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but AVG has taken to making it nearly impossible to locate the free version of their AV software

free.avg.com ? (free.grisoft.com works from almost 10 years now...)

Some web servers may interpret this as the action of a 'bot infested by AVG 8.0 and redirect you to http://www.grisoft.com/ If this happens, load a handful of images to get out of this purgatory (quarantine).

1. Hiding their free product and making it almost impossible to find.

Hide? Only if you're an idiot. Go to http://free.avg.com/ or http://free.grisoft.com/ and there it is.

Go to google and search for "free avg" and it's the first result.

Interestingly (and I've been looking at this attack all day) it seems to overwrite itself in the middle.

Andy

It's pretty good and not annoying enough to bother. I do wish I could generate revenue for them outside of having to directly pay them, outside of loading my system is adverts.

Both products auto-update, provide real-time protection, and have much smaller footprints than the typical bloatware subscription-based "security suites" that are preinstalled on many PCs. I personally use (and recommend to novices) AVG because, unlike avast!, it doesn't require a yearly free registration. OTOH, I've read that avast! offers more control/customization.

I'd never heard of AntiVir. If know about AVG and avast!, is AntiVir better?

He should have used open source and free software instead of going out and buying things. Norton and McAffee and other commercial anti-viruses are a nightmare. I've been using AVG Free for a long time, and it's top notch. http://free.grisoft.com/doc/download-free-anti-virus/us/frt/0

Here I was, planning to mod this discussion, but I can't believe what you just wrote.

I... wonder why nobody has proposed some kind of govt subsidized antivirus program... why not buy out ESET or similar and allow all US residents (or the world, for good will) to get a good free antivirus?

You're kidding, right?

Please, tell me you are kidding!

Why in the name of GFSM or whatever deity you care to insert would anyone in their right mind do or propose this? It boggles my mind since what you propose is already available! And has been for years.

To forestall certain trollish and flamish responses (oo, woe is me to think this might work), if this really was a good idea, one could promote these services far more cost effectively than actually funding/buying them.

But of course it is a terrible idea, for any of the following reasons:

1. The US government would not likely do any such thing, given that these services are in competition with American corporations.
2. The money would be far better spent funding better OS research and development, for example the Programatica project and its work on House and Osker (PDF WARNING)
3. The money would be better spent on improving existing alternatives to Windows. Personally, I like Ubuntu (YMMV), but I don't know that they need the money (sure, everyone would like more $$, but Canonical has pretty deep pockets, no?).

But for now it simply doesn't matter - too many users are ignorant of the fact their OS comes from a vendor who simply doesn't give a damn and/or wants to squeeze yet more $$$ from the pockets of its beloved customers, whom it loves and respects dearly (either for its own bank accounts or those of its incestuously intertwined corporate "partners")....

One thing that comes to mind is Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool, which comes out each month in Windows Update. Another tool is Trend Micro's online virus scanner, located at http://housecall.trendmicro.com./

The tools you're thinking of were standalone removal tools for specific pieces of malware. I'm sure they still release these from time to time. They usually came out for malware that was especially high-profile, so don't expect to see one for every one out there.

But the most useful tools, IMHO, are the antivirus programs you can get for free, specifically AVG and avast!, among others. They work well, and they're much less bloated than Symantec of McAfee. Whenever I'm setting up a new computer for someone, reinstalling Windows on an old one, or doing any kind of work on one, I make it a point to question the owner about their virus protection and, after getting their OK, install some soft of AV software on it. If every geek did this, we might make an impact, albeit a small one, on the botnet problem. Remember, a little education goes a long way.

mAVG: http://free.grisoft.com/
avast!: http://www.avast.com/

From the AVG free version license: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/98/us/frt/0

You must not use the program in a network or on more than one computer. This particular software version is distributed free of charge, therefore, the applicable license is only granted for home use thereof. In case of this free version, the program is not subject to any guarantees, and the user has no right to any technical support whatsoever.

So: http://www2.grisoft.com/doc/buy/us/crp/0 2 years AVG Antivirus: $39
- or -
2 years AVG Internet Security: $70

So, 3 years of AVG Internet security is another $140.00. - total is $1,040.00

http://www.macmall.com/macmall/families/new_promo~dp~7349100~family~macbook~promo~1.asp Apple MacBook: $1,019.00

The Apple is cheaper over 3 or more years.

