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Reliable, Free Anti-Virus Software?
oahazmatt writes "Some time ago my wife was having severe issues on her laptop. (A Dell Inspiron, if that helps.) I eventually found the cause to be McAfee, which took about an hour to remove fully. I installed AVG on her system to replace McAfee, but we have since found that AVG is causing problems with her laptop's connection to our wireless network. She's not thrilled about a wired connection as the router is on the other end of the house. We're looking for some good, open-source or free personal editions of anti-virus software. So, who on Slashdot trusts what?" When school required a Windows laptop, I used Clam AV, and the machine seemed to do as well as most classmates'. What have you found that works?
Free antivirus, Hopefully I get my suggestion in before everyone else :P
Linux. Someone had to say it.
I wish I could think of a witty Sig. Sigh!
Is there another open-source antivirus software for windows?
http://www.avast.com
Free for personal use.
avast the best free one with no lock down like avg8
http://www.avast.com/
I second this. I've been using avast for years with no problems.
Soylens viridis homines es
Well you already mentioned Clam AV. I use that myself. I'd go with that. Some of my friends use Avast, and I don't have a problem w/ that either, but Clam works for me.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Just teach your wife not to do run random .exes, to use a secure secure browser and email client (Firefox and Thunderbird would work) and generally exercise some common sense and you won't need AV software.
avira, it works well and the only downside is that when it updates you get a popup ad window, but you can close it and it only updates once every few hours (and you can disable this if you want to update it whenever you want).
are you one of this Computer Scientists who can't secure its own laptop, and always have "issues" with computers and programming?.
Add me to the chorus of Avast. It simply works and works well.
Enjoy Every Sandwich
When school required a Windows laptop, I used Clam AV
I second the mention of ClamWin. The biggest missing feature in ClamWin is scanning every file on fopen(), and that's what usually causes the resource hogging behavior that some people believe to be typical of antivirus. In my experience, a computer user really doesn't need real-time operation unless he's looking at pr0n (erotic web sites), downloading w4r3z (infringing copies of proprietary commercial software), or doing something comparably dangerous. A weekly full scan is enough.
I agree on Avast! if you have to be free, but my personal favorite is Eset's NOD32 (www.eset.com). $40 MSRP (but you can find it cheaper if you look around). This is the most efficient (very very small memory footprint) and effective antivirus I have ever used. We use Symantec Corporate where I work (but are switching once our subscription runs out) and this has picked up several viruses on PCs that Symantec missed. Not to mention the fact that Symantec likes to do in-depth scanning every once in a while in the middle of the day for no apparent reason and starts consuming 100MB+ of RAM and hits 50% CPU utilization.
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My brother is using avast and he recently got bitten by one of the many Antivirus2008/2009 variants.
So, I don't don't know what that says except that it isn't foolproof.
(I recommend malwarebytes spyware cleaner if you get hit by those things.)
Personally, I go with the "know what your machine is doing" system. Only been bitten once, and I knew it the moment it started installing.
Ran across Moonsecure recently. GPL'd AV software supposedly. Never used it myself though.
My experiences with windows AV is pretty lame. At one job, I had to deal with huge numbers of reads and writes to the disk. The anti-virus software (Symantec I think) would bog things down, trying to check all these writes until the drive plain died.
We did not reinstall it when the new drive arrived and there were no problems.
That sort of cemented my idea that AV software was mostly worthless. Even with updates, it was still out of date where it mattered, and is such a resource hog as to make using windows unpleasant. Maybe things have changed somewhat, but I doubt it.
If you are a windows user, just browse smart, don't open up any unneeded services and get your ass behind a firewall. Oh, and backup your stuff periodically.
I am using Comodo Internet Security Suite from http://www.comodo.com
I agree. I switched to avast from AVG, and it's so much better.
I will also throw in a nod for Avast. I've used just about every free virus scanner out there and Avast seems to work about the best. I used to love AVG, but it has become the epitome of bloatware as of late. Avira is a close second, but the daily nag screen got to be a bit annoying. Avast found viruses that no other scanner had found on files that were years old. It did seem to have some false positives, but to be honest, I've always erred on the side of caution.
zosxavius photography
Why is this modded down? Okay, so this doesn't answer the question directly but it definitely is a solution to running an anti-virus program. Personally I think Microsoft should be the ones securing their own operating system instead of some third party developer. But anyway, trying out a different operating system and (only when extremely necessary) run a Windows app through VMware Fusion. I've shown alot of computer-illiterate Windows users Mac OS X, and once they got the hang of it and its simplicity - they preferred that over the slow unstable Windows OS any day. So mods please mod the parent up - it's a legit solution to the issue.
Just sits there doing it's job, warning me when there's a virus. Never upsets other software, never prompts me to tell me that I don't have some other product of theirs like a firewall.
I'm serious. Stop doing the things that put you at risk for viruses and you won't have to run anti-virus. I don't run anti-virus or anti-spyware software on my computer and I've never had a problem. Occasionally, just to verify that I'm doing the right thing, I boot from a BartPE Windows CD and run anti-virus and anti-spyware tools against my hard drive. They never find anything bad. The last time I had a virus was in 1989 on my Amiga 500.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
trust ? trust nothing and nobody !, and encase your head in lead to prevent Van Eck Phreaking
When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown in to the sea
Although I do applaud people moving to, say, Ubuntu (I'm playing with the Live CD and loving it), I don't think this is a Funny -or- Insightful reply any time the topic of viruses/trojans/etc. comes up (and this being Slashdot, it does seem to come up quite often).
Ignoring for a moment that Linux -has- its share of malware ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_computer_viruses , cue "wikipedia is unreliable" and "all of those holes are already patched" and "but it's still much less than on M$ Winblows"), and ignoring for a moment that a lot of replies will be that Linux is more secure by design, that a virus can't get root, etc. (and automatically ignoring for a moment the replies -that- will generate on how that's little comfort when your files are gone, or your machine is a spambot all the same (the user does have rights to send e-mail, right?)...
Ignoring all those.. how *easy* is it, exactly, when there are still problems with Linux distributions on some notebooks (hers may very well be one), -and- you have to consider that she'll likely have to switch different bits of software she uses as well (or somebody would have to be willing to put in time to get her stuff working under a Windows emulator).
Getting that Ubuntu Live CD working wasn't *easy*... it took some poking about, and that's for something that should have been "pop into drive, reboot, and enjoy Ubuntu", I'd dread having to get all of my existing software running / switching.. eventually I will, but if anybody suggests that it will be *easy*, they're more than welcome to come figure that all (hardware drivers, software alternatives, methods in those alternatives to achieve the same (or better) as what I'm used to, etc.) out for me.
Don't get me wrong, "Switch to Ubuntu" (or some other linux distribution) may be the perfect answers for this woman, and that would be great - but let's be realistic here and not label that as an easy solution.
Just my 2cts.
I was using nod32 as well. But the fact you can't renew your subscription with a web based email caused me to drop it.
Seriously, who these days is NOT using a web based email?
I now find Avira to be very good, but the nag screen a bit annoying. Also Avira found a few viruses that nod32 had missed to my surprise.
Friends don't let Friends use Internet Explorer.
I would recommend Avira AntiVir [1]. It is free for personal use too. The was most impressed of the speed. I used Avira AntiVir all the time before I moved to Linux.
[1] http://www.free-av.de/en/index.html
Well, you could switch to a Mac. Then, you wouldn't need any AV stuff at all. Or is that too easy? Some people seem to enjoy fighting with crapware and viruses.
Another option could be "Comodo Firewall" http://www.comodo.com/ It's free unless you pay for their tech support, some nifty extra features, and remote troubleshooting.. It is mainly a firewall.. and an extremely intelligent and well-written one at that (IMO). It's default settings are decent, and you can fine-tune the engine for more/less security. It also comes with a "defense+" module.. basically it's a firewall but for your local computer. It mainly monitors for changes and such to prevent the installation of rootkits, trojans.. etc.. and you can scan your computer for malware + remove it as well. I find that Comodo has a relatively small memory footprint.. on default settings (vista 32bit).. seems like both the kernel-mode drivers and and Ui top out at about 60mb combined max (with defense+ enabled) and 30mb max (with defense+ disabled and only the firewall running). I've also found that Avast and Comodo work perfectly together.. so if you do not like Comodo's built in Defense+ mode you can disable it and just use Comodo's firewall + Avast's system protection. ClamAV may be your best bet however if you don't want an active scanner.
Avast is good, though I found the GUI to be very unintuitive. If you think it won't be a problem, then yes, I'd also recommend Avast. I also used Ewido Anti-Malware in the past with good results, though I believe they've been acquired by AVG.
