the AVG anti virus program and haven't had any problems in 2 years. Download link

Ok... I don't really get spyware on my pcs... neither my wife or I go to porn sites (ok... in my youth I did... :/ ), I've made firefox the default browser on all my pcs, we have AVG free virus protection, Sygate Personal firewall... although, bugger... I just noticed they've discontinued that... will have to switch to ZoneAlarm now I suppose... humph. And we run Ad-Aware
  and SpyBot Search and Destroy every now and again...

But just recently I've had to clean my father-in-law's pc, and a friends one too.

Now the father-in-law's one was pretty bad, popups would launch with IE, and there was a lot of CPU activity etc. that was not accounted for... nasty stuff... but a clean with Adaware, Spybot, using Add/Remove to kill anything that looked suspect, putting firefox on etc. and we have a clean computer.

The other computer though... my GOD! On startup it would immediately go to 100% CPU usage... and once you could finally get Task Manager up it was iexplore.exe that was doing the damage... a few minutes later when it'd actually respond to a kill process and the work of cleaning it could finally take place... well... hours later and using all tools I think it's clean now... but it required all of them to get it all... with HiJack This being the final saviour to remove the last of the damage...

And what were the biggest damage makers? The damn programs that these people downloaded that claimed they were 'Spyware cleaners'... but really were spyware themselves.

EVIL

FUCKERS

they prey on people who already have pcs loaded up with spyware... and put more on.

Of course the second of the two pcs was infected so damn badly (Spybot found over 3 thousand items) due to porn surfing... almost always the cause of these things.

I don't know how the makers of these programs live with themselves... there's nothing redeeming about what they do... AT ALL.

So, make your "Always on connection" one that isn't. When you aren't using your broadband connection, turn it off. Plain and simple. This is better than any firewall can provide you and it will give you that wonderful false sense of security while you are away from your computer. Look, if you really want to protect yourself, make sure you have at least a basic firewall and at least up-to-date virus protection. I personally use AVG (http://www.grisoft.com/ antivirus because there is a free version for personal use. As far as a firewall goes, Zonealarm from zonelabs works out pretty good. And it doesn't hurt to scan for spyware every now and then. For the really paranoid, install a content filter like censornet and block all the advertising sites you come across. (We have done this at the organization I work for and it has reduced spyware and virus incidents considerably)

You are kidding, right? It has been years since Norton Utilities did anything useful. The AV scanner and firewall let far too much through, and everything else they install is useless... The spyware scanner is a sieve used as an umbrella, the system cleanup utilities was useful on 98 but now just call software that comes with XP, crash protection takes a ton of resources and never works when you need it to, uninstall is about as successful as the regular windows uninstall routines, etc.

The only really good utilities are premium and expensive anyway, Partition Magic and Ghost. The average user will never need these, which is fortunate as the average user never buys these.

For Antivirus, use AVG. It is solid, low-resource, and free, and people have been using it successfully for many, many years. For a firewall, you want either Kerio Personal Firewall or Zone Alarm. Either is a small, robust, and far more secure than Norton firewall. Kerio is a little more powerful, Zone Alarm is a little simpler. Both are free, and have been around for years.

No antispyware software (especially commercial applications) catches everything, so a cocktail is usually in order. The two I recommend are Ad-Aware and Spybot. They're both classics, they both take low resources and are easy to schedule, and they have different search methodologies and as such catch different types of spyware. They also don't run unless called, so they don't take up any system resources. Combined, the two catch just about everything.

I have heard good things about Counter-Spy, but with just an 85% catch rate, it is still good to run a second application along with it. Likewise, with a 20 dollar yearly service fee, it isn't "fire and forget," and I've seen far too many systems that were unprotected because the credit card on file with their software service company expired.

Take all of the above utilities. Put them on a disk. Write a very small shell script that automatically launches the installers on insertion of the disk and clicks through everything (try PTFB, which can be launched and run from the disk automatically) and adds scheduled tasks to run the software. This shouldn't take you too long. Then whenever a crapflooded machine comes into your office with an expired copy of Norton, just clean it up and pop in the disk. I can't tell you how many machines I've installed AVG, Kerio, Ad-aware, Spybot (or some variant thereof) on, and have never regretted it.