From the AVG free version license: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/98/us/frt/0

You must not use the program in a network or on more than one computer. This particular software version is distributed free of charge, therefore, the applicable license is only granted for home use thereof. In case of this free version, the program is not subject to any guarantees, and the user has no right to any technical support whatsoever.

So: http://www2.grisoft.com/doc/buy/us/crp/0 2 years AVG Antivirus: $39
- or -
2 years AVG Internet Security: $70

So, 3 years of AVG Internet security is another $140.00. - total is $1,040.00

http://www.macmall.com/macmall/families/new_promo~dp~7349100~family~macbook~promo~1.asp Apple MacBook: $1,019.00

The Apple is cheaper over 3 or more years.

I'm curious, did you have a reason for saying it isn't a trollish post? When I wrote it, I didn't think it was trollish. But I'm thinking the single person who marked it Troll is a Gateway fanboy. Are you thinking the same way? (If you had specified this, you may not have been modded troll... but it's just a guess.)

Granted, I like Gateway computers... for what they are. In my opinion, Gateway computers are a step down from Dell, and maybe on par with HP/Compaq. I owned one of the eMachines laptops, which was very good, except for the excessive heat (this = "not concerned about quality"), which ultimately melted the plastic supporting hinges, motherboard components, etc. The tech support was excellent and spoke American english. I still have the laptop, it still works, but excessively hot and the hinges are broken and I'd like to place the motherboard and components in a slimline.

And how does all of this relate to McAfee? Well, in my post I did mention that I felt McAfee is not that great of a product. If I find a user who has McAfee AV installed on their computer, I will attempt to get them to uninstall it and use Grisoft: AVG with the free ZoneLabs: ZoneAlarm SE (please point me to a more feature rich, but free MS Windoze firewall... I want port control with program control!). However, if the user has paid for their license, I'm willing to let them run their license out before replacing it. Mostly, though, McAfee is now making deals with AOL, Earthlink, and other ISPs to bundle a free version of their AV for their users. If I was a little concerned about their quality before, I am now even more concerned about their quality now. Quality before being the ability efficiently clean a PC without being a resource hog; quality now being: Do I trust them now that they are offering services as a bundle... where's the money trail, is it spyware on my PC, is it my (non)personal information from the ISP?

First, there's open source, which is great if you can remember to scan your hard drive every now and then. (I keep waiting for someone to bundle this on a boot CD.)

Then, for more sophisticated protection, there's avast and AVG. Of course, these mostly focus on anti-virus.

I recommend Avast, and I use Clamwin, because the only place a virus scanner really helps someone with good online habits is when you've downloaded a file which you know is suspect, and you'd like to scan it prior to use.

On the anti-spyware front, there's Spybot S&D, which has been known about for ages, and is still good.

The reason McAfee sucks isn't necessarily anything to do with its relative security, vs Norton/Symantec or anyone else. It's that the others are so much smaller and lighter -- McAfee and Symantec are both bloated performance hogs -- something you really can't afford on something that runs in the background 24/7 -- and Norton in particular is buggy as all hell -- something you really can't afford on something that controls every file access and network connection.

And all of them are completely unnecessary, now that there's so much out there as good or better, and free (for home use, at least).

The reason for the subject "My god" is that you're on Slashdot and you need to be told. I thought it was public knowledge already; guess not.

Ah yes, time to open up a new business market. I mean, it's not like your software is a bloated piece of garbage, which doesn't really clean or prevent any viruses that you can't get from something like AVG http://free.grisoft.com/ which is free. I seriously hope we aren't contracting our government IT security to THAT company.

Also, Windows Security Center (also in XP) includes Microsoft's free antispyware and firewall. Microsoft cannot include their own antivirus for antitrust reasons, but AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is available right from Windows Security Center, so those McAfee and Symantec products aren't needed.

The only reason Joe Sixpack is *expected* to buy antivirus/antispyware subscriptions is because McAfee and Symantec pay PC builders (like Acer and eMachines) to include their unneeded "trial" versions. They could just include AVG for free or start Security Center at first boot (with that button to download AVG), but some PC builders are cheap and take McAfee's/Symantec's payola.

AVG Free Edition is free as in beer http://free.grisoft.com/doc/98/us/frt/0 It is not FOSS.

http://free.grisoft.com/

I, like another commenter, think it's because of OEM's so often shipping AV trials that expire and they misunderstanding and think "having antivirus included" meant having it all along. Users would probably be less confused if OEM's didn't include any antivirus at all, or offered a lifetime subscription for some extra cost.