You can check some of the ones listed at http://www.virusbtn.com/news/2008/09_02, which also qualifies them a bit!
I personally use Avira AntiVir and like it! I started with the free edition but quickly upgraded, it's pretty cheap and might as well support them...
I also must agree with Avast. It's lightweight and unobtrusive, and does a great job at catching the little stuff. However, a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. If you're user isn't knowledgeable enough to detect potential malware before installing most of the time, the antivirus software installed wont make much of a difference.
While not OSS, Threatfire and FireWall Plus from PCTools are both free for personal use.
AVG generates too many false positives, and has a really lame (sorry but it is) alert graphic and noise.
ClamAV works well provided you don't want the real-time monitoring, which is why I only use it as a portable app for disinfecting.
Avast is also a good choice if not anything special.
the only(?) opensorce antivirus with realtime scanner
Thanks, I'll look into avast; I wanted a free AV for virtual machines.
Personally, I would recommand f-prot. Small footprint and it saved me and friends many times.
I tried AVG, but that thing is big, complex and annoying.
I use Avira AV on the WinDOZE systems at my house.
It's free for personal use, and companies have to get a site license...
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
Most likely the console (the server that monitors and manages the clients) is scheduled to order a scan every once in a while. You should ask your admin to knock it off or reschedule it for a better time.
I personally run Windows XP sp2 and I don't run any anti virus software.
I use Firefox and a firewall and I'm never worried about getting into any problems. I don't install random EXEs from untrusted locations. The firewall tells me everything that is going in and out and how much. Adblock also does wonders for protecting oneself.
It takes a special person to surf the internet without protection, but then again after working in IT I realize I am smarter then most of the people I deal with on a regular basis!
Easy! Use Linux. Not only is antivirus not needed, but it's free (as in libre and beer)! Most distros can also do much more than draw BMP files and typer TXT files out of the box. For a typical SOHO user, additional software isn't required.
This isn't the sig you're looking for... Move along.
I use Avira + ThreatFire + Malewarebytes + Comodo Firewall
for antivirus/spyware/maleware/firewall and these combined do an outstanding job of protecting my system without slowing it down one bit. All are light programs, Avira is updated constantly, and comodo firewall is thought of as one of the best. Threatfire is great for making sure no program infects another, and Malewarebytes is doing good in checking for spyware.
When I bought a friend her first-ever computer, I deliberately chose Linux (Xandros on eee PC) for exactly this reason. Rather bizarrely, Xandros comes with clamav installed, which seems rather pointless. At some point I will clean it off, mainly to free up disk space and cpu cycles. Oh, yes, she really likes the machine.
Avira Antivir.
http://www.avira.com/en/pages/index.php
"I installed AVG on her system to replace McAfee, but we have since found that AVG is causing problems with her laptop's connection to our wireless network"
Just wondering if you contacted the AVG people. I know that, as a free (as in beer.. sort of) software user you're not likely to get priority support, but I'm sure they would like to know -why- their product appears to be messing with her wireless internet connection. I understand that you feel like it might not be worth messing with, but on the other hand it might be some stupid setting that's enabled by default, or some known issue that they have a workaround / fix for, etc.
For example.. if you have AVG's update configured to use a dial-up connection (for whatever reason), and for whatever reason it -does- actually go and use it (for example, if you have a VPN installed - which acts as a 'dial-up connection' in Windows), that might disconnect you from the internet connection you'd normally have.
Not dismissing the alternatives mentioned in the comments here (other than the "Switch to a Linux distribution".. see another reply of mine in there somewhere, but if nothing else it'd be nice if you could let them know.. can't hurt, can it?
What are these virus things that everyone is talking about?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I'd recommend. It's not the best. It freezes if you try to do anything during that initial first scan. BUT....
It's free (even for non-profits). After that first scan, it can do LIVE scanning (something that clamav can't), and it gets updates pretty damn fast.
without a shadow of a doubt, avast! is where it's at...
http://www.hm2k.com/posts/what-is-the-best-antivirus-software
Why are so many people tightwads about anti-virus? Computer related infections could be very expensive, so I wouldn't go with anything but the very best money can buy and that is Kaspersky.
Also, I wouldn't advocate home dentistry, either. Although I'm sure many are trying to figure out how to do just that, these days.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Definately Avast is the best choice AVG just didn't agree with me.
for free. Avast. finds things that AVG misses.
for pay. Kaspersky. amazing stuff but expensive. $70.
I recommend Avira Antivir Personal. Very Lean, fast, customizable and through.
Only problems is it pops up an Ad to upgrade to the pay version every time you download an update and it can be false positive happy when turned up to it's fullest settings and definitions, but otherwise it's one of the best scanners I've seen.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Not free but works well with Inspirions www.ca.com
The most effective methods I've seen is the behavioral and heuristic based systems in Kaspersky and Norton AV 2009's SONAR. SONAR may not catch it on execution but it catches registry entries and it's caught 99% of the bot samples I have when they try to call home. The new versions are also fairly light on system resources.
It may not be the popular opinion but if you really don't want to worry about malware then look at OS X or Linux. Yes there is some malware out there but in comparison it's a minute fraction of a percent of the number for Windows based systems.
I'm a geezer who started writing programs on a keypunch machine in the early 1970s. I've been online as long as there has been a line to be on.
I've never had a virus or used anti-virus software. Disable ActiveX in IE (or only use it for updates) and scripting, and don't open attachments. It really is that simple.
Search for free antivirus download?
http://www.freeantivirushelp.com
Parent post is funny, insightful, interesting, informative and underrated and should be modded accordingly.
avast and avira aren't kosher for school/non-profit networks. comodo antivirus is, and offers active scanning. avira doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, "Switch to Ubuntu" (or some other linux distribution) may be the perfect answers for this woman, and that would be great - but let's be realistic here and not label that as an easy solution.
Obviously if MS were "easy", this guy would not be posting a question to the this web site. Apparently neither he nor this woman know what to do about MS's glaring security holes.
I do not think that the parent post is saying Ubuntu will be easy. It was just easy for him to think of a solution.
Too bad he obviously never tried Ubuntu.
I recommend AntiVir for Windows boxes... in a lot of tests (virus.gr, av-comparatives.org) it has the best detection rate, either for free AV's, or all AV's tested.
In fact, the other night AntiVir detected a trojan. It was named svchost.exe and by Googling the name I couldn't find anything. So before deleting it I uploaded the trojan (with the filename svchost.exe) to one of those websites that tests a file against a bunch of different AV's, and AntiVir, along with only one other AV (not a well-known one) was the only one that detected it as malicious.
Honestly, no AV is perfect, but I find AntiVir to be pretty darn good. Of course, moving to *nix is an even better choice but you can't always get rid of a Windows box.
Need an automatic screenshot taker? Try here.
however, make a backup before installing it. It may be different now, but it was a bitch to remove from my old box.
Many ISPs offer a free "security suite" to their customers, downloadable from their website. They are usually just a rebranded version of an existing antivirus program. I've been using that on my sole Windows machine and it works just fine. It's F-Secure, so your mileage will obviously vary depending on what AV software powers it.
I have been a computer programmer for several years and have never run any anti-virus system on any of my personal computers. I have also never gotten a virus on any of my machines. The key to safety IMO is to only download freeware from sites that scan their freeware programs. I have quite a bit of freeware on my system.
I'm trying to move from 32-bit XP to 64-bit vista, and one of the things keeping me from making the switch is trying to find a good 64-bit virus program.
I'm using ZoneAlarm on XP and one of the things I like most about it is the applications watching and firewall.
Having it authorize net access and system access is a feature I find very nice to have.
Unfortunately, it looks like ZoneAlarm is not in the 64-bit game.
Correction: They were beta testing a 64-bit windows version sometime ago but have dropped it completely with no apparent mention of trying again.
Currently for firewall on Vista, I use the built-in firewall with full deny by default and then configure applications to go through on a one-by-one basis.
But I really liked being notified when apps tried to do any potentially dangerous activities like run each time the system is loaded or modify the hosts file, etc.
So anybody got a good replacement on 64-bit Vista for paranoid users like myself?
Thanks in advance for any replies.
Cube On! (http://stores.ebay.com/PuzzleProz)
AVG is a great free antivirus product.
I installed AVG on her system to replace McAfee, but we have since found that AVG is causing problems with her laptop's connection to our wireless network.
Which AVG product did you install? The antivirus, the "antivirus plus firewall" or the "internet security"? They are very different programs.
I have never had a problem with the antivirus program. Even my parents and my grandfather have had no problems with it.