There is a lot better stuff out there. Surprisingly, a lot of it is free. And while people seem to like to pay for software because it gives them a false sense of security, they also like the fact that you can whip out a disk right there and be done in five minutes, hassle-free.

I'm pretty sure it was version 7.0. When I tried to install it, I got a message saying something like, "You cannot use the free edition on a server operating system". According to their FAQ, "AVG Free Edition cannot be installed on server operating systems (such as Windows Server 2003), nor can it be used for the scanning of network drives."

I should perhaps mention that I was happy with AVG until I switched that machine from 2000 Pro to 2000 Server and ran up against the issue I've described.

In any case, ClamAV seems to be working just fine for me. Since that's a WAMP testing machine which doesn't see much actual desktop usage - I don't use it for email/IM at all, or to surf unknown/untrusted sites, and MSIE gets used only for Windows Update - the scan-before-you-run thing is not a showstopper for me.

It is good that we have alternatives, though.

And why would they use NAV instead of this?-http://www.grisoft.com/doc/1.I'm sure the AVG folks would give them a little kickback to plug the pro version while still giving folks an anti virus that would'nt hose the registry.

You missed some!

Network

putty for SSH (even commandline SCP which rules), wget for sucking down the web, opera if you don't like firefox, and some form of bittorrent client, like bitcomet.

Utilities

gvim, unxutils or in a pinch some downloads from the gnuwin32 tools, tools from SysInternals.

Multimedia

Don't forget Mediaplayer classic (MPC) which by happy coincedence is included in the k-lite mega codec pack (from codecpack.nl).

Security

grisoft AV, tools from SysInternals.

forget it you could get me to install it if it was free forever.... avg for me... http://free.grisoft.com/

http://free.grisoft.com/

They still offer and support the free version.

Grisoft AVG finds it as a virus and quarantines / removes it.

Our info security dept have advised us NOT to use Symantec AV products on our home PCs because, in their experience, they just don't work very well against a lot of the current crop of malware. You might as well use AVG and save the money. Norton AV also gets deep into a PC and is difficult to uninstall cleanly.

I second this, as long as you're careful about the programs you running ie: you know they don't contain trojans a plane jane NAT router is a great firewall. If the computer is being used for noncommercial purposes, I'd also recommend using AVG Antivirus Free edition. It's totally free for NONCOMMERCIAL use, and has served me well over the years. You can get it here

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5

-manno

Try http://free.grisoft.com/ for the free version of AVG

When you purchase a PC, you should have the option of installing freeware that might help you in the incessant barrage of spam, viruses, spyware, adware, bots and phishing emails. It might also help to have a short tutorial on how your PC becomes infected/compromised/used to propogate malicious code. Maybe then Windows would be a better and safer O/S?


For those who need some free help:
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5 (AVG anti virus)
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/prod ucts/znalm/freeDownload.jsp (Zone Alarm firewall)
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ (Ad-Aware adware/spyware detection)
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/ (SpyBot S&D adware/spyware detection)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyID=321cd7a2-6a57-4c57-a8bd-dbf62eda9671&displa ylang=en (MS Anti-Spyware adware/spyware detection)

AVG Free edition works for me
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

The free ones that work the best are AVG, AntiVir (Classic, Premium isn't free) and Avast!. I currently use AVG but the new version of AntiVir is supposed to work better and have a smaller footprint.

I vote for AVG.

I just made a list of things, and Slashdot will be making ad money from the list of other people's software being here:
http://sf.net/

http://digg.com/

http://grisoft.com/

Someone sue Slashdot! Quickly now!

AVG Free is a much better alternative

see: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5

After getting fed up with boot times on my machine (approx 2 mins from login until disk activity fully stopped), I decided to finally get rid of Norton SystemWorks. After fully stripping it out and running CrapCleaner, the machine took about 30 seconds from login until disk activity stopped. I then installed AVG Free. That added next to nothing to the boot/init time and it uses far fewer resources than Norton ever did. I wish I'd made the change sooner. OT, but does anyone know of a way to remove the AVG systray? It's not really a big deal since it's the only thing down there...