I recommend AVG Free: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/download-free-anti-virus/us/frt/0
It isn't as good as some paid AV software, but as long as you aren't going to russian crack sites it should be all you need.

From: Octavio Herrera
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2007 6:20 PM
To: Karp, Ethan; Denby, Mark
Cc: Neil Saxby; Ben Grodsky; Randy Saaf; Benjamin, David
Subject: Update Call on Tuesday 8/14 at 10 am PDT
Team,

We would like to show you a demo of our new Marketing Intelligence System during our Tuesday call. Ben and Neil will coordinate with you to set up a Gotomeeting session so that you can see the demo from your locations.

Can you guys send them all the names and email addresses of the folks who should be given access to the session (ie. Chris Bell, Paul, etc.)?

Thanks,

Octavio Herrera

President

MediaDefender, Inc.

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.11.11/944 - Release Date: 8/9/2007 2:44 PM

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is for private, non-commercial, single computer use only. The use of AVG Free within any organization or for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited.

Here's my list: OpenOffice, e-Sword, Firefox, Google Desktop, TightVNC, Thunderbird, Picasa, AVG Anti-Virus, GIMP, IrfanView, VLC Media Player, FileZilla, 7zip

Stupid lame filter nuked my <ul>

try AVG Free edition... I love it, and it does everything that an Anti-Virus program should do (And doesn't do what an AntiVirus program shouldn't do)

http://free.grisoft.com/

Maybe I'm an old stick in the mud. But I've had far, far more trouble CAUSED by most of these applications than I've seen prevented.

You're comment would be equally true if you substitue Windows for Ubuntu. You don't need to pay for Antivirus/Antispyware tools on Windows; you can use VMWare / VirtualPC whilst running Windows as your main OS.

>Comcast btw said it's not possible for spyware or that ilk to use this much bandwidth.

Speaking as an ISP support admin, I can assure, that's absolutely not true (well, if you include botnets, which is probably 99% of the bandwidth stealing type of nasties people infect their machines with). Now, if you had a machine on the backbone, well, maybe you'd find it tough to end up on a botnet using 100 Mbits+, but the "paltry" 30 Mbits maximum most cable handles (generally the customers modems are DOCSISed to what, 6 Mbits?) wouldn't take any effort to botnet to death.

You should have taped them saying that so we could laugh at them like Verizon.

You should also run spybot and adaware SE personal on that machine. You could also play around with hijack this, but if you do one wrong move with hijack this, you'll need to re-install windows (well, someone who knows their way around windows won't... but I digress). It's probably got plenty more junk on it if you found 24 viruses. In fact, I'd probably consider getting a shop to nuke it and re-install it; after that sort of abuse windows usually becomes pretty fragile, and the PPPoE stack (needed for your new DSL) is going to be one of the first things to break.

When your F-Prot trial runs out, uninstall it and grab AVG, a free antivirus. You can do a check (and repair) of your computer without installing an anti-virus with Trend Micro's Housecall or BitDefender. Enjoy!

Symantec AV often lags behind in protection and definitions. The worst recent example that comes to mind is the spread of hacktool.rootkit (aka about a million things), which was implemented in countless malware releases. Symantec was AFAIK the only mainstream antivirus program that missed detecting it as it was installed. My flavors of choice are:
AVG Free antivirus
LavaSoft Adaware
and Spybot Search and Destroy.

Very little can get by this trifecta. When I suspect that a machine has received an infection that these three can't remove, I research the individual piece of malware on sites like CastleCops or I just Google it by process name.

I also keep archives of RootKitRevealer, peperfix.exe and HijackThis.

If anyone has any recommendations on a well-behaved, friendly security program for Windows XP that isn't in your face all the time, I'd love to hear it.

AVG anti-virus is great. http://free.grisoft.com/

It's free, it works, and it doesn't pop up stupid stuff all the time. Unless you have a virus, the only pop-up you'll see is the AVG auto-updater once a day, which automatically goes away after 30 seconds once it's finished updating AVG (or if you click the OK button.)

For a firewall, you can use the windows firewall, it works fine. It'll pop up occasionally to ask about this or that program, but it's not bothersome.