I suspect you installed one of the AVG all-in-one suites and you can't configure it properly. Install the standalone antivirus program and use a separate firewall.
f-prot is still in business and seems to do fairly well. I think they do still have a free version, but their core home version is something like $19.95 for a two year subscription covering install on up to 5 family PCs. It always does reasonably well on the comparison tests (given that no AV will catch every piece of malware out there) and doesn't slow the system down much if at all.
sPh
Same here. I used NOD32, but I enjoyed AVIRA more:)
Cause it's not a virus, it's one of the other forms of malware that an antiVIRUS program doesn't detect.
PC Tools has a free Antivirus at the bottom of that page.
Google Pack has a free Norton Security Scan which is Norton Antivirus Lite with no autoprotect but it does scheduled scans and allows an upgrade to the full version. Also Spyware Doctor which scans for spyware, adware, and rootkits, and allows an upgrade to the full version.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
AVG good stuff:
AVG bad stuff
---
Avast good stuff:
Avast bad stuff:
---
At the end of the day, I went with Avast. Stability and low performance impact is more important to me than a fancy GUI. Clueless end-users disagree though, and actually want AVG back inspite of the stability issues. So the GUI really made a difference for them. They simply felt more "at home" with AVG.
Direct links for both products:
AVG Antivirus Free Version Download and Wikipedia Description.
Avast Antivirus Free version download and Wikipedia description.
brgds
- Jesper
(Experience is from: 3x Vista computers with reasonable hardware specs, and 2 older Windows XP computers)
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
Avast or Avira AntiVir
The various people I've managed to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox generally haven't experienced a virus since, despite not running anti-virus software. In particular if they also stop using Outlook Express.
In contrast, I know several instances of people getting viruses even though they _are_ running Norton or McAfee.
So yes, I recommend not using anti-virus software at all. Just use safer software when you access the internet.
I have very, very little problems with spyware or malware in general. I use only FOSS software, and still on Win2k.
Firewall: Zonealarm
AV: Avast AV, using only standard Shield, and Internet mail
Malware: Commodo BO clean
For Firefox (and the ONLY browser I use) using the Mr. Tech toolkit add-on
Generated: Sat Oct 25 2008 18:21:00 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1
Build ID: 2008070208
Enabled Extensions: [20]
* Adblock Filterset.G Updater 0.3.1.3 - filtersetg@updater - Synchronizes Adblock with Filterset.G :-)
* Adblock Plus 0.7.5.5 - {d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d} - Ads were yesterday!
* Adblock Plus Filter Uploader 1.5+ - uploader@adblockfilters.mozdev.org - Uploads your Adblock Plus filters
* Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper 1.0.5 - elemhidehelper@adblockplus.org - Helps you create element hiding rules for Adblock Plus to fight the text ads.
* CookieSafe 3.0.3 - {9D23D0AA-D8F5-11DA-B3FC-0928ABF316DD} - Control cookie permissions.
* Copy Plain Text 0.3.4 - {723AAF16-AF1F-4404-A5D7-0BFE39766605} - Copies text without formatting
* Fasterfox Lite 3.0.11 - FasterFox_Lite@BigRedBrent - Performance and network tweaks for Firefox but without the Prefetching.
* IE Tab 1.5.20080823 - {77b819fa-95ad-4f2c-ac7c-486b356188a9} - Enables you to use the embedded IE engine within Mozilla/Firefox.
* Locationbar 1.0.3 - locationbar2@design-noir.de - Formats and linkifies addresses in your Location bar.
* Menu Editor 1.2.6 - {EDA7B1D7-F793-4e03-B074-E6F303317FB0} - Customize application menus
* MR Tech Toolkit (formerly Local Install) 6.0.1 - {9669CC8F-B388-42FE-86F4-CB5E7F5A8BDC} - MR Tech Toolkit power tools for all users. (en-US)
* NoScript 1.8.3.3 - {73a6fe31-595d-460b-a920-fcc0f8843232} - Extra protection for your Firefox: NoScript allows JavaScript, Java (and other plugins) only for trusted domains of your choice (e.g. your home-banking web site). This whitelist based pre-emptive blocking approach prevents exploitation of security vulnerabilities (known and even unknown!) with no loss of functionality... Experts will agree: Firefox is really safer with NoScript
* Orbit Downloader Firefox Integration 2.02 - orbit_ffext@orbitdownloader - Download files,social music,video and streaming media easy and fast.
* Perspectives 2.1.4 - perspectives@cmu.edu - A secure way to verify encrypted websites and bypass security warnings
* Sage 1.4.2 - {a6ca9b3b-5e52-4f47-85d8-cca35bb57596} - A lightweight RSS and Atom feed reader.
* ScrapBook 1.3.3.7 - {53A03D43-5363-4669-8190-99061B2DEBA5} - Helps you to save Web pages and organize the collection.
* SpellBound 3.0.1 - spellbound@sourceforge.net - Adds additional spell-checking functionality to Firefox.
* User Agent Switcher 0.6.11 - {e968fc70-8f95-4ab9-9e79-304de2a71ee1} - Adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of the browser.
* WOT 20081020 - {a0d7ccb3-214d-498b-b4aa-0e8fda9a7bf7} - Web of trust.
* Xinha Here! 0.13 - {5B280457-4290-40c2-9441-EA647775F824} - Opens Xinha HTML editor. Xinha 0.95: Trunk (4 Apr 2008)
Installed Themes: [2]
* Default - {972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd}
* Nautipolis for Firefox 1.8.42 - {6C4BAFB6-2AC2-4405-A98D-546B55B3AE92} - Nautipolis for Firefox, based on icons from art.gnome.o
-- Kevin C. Redden kcredden@ gmail 392992
Granted, free is nice. And if you have philosophical reasons for using FOSS, the more power to you. But if you pay for something and are getting commensurate value, is that a bad thing? You are using a Dell (not the cheapest computers), you bought a wireless router because it was more convenient. Is it really that bad to pay for something very useful like an anti-virus program? I use Kaspersky - it updates virus signatures quickly, which is great for a laptop connected over wireless and not always-on. And (at least compared to the Norton we use at work) it doesn't slow down my computer noticably.
Here is a comparison of the major AV packages that have been listed so far:
http://www.virusbtn.com/news/2008/09_02
A lot of people have already suggested linux and though it may not be the right answer in this case I completely second using linux. I switched to kubuntu after I "tried" it for a while. I never had to worry about accursed anti-virus software. With xbindkeys command line is the frontline.
Now even starting a movie goes like this
ctrl-alt-t gets me cmd window then i navigate to folder and type in xine movie-name
The vista bloat is still there in my laptop as I need to use photoshop once in a while...... someday I will try gimp.
I just decompile every application and examine the assembler code line by line. Only problem is that I still haven't finished looking over Windows ME before I dare install it.
Here's the problem: Without real time scanning, using an anti virus is rather pointless. I've been using my DSL modem with build in NAT, Windows XP Firewall, and a basic Malware scanner. That works exceptionally well, especially seeing how most Anti-virus programs don't detect spyware/malware better than the specialized tools for it.
I AM the admin. It's a managed setup and it's set to scan daily at 1 AM and not reattempt a failed scan, yet I still run into this probably a few times a month where someone says "My computer is really slow" (Okay that happens daily) and I go and check, and there's good ol' Rtvscan.exe sucking up 50% CPU for no apparent reason. I *think* it's the e-mail scanning that is causing it, but it doesn't happen frequently enough for me to bother troubleshooting it. Just enough to be annoying.
Not to mention, even when it's behaving, it's still sucking 50-75MB of RAM, which can noticably affect performance on our older machines in the production areas.
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I've run the free personal edition of Avast on 3 XP boxes in my house for years. I've never had a problem with it.
actually, Windows Vista's firewall is quite good (I'm saying this as a linux user), it has 2 menus.
Menu 1 : Simple firewall (like XP) with firewall.cpl (start --> run --> firewall.cpl)
Menu 2 : Advanced firewall rules including outgoing firewall, outgoing ports etc using the wf.msc file (start --> run --> wf.msc)
And it's actually quite good firewall rules (including predefined rules by which network it is [public, home etc].
I use my personal subscription just fine with Gmail (although it's been ~18 months since I renewed with it).
I'll give Avira a trial run on one of my systems. As good as NOD32 is, nothing is perfect and it's always good to see if somehting new is better than what you have.
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i use nod32. comes free with an asus computer - if you have an asus, you have a license, asus mass-licenses the software to run on their computers. download from the asus utilities site!
However lately it has been giving me problems.
First, it slows down the system noticeably. To a gamer like me where the CPU is currently my performance bottleneck, I am constantly looking for ways to maximize performance. Considering that the entire time I've been using AVG I've never found a virus or trojan or worm on my system, I think my current system of "common sense" when using a web browser (or picking one to use, even) or other internet-capable apps is working fine enough that I can stick to regular scans by something not so invasive, like ClamWin.