For ad-ware or malware, use Ad-aware ( http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ ) and Spybot ( http://www.safer-networking.org/ ) Don't use Spybot's Teatimer thing though, it's horribly annoying and the dialog box is mis-configured so that the buttons are difficult to read. These are manual scanners, you have to run them yourself to check for spyware.

windows defender is supposed to be okay, though I don't use it so I can't comment too much, just that I've heard it's fairly annoying, like Spybot's Teatimer.

That should cover you pretty well security-wise. This doesn't mean you can freely download things like "buckets'o'pr0n.exe" and run them without thinking about it, just that your system will be reasonably protected from the average sort of junk software or websites that you may encounter.

Most of the spyware and malware can be stopped in the first place by using a browser other than ie. There have been a lot of security reports about Firefox, but it's still pretty good. So is Opera. Both are free.

This has nothing to do with Vista, and everything to do with crappy anti-virus products. Neither OneCare or McAfee for XP have ever tested well, so why would anybody think that they would test well on Vista?

If you read the entire article, you'll notice a little blurb at the end that several vendors passed the test, one of which was Kaspersky. Another excellent vendor for Vista is AVG.

Kaspersky consistantly beats all the other major anti-virus vendors, but I guess the story wouldn't be quite as Slashdot-worthy if it ready "Kaspersky Anti-Virus on Vista Works Great!".

A couple people have asked about that. I'll probably put up another wiki with PC Clinic specifically in mind. But here's some information to whet your appetite.

Before each clinic, I hop online and download the latest versions of AVG Antivirus Free Edition and Spybot Search & Destroy.

I also download all the updates. You can get AVG's updates here. Spybot's patches are on their download page.

Finally, I grab AVG's individual virus removal tools. (I haven't had cause to use them individually yet, but it's best to be prepared. :)

I throw those all onto a CD, and burn ten copies. These copies float around the service lab, and eventually all disappear. :)

I also grab the CD image of the latest Ultimate Boot CD, and burn a few copies of that. (Grab the Full version. The SMART tools on the INSERT system are extremely helpful.)

A couple people have asked about that. I'll probably put up another wiki with PC Clinic specifically in mind. But here's some information to whet your appetite.

Before each clinic, I hop online and download the latest versions of AVG Antivirus Free Edition and Spybot Search & Destroy.

I also download all the updates. You can get AVG's updates here. Spybot's patches are on their download page.

Finally, I grab AVG's individual virus removal tools. (I haven't had cause to use them individually yet, but it's best to be prepared. :)

I throw those all onto a CD, and burn ten copies. These copies float around the service lab, and eventually all disappear. :)

I also grab the CD image of the latest Ultimate Boot CD, and burn a few copies of that. (Grab the Full version. The SMART tools on the INSERT system are extremely helpful.)

A couple people have asked about that. I'll probably put up another wiki with PC Clinic specifically in mind. But here's some information to whet your appetite.

Before each clinic, I hop online and download the latest versions of AVG Antivirus Free Edition and Spybot Search & Destroy.

I also download all the updates. You can get AVG's updates here. Spybot's patches are on their download page.

Finally, I grab AVG's individual virus removal tools. (I haven't had cause to use them individually yet, but it's best to be prepared. :)

I throw those all onto a CD, and burn ten copies. These copies float around the service lab, and eventually all disappear. :)

I also grab the CD image of the latest Ultimate Boot CD, and burn a few copies of that. (Grab the Full version. The SMART tools on the INSERT system are extremely helpful.)

That's why you have almost daily updates of anti-virus software for Microsoft products.

And? AVG has almost daily updates too. It's a Good Thing.

NB: posting as AC to prevent whoring

I've been working in the small shop/repair business for over 5 years, and its a weekly experience to get a machine in with thousands of trojans, viruses and spy apps. In cases where a re-install may not be desirable or feasable, here's a list of the tools we use to find, isolate and eradicate hostile software.

Disclaimer: I do not work for any of these companies, nor am I been paid anything by them. I just find that these tools work. Your mileage may vary.

1: Antivirus

As most of our customers are home users, we can recomend Grisoft's AVG as the most capable and reasonably priced ':)' antivirus out there. It does a pretty good job, and the installers are kept up to date so you don't have to fudge around with d'loading on a broken box.

AVG Free

2: Anti-Spyware

No-brainer. The best two in the business. Spybot and Ad-Aware. They don't get everything, but they both do a darn good job, and can even set themselves up to run on reboot before some of the uglies get going. We leave them on the system so we can attempt to train the user towards a safer future.