Secondly, even though I chose not to install the networking bits of AVG, it STILL installs a network filter driver which is always running. This driver causes problems with Source engine games causing random disconnects with a non-sensical "Client timed out" error. It's veyr annoying since there's no guarantee I can reconnect to the server again, and if I can I'm back to square one (If I was playing as Engineer class all my carefully placed defenses are now gone, not to mention my score is reset). Disabling all the AVG components (services, drivers, shell extensions... in effect I turned it off completely) was the only way I could fix this.
A final straw that broke the camel's back and prompted a complete uninstall... even with everything I could see disabled (I must've missed something) Word 2007 is unable to load .docx documents while AVG is installed, until I uninstalled it. Not good. Either this is a recent bug in AVG, or it has to do with the order you install the apps (when I installed Office 2007 second I had no problems with it while AVG ran... not sure which order I installed them in in THIS Windows install).
My idea real-time AV app needs to be as simple as possible so as to minimize the chance of it screwing something up (like a random game, or Office). Any hooks it makes to facilitate real-time scanning need to be as simple as possible to minimize the chance of failure, and error checking to ensure that failure happens without disrupting the underlying operation the user is trying to do that is being scanned.
aside from the usual avast / nod32 recommendations,
i hear great things about the antivirus from kaspersky labs. not sure of the free-ness.
...I've never missed Windows.
or else!
get comodo firewall pro. its free. install with the defense+ option. it asks permission for almost anything that will run suspiciously on your computer. ive never had any problems with viruses since i installed that. the only downside to it is you have to click and click for giving permission/denial to your system.
[quote]what have you found that works?[/quote]
Easy. Pull the cable out... :P
I have to second Avast. And not only because of the pirate reference but because its awesome.
Does the trick for me and actually removed more viruses that McAfee Missed.
*Headline News* censorship shuts down the Internet! More at 6PM!
I'm a Windows user, although I bought an I-Mac for the family. Switch your wife to Mac if you can.
Otherwise, I shell out the money and buy Zone Alarm Suite. It uses a Kaspersky AV engine, has a firewall that blocks both inbound and outbound, and browser pest protection. I've been using it for years, and I don't have problems with it.
NO anti-virus is "reliable", for values of reliability that will keep you uninfected if you're using a Windows machine and doing typical web browsing stuff. I work in the a/v industry; my employer uses MANY a/v engines in layered defences, and we still get infections detected on internal systems by new sig updates (that is, the machine's been infected for some time, and it's only found when the a/v sigs catch up.)
Microsoft OneCare is about 60$/y and includes licenses for 3 PC. It is a pretty good antivirus, but also includes improved anti-spyware, firewall, disk defrag, Windows patches management and backup.
I used to buy Kaspersky, but OneCare has more feature and a smaller footprint. Good value.
lucm, indeed.
... downloading w4r3z (infringing copies of proprietary commercial software), or doing something comparably dangerous?
You just described 90% of what I use computers for!
:wq
Kaspersky has had a very shakey reputation in the last couple years due to the data they were stuffing into the NTFS file system to help "speed up" their scanning performance. Look into it.
KAV is a good program, and it does its job... but it will bring a good system to its knees fast!
Personally, I've subscribed to KAV, NOD, and Norton over my life time. I 've also used AVAST for the past couple years on computers. Overall, i still reguard KAV as the best because they're the real deal over there. The problem is i think their solution is a bit heavy on the system and they have done some questionable things that apparently violate MS's own spec on how to use parts of the NTFS file system. I'm not quite sure what the whole deal was about, or if KAV was right to do it because they found it more as a "Hacker" solution. For example, yeah they may have done somethings that MS doesnt suggest, but they may have felt right and fine by doing it. The question is... did or does it compromise file system stability. Some people reported Chkdsk failings etc...
Anyways its all over the net, look it up and read about it.
NAV ... started out as the legend... but ended up a bloated mess that i refuse to run on my computers. I dont think i will ever use another Norton program again. Norton died in the Dos days as far as i'm concerned.
NOD... I started to use NOD after KAV... NOD was fast, but at the time had no trojan detection capablities... And that i quite odd. It finally does now... but at the time, all of the other programs were very good at detecting Trojans, where as NOD was not capable of doing so. It found viruses... but not really Trojan viruses...
That has changed... but at the time... NOD proved to be very fast, but ineffective compared to KAV.
AVAST... A great free virus scanner. The first 64bit AV... and its still solid and performs fairly dam well. I recommend it, but ultimately... It likes to report false positives a lot. So it can make you paranoid. that may be a good thing though ;)
AVAST or NOD... thats my vote. Currently i'm running NOD in trial mode to see how i like it, and so far i like it quite a bit.... but ultimately it will come down to price... and AVAST is free, and still extremely good at what it does. AVAST could be faster. NOD is a lot faster than AVAST... but at what cost? Remember when i said NOD used to not detect Trojans?... That kind of stuff makes me wonder, just what NOD isnt doing.. because its so fast.
Anyways... For now... Its AVAST or NOD.
Comodo is excellent. It will keep your ass clean :) Its a pretty dam impressive firewall with process guarding.
I use Clam Av on all my Windows and linux computers. So far, all have been virus free.
I like ESET NOD32.
I use it on my Inspiron 9200, with no problems.
Also on my HP Turion X2 based x64 system. No problems.
Then again, I had no problems with McAfee, either. The default install from Dell. Only problem was when it expired, I wanted to use ESET, since that's what I had installed on my other laptop. Easier when the caching server already downloads 1 copy of the updates for the next laptop to grab them. (same def updates on x64 and x86).
It's not free, it's not open source, but it's fast as hell.... And catches pretty much everything out there.
BUT, I'd have to say, if your wifes machine has faltered with TWO different products, It's time to format and start anew, cuz dat juss aint rite, rite?
--Toll_Free
Reliable, Free, Anti-Virus software -- pick any two.
BLINK PERSONAL EDITION
http://www.eeye.com/html/consumer/products/blink/index.html
You don't need an antivirus at all, all you need is common sense and a software firewall if you don't have a hardware one. I have never gotten a virus - at least being sober.
This might be coming from left field, but your question struck me because I was having exactly the same issue (with exactly the same person, my wife).
Turns out the problem was our HP wireless printer. The drivers were causing network traffic that was causing my wifes computer to slow down. she also has a dell inspiron, but hers is a little old (1gb memory and 1.2ghz cpu).
The hp drivers were causing network traffic over her linksys wireless card, which in turn was using cpu cycles to support the wireless network traffic.
The problem was corrected by turning off the HP printer.
So, if you have a wireless printer, try turning it off.
I hope you read this because it will solve your problem quickly. If you already have viruses you are screwed. Format and reinstall. If you don't have viruses ONE WORD AND ONE WORD ONLY ... ... ... ... ... ...
DRAMATIC PAUSE
AVAST.
install it and thank me later.
More Avira posts need modding up, and replies...
Seriously. AVG blows, period, Avast is ridiculously slow and no more accurate than Avira, and you can actually disable Avira's nag.
I am a science fantasy fan
i work as a computer tech at a local store. i do many virus/spyware/adaware removal. linux is a great alternitive but many users dont want to stray from windows cause they have us by the balls. many time we have to reload windows cause of bad hdd's and clients never have there office cd's and for some reason they dont like openoffice (noobs).
its important to protect against malware/adaware, which we are seeing mostmy, not viruses.
my opinion would be avg. with the release of 8.0 does have some annoying features; mailny the avg toolbar; which you can uncheck but it will still install it and you have to edit registry to remove it fully. that does slow down search times and can cause browers to crash. then again ive seen yahoo and google toolbars cause internet/browser issues and crashes.
Also 8.0 its diffucult to add, say a keygen, to the PUP exception list. even added it will still pick it up and want to remove it.
my 2nd would be avira antivir. it goes a great job but sometimes i get a false detection here and there
my 3rd is a tie with avast which does a good job and threatfire. threatfire doesnt use dictionary detection rules by detects by knows patterns of code. it does a good job of picking viruses up.
if you get norton you will find a flaming bag of cr@p on your doorstep.
add a-squared free and SuperAntiSpyware to the list and ur good to go.
or stop looking up porn and downloading songs/keygens and u wont need a virus scanner. but who wants to pay for windows?
Same. All you have to do is register once a year. Does a good job scanning email, upadtes regularly.
Much better than having McAfee delete a saved inbox when it detects a virus in an attachment in it.
Avast or AVG
I have used AVG for years and with no issues. If you are having issues with lock ups I say that it is possible that you have other issue. I have tested all the free av and the scanning engine for clam is the best but it is very slow and does not have a resident scanner. Macfee does not remove all the components with the normal uninstall, so you may still experiencing issue from macfee.
Hmm odd. I have gmail too and it would not let me use it to renew the subscription.
Either way I am happy with Avira. Enjoy!
Friends don't let Friends use Internet Explorer.
You tried AVG free 8.0 right? Not once should it be messing with your network. There's no firewall, but what might have happened when you uninstalled McAfee is that the windows firewall turned on? I don't know but I can't imagine that AVG free 8.0 would stop you from getting onto your wireless network.
I really do wonder why people are so down on ClamAV. What it really seems to lack is a realtime scanning/firewall component, but I've found those tend to be the main reason a lot of other A/V's screw up or slow down systems/internet-connections.
In terms of catching virii, I've actually had really good success with ClamAV, and managed to nuke a bunch that others (including Norton, McAfee, Kaspersky, and AVG) didn't. Half the time the big guys seem to be the first thing that gets killed by a virus anyhow, whereas ClamAV can happily run as an app, to identify and often clean the infected files.
I am an I.T Technician by trade and have spend much time dealing with the virus and spyware problem. I can also chime in for Avast being a free solution for a Windows user. With said the vast majority of the users I see that are very badly infected are running crimewire or downloading the latest movie from the torrents and then getting the special codec to play it. No antivirus in the world can be a substitute for common sense and responsible surfing.
Through harsh experience I've found that NO antivirus software is completely securing your computer.
Long story, short: I've lately traveled to Benin, Western Africa, where I've never seen computers so infected in my entire life.
My solution: Faronics Deep Freeze. It will insure your OS integrity by creating an image of it and reapplying this image over and over after every reboot.
I'm a happy user.
... I'm currently using AVG under Win 2000. I recognize it may be a little slow for some people, but when I installed it, I used custom install so it didn't install: email checker (I only use web based email), link checker (that was a real dog, a noticeable pause with the Google searches.) I'd tried Avast!, but that was annoying me, a daily large pop-up, advertising the full package, often not in English. But hay, that's just me.
And likely, the original poster as well. We all have ideas about what we want: robust safety, snappy response, unobtrusive computer usage. On same level, everything, from McAfee's bloatware, Norton's resource hogging, and the various free options end up with a mix of all three.
AVG is good, but make sure you choose Custom install and remove all the extras.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Antivirus software has got to be the biggest gimmick of all time and it is sad that people are at the mercy of some of these larger companies such as Norton, Mcafee and Trend Micro. Working for a MS Gold certified company who specializes in small business deployments and in-shop repair, I must say that I personally remove about 20+ viruses a week the old fashioned way. I've seen some pretty ruthless shit out there, but never something so harsh it required a format. that seems to be a lot of people's solutions, and it is the wrong one. regardless of how long it takes to remove a virus or rootkit, it is always worth it to the customer to keep all their applications and data in tact. In my whole experience with repair, everyone of my virus cleanups isn't because their computer wasn't protected, it was because the user was simply so retarded that they installed something horrible on their machine because they thought they were in danger. you can buy the biggest and bestest AV software, but it still won't protect from even some of the simplest rogue Antivirus products such as XP Antivirus 2009. it is just sad that people subscribe to these products because they aren't doing jack shit. you won't *accidentally* get a virus. you, the user makes it happen. we all know that everything is crackable or can be bypassed eventually, so why are we wasting our time with Antivirus software when we should be properly educating users and their browser habits? As a repairman, it also makes me money when people make mistakes like click on that goat pr0n link, and it is a lesson learned worth paying for a professional to teach.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Comodo has got to be a contender. Their new Internet Security package looks very good: http://www.comodo.com/
Fromm looking at several reports on antivirus programs and a couple of years of use of all of the major free programs, AntiVir Personal Edition is by far the best. Last time I checked at least one or maybe both AVG and Avast had a rather alarmingly high positive rate and were rather bad at detecting new viruses in the wild. Antivir also has a much smaller footprint (especially if their pop-up advertisement is disabled on update).
At one time free avg, avr, and avast worked well against anything, but in the last couple of months its seems like, "the scourge is getting deeper..." And by the way you don't need to use internet explorer to get infected. It's well known if you install windows fresh with nothing else and plug it in the internet it would be infected without intervention of anybody within 15 minutes. I personally done this and its true (I was curious, note: firewall was off). So far the only thing that works well to me, even on most infected computers is Nod32 from www.eset.com. At the moment I'm trying out PcTools Threatfire to see how good it works and so far it works well but not like Nod32 yet. Most computers I disinfect have Norton or MacAfee, but I have to be honest most times it's because it has expired (for years!!!). There has been times I have fixed a computer with brand new Norton or MacAfee installed and will be infected (its not that unusual). So far none of the Nod32 computers has been fully compromised like norton. I think only once it had trouble taking out one virus file but Nod32 did a good job of protecting the computer and itself. The file was locked; I deleted it after taking ownership of it and was deleted. This includes scanning from different scanners afterwards. The system turned normal after that. Sad enough, free antivirus are not holding up like they used to
If are less used ,then are far less attacked. With this in mind, i suggest Windows95 *ducks*
As it is now...it doesn't seem reasonable to expect a top-notch antivirus product, simply because the work of programmers continually responding to emerging threats is more realistically sustained by a commercial rather than FOSS model.
I'd love to see dissenting opinions here, especially from coders with FOSS antivirus projects.
Install a really aggressive bot. It will keep other bots/viruses off your PC.
> McAfee, which took about an hour to remove fully
Really?
I don't believe it. I've never seen an anti-virus product that could be removed fully. They all seem to leave their tendrils somewhere in your system. I always reformat in this situation.
Trend Micro Housecall. Scan for and remove viruses via a web-interface when you think you may be infected. There's no annoying software to download/install (other than either an ActiveX control or a Java applet, depending on preference/browser/OS) that pointlessly eats up memory and interferes with your applications.
I like avast, because it displays an icon on the taskbar that *animates*. It makes it look like the computer is thinking about the files that you download, emails you receive, etc.. As a bonus, it does a similar animation when it's checking for updates and downloading new virus definitions.
Not to mention the fact that Symantec likes to do in-depth scanning every once in a while in the middle of the day for no apparent reason and starts consuming 100MB+ of RAM and hits 50% CPU utilization.
That's not Symantec's fault, somebody at your organization told it to do that before it was deployed. I'm not the hugest fan of Symantec in the world, but you can't really blame it for:
1) Having a feature where an admin can schedule full scans
2) Your organization having crappy admins
Comment of the year
Best Practices. M$ and tons of 3rd party software makers, don't make it easy to adhere to Best Practices, I'm sure if they did they'd be called Easy Practices. http://richrumble.blogspot.com/2006/08/anti-admin-vs-anti-virus.html When was the last time you had to run a video game as root? Never. On M$, games and lot's of other things do need admin to run about 70% of the time probably more, however you don't have to be logged in as a member of the admin or power users group to run them. You can use runas (similar to su) with a simple right-click. Why don't virus "shoot-outs" and other types of comparisons ever put all those Anti-/spyware/virus software up against a non-admin user... You may actually find the non-admin wins. My wife/kids and myself don't run as admins on my M$ machines, and for good measure we do scan nightly (TY ClamWin) for good measure, nothing for over 3 years. The only spy-ware we've gotten are some "browser helper objects" but since I hid the IE icon under the FF icon, it's never happened again. Remember, *nix started out as a multi-user system, and windows did not, they kludged a mult-user system (version after version) on top of a single user system, and security is/was an after thought, clearly. -rich
There are more ways for a virus to get into a system than just a download, though.
Which ways are you talking about, so that I can set up triggers? Hooking open() just seems like overkill to me.
Agreed. Avast is my current favorite, and i tried all that i could find before settling. AVG 7 was my favorite, but once it went to 8 it slowed my computer startup time down considerably. I like clam AV (it's open source!) but i don't like the fact that it has no active scanner.
I'd also like to mention http://www.av-comparatives.org/ which seems to be very thorough in their tests, and gives good explanations of their graphs. Their research includes thousands of viruses, worms, malware, and legitimate software to calculate virus detection rate vs false positive rate. They also do some speed calculations, for those interested.