Ad-Aware Personal
SpyBot S&D

3: Process Viewers

Now this gets a little harder. Neither of these tools will do the job automatically, but with care, can show you the files and processes that are the center of these little problems. Personally, I like MS/Sysinternals Process Explorer, my boss prefers PrcView. As an interesting note: You'll occasionally find a hostile that can stop certain known process viewers from starting up. Get the old 95/98 version of PrcView. They always seem to miss that one. Recording the file name of the app, rebooting to the recovery console, and going in to hand delete the app works 98% of the time.

PrcView
Process Explorer

Now, the easy route....

Get yourself one of these. USB HDD Adapter Kit from your favourite retailer, and just hook the offending HDD up to a good machine with a up to date anti-virus scanner. You will have some broken startup and registry entries left over, but they're pretty simple in comparision.

I'd normally say, Enjoy! at this juncture. But you probably won't.

Best of Luck

kgs

This is from 2005! Her computer was a PII 75 running Windows 95. The basic problem is that it had been overrun by viruses. A one hour fix if I had taken out her hard drive, plunked it into my repair PC and done a virus scan... but she refused to allow her machine out of her house for fear that I would steal it. Rather than entrust her $50 PC to me, she instead payed me $280 in house-call fees while I sat there for 8 hours with my arms crossed, watching AVG do it's stuff.

AVG is available for free, so there's no benefit with going with Tesco's software.

AVG Anti-Virus Free is for private, non-commercial, single home computer use only. Use of AVG Anti-Virus Free within any organization or for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited. AVG Anti-Virus Free is absolutely not for use with any type of OEM bundling with SW, HW component or any service. Your use of AVG Anti-Virus Free shall be in accordance with and is subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the AVG Anti-Virus Free License Agreement that accompanies AVG Anti-Virus Free.

They *arent* stopping the need for this software, just making it harder for the competition.

Windows OneCare is not built into Windows Vista and must be bought seperatly. You can thank Symantec for that. The only thing that is integrated into Vista is Windows Defender, which the AV companies will probably sue MS over, and I can bet that both OneCare and Defender use the same protocol that MS is telling the AV vendors to use.

As For The Competition that MS is trying to "Screw"...
Trend Micro runs on Vista
Computer Associates runs on Vista
Avast runs on Vista
Sophos Runs on Vista
AVG Runs on Vista
Mcafee runs on vista
Symantec runs on vista

all other security vendors won't be able to run properly.

Trend Micro runs on Vista
Computer associates runs on Vista
Avast runs on Vista
AVG Runs on Vista
Mcafee runs on vista
Hell, Symantec runs on vista

Step One: Uninstall all McAfee related products on your computer.

Step Two: Go to http://free.grisoft.com/ and download and install their FREE anti virus software.

Best fix for McAfee I have seen yet.

You don't want Norton. In my experiences, it finds viruses where there are none, and fails to find any real viruses. In fact, I have often recommended for home users to replace a full subscription to it with AVG Free.

Seriously- XP, sitting doing nothing, nothing open- uses 20% of my Macbook's CPU.

Welcome to the Windows world. XP, sitting doing nothing, on a native PC install, uses between 4% and 11% of the CPU on an Athlon 64 3000.

Well, since I'm my own administrator on that machine I can do what I want. I do run an an antivirus , but no spyware nor remote desktop tool (except the one built-in to WinXP). Even then, companies should use non-consumer anti-viruses and they (usually) are leaner than the bloated consumer-level-antiviruses.

It all boils down to sane administration, and any administrator worth his salary should be able to do that. Otherwhise, I'd simply call him incompetent.

I installed AntiVir on my wife's Windows computer last about a year ago and it has apparently worked fine. About two months ago, I'm doing something on the machine an AntiVir starts complaining about a super duper new version that I need to upgrade to or I won't be protected against viruses anymore. What the heck, I figure, and upgrade it. Aside from some annoying ads, everything went fine. A month after that, I get a popup message saying something to the effect of, "Your free demo of AntiVir has run out. Please pay us money now."

Cute. I installed AVG instead and it seems to work well enough.

My wife's computer is the only Windows machine in the house, but luckily is due for an upgrade relatively soon. I'm going to coax her into a Mini Mac or iMac partly because desk space is at a premium in our office and partly so I don't have to worry about any of this anti-virus and anti-spyware business.

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!