Choose your antivirus from one of these http://www.av-comparatives.org/, and firewall from these http://www.matousec.com/projects/firewall-challenge/results.php. Hope it helps
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm a network engineer by trade with responsibility for my company's firewalls, IPS sensors, Network Behavior Detection / Netflow tools, etc. Your post piqued my interest for one of my backburner science projects: a malware research "lab". My company has multiple licenses for VMWare ESX server, VMWare Lab Manager, and the like, and I'd really like to create an environment where I can let specific malware run "freely" and see how well (or more likely, how poorly) my aforementioned firewalls and IPS sensors do at detection / mitigation. Sort of like the xkcd "malware aquarium" comic http://xkcd.com/350/
I know this is an extremely open-ended question, but could please comment on my idea and give any general suggestions on how to get started? Note: I am not a newbie, have been doing some form of computers, networking, and hacking/network security for a long time. I'm just looking for some good Best Practices (or links to them) from someone like yourself who does this for a living.
My idea is to have a few XP virtual machines running through a virtual switch, that connects through a real (and dedicated) interface on the VM server, out to the firewalls, and IPS's, and then back through another dedicated interface into the VM server. I suppose I could also 802.1Q trunk in/out of the VM server and save myself a NIC. I thought I could also create a virtual honeynet with honeyd for simulating destination hosts for the infected hosts.
I'm not quite as interested in getting into the guts of the malware with reverse-engineering, disassembly, and whatnot. I just want to learn a few things, tune my devices, and ultimately better protect my company's network.
Thanks a million in advance (and a huge THANKS for your work as a malware researcher. You are an unsung hero in my books.)
hmm, sounds like a possible human error in removing the crapware form Mcafee, and then after not fully uninstalling that piece of bloatware, you installed AVG and it tried to work with the leftovers from Mcafee still interfering. I have AVG and the router is a good 100 feet away, maybe more and I have no troubles with my wifi connection.
Avast is a) not open source b) not reliable -- it crashed my machine, and no, I wasn't infected. It used a heavy process and resource load.
antivir+spyware terminator+comodo firewall all free, all best there is for free and even better than much of $$$ software
AntiMalware Malwarebytes has Rogue Remover which I highly recommend. Save hrs of work.
Some rogues need to be removed manually though. Just keep it updated and it will be fine.
http://www.malwarebytes.org/rogueremover.php
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Wife liked AVG enough to purchase a paid for copy. Also have ClamWin loaded 'just in case.'
I have had good success recommending both AVG and ClamWin as a combination, to others running M$.
For my Debian workstation, I don't run as privileged user, so doing a scan once in a while with ClamAV has done just fine.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
I found that even though it's more bloated than before, AVG8 is still more lightweight than Avast. I tried switching my 1Ghz P3 from AVG7.5 to Avast when AVG discontinued version 7.5, and it pretty much crippled the computer. Taking Avast off and putting AVG8 in its place allowed the computer to be usable again. I use Avast on my faster computer though.
I work for a local PC repair shop where I live. We Use AVG 8 free for almost all machines that come in that are infected (Most have some flavor of McAfee or Norton). AVG 8 free works really well for a free alternative although nothing is 100%. Its best that when installing you do a custom install and uncheck the link scanner, Toolbar and Email scanner plug-in's. those plug-in's are relatively useless and can cause system instability. Also I have noticed that AVG does have have a lot of false positives but Id rather have it detect a few harmless files as viruses then not detect a harmful file as a virus.
In my opinion AVG is the best of the free antiviruses with avast coming in second. I use AVG every day and it's never affected my wireless network. I do however skip it's toolbar and yahoo search stuff. The only reason I could think it would is if your wireless drivers were infected with a virus. I would suggest that you uninstall/reinstall her wireless network drivers before you give up on avg.
the user is the best and worst anti-virus
Unless you wiped your drive and reinstalled without McAfee, it is still there. So, any other anti-virus will conflict with it and appear that it has problems.
I've recently done research on the same question and came up with an extremely successful working combination of Avast! (for anti-virus) and ZoneAlarm (for a firewall). Both are free and quite user-friendly.
My parents wanted a new computer, and they wanted one for cheap. I offered them to build one and to provide them a cheaper alternative to Windows by installing Linux. One night, without telling me, they both went and bought HP computers with winBlows pre-installed. They paid twice as much as what they told me they wanted me to spend. I was hurt. Now a HP desk support representative sits at the seat of our family tech-nerd honor. He's not even in our blood-line. To take revenge I'm installing root kits on their computers and add them to a botnet. Take that HP desk support.
http://freerav.com
Free, light, effective...
AVIRA has the advantage of NEVER needing a free license key renewed but they make you pay for it with an intrusive popup add for AVIRA Pro.
Bit Defender has the smallest RAM footprint of the three but updates are EXCRUCIATING and bog down your machine.
AVAST is the most complete of all of them, has the largest footprint, requires a 14 month free license key and some peculiar incompatibilities with one machine I tried it on, but it's the best of the three in terms of the actual work it does.
AVG is pure bloat at this point, and none of the other "FREE" applications are free - they're DEMOWARE.
If you're relying on anti-virus then you're doing it wrong. That is what I tell people - as politely as possible.
Anti-virus is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. No-script and good e-mail habits are the fence at the top of that same cliff. Everything else is a ledge on the way the bottom.
The advice I give to my friends is as follows:
Use Gmail. Good spam filtering and good virus checking. Plus, using the web interface you're reducing the risk of your email client as a target. Using pop etc, the payload is on your computer. Using gmail via web interface you're leaving any payload on their server. Dont open attachments that you dont know who its from. If you know the sender, e-mail them and ask. If not, then mark it as spam.
Firefox with noscript (and ad-block plus). The key is to show them how to use noscript effectively - it takes 2 minutes. When you're visiting sites you trust (such as your bank, e-mail provider and utilities) you whitelist them using the icon in the bottom right of your browser. You only ever have to do this once. - chose the bold selection (for the domain you're on) and allow that.
Never never never allow scripting on a site that you casually browse that you dont trust. If the site doesn't work without scripting then it's not worth it. These rules apply double when you're visiting porn sites etc. Never allow scripting. never. never. never. (if you want to look at the pics in a slideshow then use autoslideshow).
Then use any of the free AV's oulined above. - as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. If you get a positive, then you need to take a good look at what you're doing - because you're doing it wrong.
Seconded, though I prefer defence in depth. My suggestion:
Avast (Home Edition) + Spyware Doctor (Google Pack) + Threatfire.
Free for personal home use (read the fine print for anything else), they complement each other, have automatic updates, and play nice on XP and Vista. Tweak the settings to your (and user's) preference, remember to register Avast, and then you can pretty much forget about them.
Note: Threatfire 4 has only just been released; if you have problems I suggest trying 3.5.
Use the Windows default firewall if you're behind a router - I've yet to find a decent thirdparty firewall that doesn't bug users with annoying questions - but ditch Internet Explorer and instead use Firefox with Adblock Plus and the WOT or SiteAdvisor extensions (turn on search result highlighting). Likewise, ditch Outlook Express for Thunderbird; note that Adblock Plus works with it too!
Overkill? No. Defence in depth. Remember, your objective is to secure a computer for its non-technical user and then stay out of their way.
Just my opinion, salt to taste, mileage may vary, void where prohibited by physics.
avast
The setup I use involves VMware Workstation and the virtual teams. I have a collection of VMs to run samples in and those it in a virtual network. I have the gateway setup using FakeDNS to resolve everything to that one IP address no matter what it is. On that I run a webserver, snort, and Wireshark to grab the network traffic. On the network side you can develop a signature to catch it coming across the network both bots calling back and the actual executable itself. I would suggest studying network protocols and the PE format that windows uses in executables.
I should say if you lack a serious common sense, even the strongest AV of all wont protect you from malwares.
So for average user you should have :-
1. Common Sense (do not download random programs, click on random links or worse, press Yes on anything that tells you so.)
2. Any Free AV will do (as mentioned above AVG and Avira should suffice)
3. Firefox (upgraded of course. If you are feeling adventurous, use NoScript)
On a side note, ClamAV is off the context here. Its designed with Unix in mind, and unless you like to perform manual scanning now and then, I wouldnt recommend you to use it on Windows.
Just my 2cents.
I have used several, but found that for my machines http://avast.com/ Avast! works better than most and the price is certainly right - free. I can't count the number of machines "protected" by AVG that I have had to clean - not much better in my book than no protection at all.
Read my reply to another post...I am the admin, it's not a scheduled scan, I think it has something to do with the e-mail scan hanging, but it doesn't happen frequently enough to bother figuring out exactly what it is.
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Why FREE??? You got a cheap as chips from Dell who installed a rebated copy of a M$ OS.
The least you can do if you want proper security on Windows is pay for it.
Buy Kaspersky.
I use AVG and am satisfied with it. If you have problems with wireless, run a wire and disable the wireless on the router. Its faster and more secure.
Avast for the OSS win. ,but seriously, why not suck it up and pay for one? I understand the desire to go OSS but they may not always get the job done. I hate to admit it but the best ones cost money... Kaspersky and my own little love child Webroot Antispyware with Anivirus.
Kaspersky has had a very shakey reputation in the last couple years due to the data they were stuffing into the NTFS file system to help "speed up" their scanning performance.
I looked it up (horse's mouth, plus random google searches to collaborate). It seems to just be using NTFS streams to put a hash down that gets attached to the file to mark it as having been scanned. That seems totally legit to me (it's a documented NTFS thing, you can create your own via the command prompt). I assume it's only useful for the background scan stuff, since any malware can duplicate their signature...
I'm sure their software has actual bad points (everybody has some), but at least don't use invalid ones?
I use Avast on the machines in my house (9 of them). The only other free option I would consider is Comodo.
-Kinsey
I have been using Avira for the last 5 years on my (dell) laptops with XP and Vista and never had any problem.
AV-Comparatives makes detailed antivirus comparision a few times a year:
http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/comparatives.html
You may have to copy paste link. I use avira myself
Another shout for avast. been using it for years and often reccommend it to friends when AVG does something stupid. They have all been very happy since the switch
learn how to use google. also kaspersky is the best you can get (go basic install, obviously). build your own pc next time.
first of all, learn how to use use google. secondly, kaspersky is the best out there, even the trial version is awesome. thirdly, build your own pc next time you get a computer (or get a mac because no one bothers making viruses for macs).
Man, I'm wading through a sea of 'LOLOL GET LINUX' etc, and to be brutally honest that is exactly the kind of shit that is making Slashdot a PITA. I don't want to hear your opinion which totally contradicts the OP's question unless entirely necessary. He wanted a Windows AV, give him a Windows AV. Jeez.
Avira is very, very good, and the popup window which appears on a successful update is extremely easy to disable. I've been running it on all my machines for a good 9 months now with no complaints from anyone - best of all it's using 5MB memory on this machine. Can't complain at that.
Do not use Avira on any machine with a "mobile phone" internet connection - Avira does full updates, not incremental and has a minimal 60MB memory footprint...
Perhaps you were using the full AVG. No experience of that, but honestly I'd stick with the free solution and put spybot-sd (but not teatimer) for non tech users. Are you sure you haven't got that bloated lump of ordure known as Norton Internet Security pre infected on that machine? If it is there then grab a copy of SymNRT and remove it. (Ironically, I got burnt at around 1.am this morning with a "Fista" machine with the darned thing installed but not visible trying to connect to the internet. (The norton firewall silently blocks internet access by default)).
Andy
Pay for Kasperrsky license, then be happy.
Its not cost too much
I have FREE AVG installed, but do not run it in the background at all (kill services). I do a full scan once in a while or manual scan concerning downloads, and do not feel threats of any virus. I use Firefox with no-script, and I have perfect restore images from True Image. I could care less if I ever use AV products since I do not install viruses on my computer.
The main goal of all these anti virus/spy/trojan/whatever products is to spend your money. The most useful method is to use limited user without administration rights. The fact is that during the installation process of MS Win products, the default user created has full administrator rights, with all write permissions to everything. I use limited user account for daily work for a number of years on a number of boxes, and they work without any problems.
I use avast It's great and it's FREE :D
Don't use any antivirus app. Just:
* Keep your system up-to-date with windows update (which you should do anyway) .exe in e-mail attachements.
* Make regular backups of your important files (which you should anyway)
* Try to avoid the usual things like opening
If all goes wrong and you have a virus, restore your system and be happy. So far this has worked very well for me and makes it possible for me to avoid this Anti-Virus industry which seems to mostly exploit peoples fear...
A caveat with free antivirus software is that some provide scanning only while others have resident protection included.
NOD32 is the best anti-virus I've used but it's not free.
Avast and AVG are the best free substitutes I've encountered, I currently favour Avast but it gets too many false positives for my liking, and by default downloads large updates on a daily basis.
Because they rapidly evolve, there's no substitute for trying out multiple antivirus programs that have a high virus detection rating and picking the least worst one.
As people have mentioned firewall software here as well, I was after one that didn't chew up a lot of CPU time while downloading torrents and Ghostwall fits the bill. However I am assuming that the windows XP firewall does not provide equal protection.
"Considering that most people I know don't do much more with their computers then surf the Web, check their email and use some office software, you don't need much more than what I outlined above." - by apathy maybe (922212) on Saturday October 25, @05:47PM (#25512183) Homepage
I'd have to disagree, just based on the statement of practices that you feel most folks use/do on a PC: Surf the web + check their email!
Those activities ALONE exposes them to the vast majority of what people ARE running into out there online, & that's stuff that is largely JAVASCRIPT driven malware (in combination w/ the use of IFRAMES + vulnerable web browser 3rd party PLUGINS)...
( &, anyone can go to security-oriented websites like SECUNIA.COM &/or SECURITYFOCUS.COM (to name just a couple) & see that what I am stating bears out as true, & for about 3-5 yrs. now online (heck, even adbanners have been shown more than just a few times the past few years now to bear malicious javascript code in them))!
What works vs. that type of thing (javascript driven exploits & the like)?
This guide's steps & suggestions:
----
HOW TO SECURE Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 & even VISTA, + make it "fun-to-do", via CIS Tool Guidance (& beyond):
http://www.tcmagazine.com/forums/index.php?s=7f3029e844e2c17eefa57768b1bf1fc0&showtopic=2662
----
That guide's broken into 12-14 discrete steps that instruct users on how to do "layered security" on their personal computer!
It uses a highly acclaimed tool that is easy to use (CIS Tool, which reviewed well in COMPUTERWORLD) to help them do so, without having to know a load of Windows' internal structures (like the registry) extremely intimately etc. et al!
(It makes securing a PC via layered security almost "fun-to-do", since it is a benchmark test more-or-less (albeit, not of PC performacne, but instead, of its security setup as it stands on the person running its' tests on his/her system), + it has many points that extend BEYOND those suggested by CIS Tool (which is based on "industry best practices" largely, for PC &/or SERVER class machine security)).
APK
Yes to ClamAV (and ClamXav for Mac)
I pretty much remove virus's for a living. The only antivirus I use right now is avast. It seemes to be the only one working. Here are the steps i take. I first run Alwil softwares antivirus boot cd BART I then run Iobits advanced windows care personel I then run Malwarebytes Malware app free Then i install and run Avast free edition.
Well, I've been using it for over 4 years, and I've never seen that, so I'm not making any marks against Symantec on that one.
Comment of the year
AVG instability. I've yet to have any stability problems across 6 PCs in my immediate family, all of which are used daily for gaming, VPN and web surfing.
Fair enough. My own experience is different though, and being an IT professional I am pretty sure the problems are due to AVG. It could be a problem only occurring on non-US English installations though, or some other "local" condition. Or a conflict with some other installed software - though the only applications present on ALL computers where programs like Firefox, Sun Java VM, OpenOffice, etc.
Your rationale seems to be that you want to stop it because you think it kills system performance when gaming and similar activities. The only time AVG sucks up more than 0% CPU is when it is A) checking URLs or B) actually performing a scan on your HDD.
My experience tells me otherwise. Framerates in FPS games drop as much as 20% when the real-time engine is running alongside my games. I assume this is because of anti-malware functionality scanning my network activity, scanning local files which are updated by games (some games have a tendency to make many temporary files), as well as monitoring memory usage for possible signs of "yet unidentified malware" (typically this is called "heuristics scanning" and I have no idea what is actually involved from a technical perspective, but it sure DOES consume a lot of resources when other memory intensive programs are running).
Both of these can be mitigated 100% by A) disabling the URL checker and B) scheduling your scans to happen late at night or disabling the automatic one and scanning yourself every so often.
I don't know how you have configured your own AVG installation, but I want my antivirus software to use the real-time engine to actually catch malware attempting to get a foothold on my computer. A timed scan is, IMHO, a supplement to using a real-time scanning engine. And while it is true that the real-time engine uses virtually no resources when you examine it in Windows Task Manager, it is a very different matter when you are actually USING your computer. AN idle desktop will reveal between 0-1% CPU usage for your real-time scanner, and not a lot of memory. But if you start resource-hungry applications like games or video-editors, the picture is VERY different.
--> Lots of "BUY ME! I'M EVER SO SEXY!" ads for the full version. Agreed if you're rebooting your machines every day. My machines run 24/7, so I rarely see these ads. I might suggest using Suspend or Hibernate instead of powering your machines off; it's easier on the hardware and everything else than full reboots regardless.
I often hibernate, but games generally run a little smoother if the machine is rebooted at least 3 times a week. I can't say why, I can only observe that games such as Crysis and Team Fortress 2 increase slightly in FPS if they are played after a clean boot, compared to their performance after being hibernated turned back on many times.
:-)
The "BUY ME NOW" ads also appear on virtually every information screen, so if you ever open the main AVG console and try to actually use/change anything in there, you will be pestered by them.
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
Having said all that, the end-users I help are requesting AVG over Avast. I am not trying to bash AVG and promote Avast. I think they both have strengths and weaknesses. :-)
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
It only happens a couple time a month or so (~100 client PCs). More of an annoyance than a real problem, as a reboot fixes it. I have looked it up before and found a few people that run into it also...it must be something in our environment messing with it, although there is nothing I would consider unusual about it at all...it has persisted since version 9. We were running unmanaged until about 2 years ago, and it occurred both before and after that, and this has affected 2k, XP and Vista PCs.
The main reasons we are ditching it are because A) It has missed viruses caught by NOD32 and B) It also consumes more resources while missing viruses.
I'll see it using anywhere from 50-75MB of RAM on a typical system, whereas NOD32 uses 10-20 (although on a 64-bt OS it is close to 50). And Symantec will also consume a few extra CPU cycles as it will occasionally zap a couple percentage points of the CPU under normal idle use. On most systems it's not a big deal, but we have some older machines (late P3 era, yes I'd love to replace them but our company is a private LLC owned by some real tightwads) that it can impact noticably.
Also, NOD32 is about 20% cheaper, and I like the management interface better, it offers a lot more customization than Symantec's does.
As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable Slashdot 2.0.
As smart as the 7% of the computer using community believes they are (/wave Linux users), they are far from helpful or skilled as they think. /. ignore all Linux comments) = Very limited amount of REAL answers
A true computer geek will find an elegant solution to the problem at hand.
Problem - AGV affecting laptop's Wireless.
Conditions - Windows solutions ONLY - as per - "from the --> when's-it-positively-gotta-be-windows dept
Solution Possibilities - 1)Don't use any AV program 2)Use different AV program 3)Fix AVG to work
Solution #1 is out - as per - "We're looking for some good, open-source or free personal editions of anti-virus software" = They want a Windows based AV program
Solution #2 is a possibility - Get possible Windows based AV program choices = Ask around, (on
Solution #3 Fix AVG = Interface that is familiar (and liked) = Create an Elegant® solution.
I myself use AVG, modified to do what an AV program should (Update itself, scan files that I download, not interfere with normal computer activity (non-resident-scanning mode)
The Fix®
- Install AVG
- Run AVG
- Turn off all unwanted stuff (link scanner, Email scanner, Resident shield*)
*The problem - AVG8 runs the WatchDog service (avgwdsvc.exe), upon doing so, it launches the Resident scanner (avgrsx.exe) (which is probably screwing up the wireless, and also makes the system take a performance hit.) Without the Watchdog service, scanning/updating will not work.
Elegance® - Go into the AVG8 folder, rename avgrsx.exe to avgrsx.BAK, this prevents the Resident Scanner from being found (or run)
- Restart computer
- Verify that you can scan and update, with no wireless problems
- Enjoy your Windows box with the other 93% of us while the Linux users are trying to convert their OS's to be like Windows.
RWC
The free version is simply adware. You may think it's not too annoying, but getting a pop-up every single day is too much. Maybe if you weren't doing any work you could deal with the surprise interruptions.
If you want to tout their paid version, then go ahead, but their free version is no longer the best. Try AVG.
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. -Groucho Marx
... shouting "Mac OS X" instead.
Seriously -- what wife wouldn't prefer a Mac?
ESET's AV is awesome. I am sad to say that I know of no free tool that is even nearly comparable.
Other than perhaps a free trial of ESET's tool (which is not truly free software).
Essentially, the R and D costs to develop such software and to continuously update such software are not small.
While there is a large community of free software developers concerned about security, there are not many who are concerned about Windows security.
Windows is a commercially sold proprietary operating system.
Given the costs of the operating system, the costs to obtain security imposed by MS and open source community's inability to fundamentally modify the OS to be more secure.
And the importance of security (potential cost of not having AV software)
It is justifiable and in general a reasonable suggestion that all MS users should purchase quality AV software.
If they do their research properly, and do not merely go with the most popular "brand" because it is the most popular (logical fallacy that the most well-known brand is a high quality product that exactly meets your needs), ESET should be at or near the top of their list of software to consider.
Another choice I would consider would be eEye blink, for the user-configurable IDS capabilities, and since Viruses aren't the only security threat, it is (in principal) a reasonable suggestion that all Windows systems should have some form of IDS protection against actual intrusion (rather than mere detection of known worms and malware).
Seriously, who these days is NOT using a web based email?
Given the low cost of domain names and DNS hosting usually provided by registrars... who in their right mind doesn't have a domain name?
It's the ultimate in flexibility to be able to move your email address to whatever e-mail provider you move to.
Generally the domain registrar will provide an e-mail forwarding option that allows you to forward mail to your web-based account.
And with say the free Google Apps... you might even be able to have google service your mail, without an extra forwarding hop.
The previous posters missed the key point:
- Yes you need to be behind a firewall
- Yes you need to use non-MS email and browser (that would be Firefox or Chrome or Opera and Gmail or Thunderbird)
- Yes you have to take care about trusting your downloads
But most important of all, you must not do your work as admin! You need an admin account to set up and install, but the account you use for browsing and reading mail must not be an administrator of the box (or anything else on your network.) The time you spend learning how to do this will pay you back a thousand-fold. Time spent managing AV is just wasted.
I agree with you. I have my own domain.
But to my shock there are still a lot of people out there who are utterly clueless to the internet and how to use it. (A lot of them also run Nortons or even *shudder* MS One Care)
For them using a free web based email is almost at the maximum of their "intarweb" comprehension. So that will have to do for them.
Friends don't let Friends use Internet Explorer.
AVG is good.... for removing cookies. Avast is pretty good, but Avira Antivir is the best (in the free anti-virus scene that is)
Software is like sex. It's best when it's free.
I just wanted to give a follow-up on my search for a 64-Bit Virus solution.
I ended up going with AVAST Free for now.
Installation was pretty smooth with the hardest part being updating my firewall to allow AVAST to grab updates.
In case anyone wonders, the following AVAST proggies need outbound access through the firewall:
* ashServ.exe
* ashWebSv.exe
* aswUPdSrv.exe
* Setup\avast.setup
"avast.setup" was a bit hard to configure because the "choose program" widget in the Vista firewall app only allows you to select ".exe" files - Just choose any nearby .exe file and then modify the input box by hand to point to avast.setup
If I end up having any problems with Avast, then I'll look into NOD32 and then Kaspersky
Thank you to everyone who took time to reply.
Cube On! (http://stores.ebay.com/PuzzleProz)
Trinity Rescue Kit is a nice little bundle.
Don't use a runtime scanner, for all the reasons already posted, plus one more. Once Windows is compromised, you can never trust anything running in it. Rootkit virus more common every day.
Use a boot CD to virus scan once a month, or once a week if you are in the bad habits. Boot scanners can not be infected after being burned to disk.
This leads me to another question for everyone:
Do any of the major anti virus vendors sell a no-install boot disk virus scanner?
Avast, bitdefender are garbage, AVG is the better of the free ones
The best combination of free software I have come across are:
1. Avira AntiVir Free Antivirus - http://www.avira.com
2. Spyware doctor starter edition - www.downloads.com
3. Use firefox web browser with WOT addon. www.mozilla.com
4. Spyware Blaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
5. CCleaner - www.ccleaner.com
6. (Recommended for advanced users) Hijackthis - http://www.download.com/Trend-Micro-HijackThis/3000-8022_4-10227353.html
This is the most effective combination. Run these and know/learn how to use Hijackthis and you can detect and remove any infection!
I got away from any AV suite that relied on IE as IE is a known weak link. Thus, many viruses use IE to enter the system so I didn't trust an AV package that used IE also. That may or may not be realistic -- I don't know but, there are non-IE options out there so I took a chance. Since Opera is my default browser (Firefox and IE are also installed) I didn't like having the AV updater always startup IE or, in the case of McAfee, actually require that IE be the default WITH all security options disabled!
Also, many of today's AV tools update multiple times a day. Virus writers don't send them out only once a week or whatever so I liked the frequent update feature.
So, I tried Kaspersky, NOD32, AGV, F-Prot and others. I use a wireless router to broadband and have Linux, Windows 2K and Vista operating on laptops, desktops and servers. They all work just fine. I'm currently running NOD32 and like it however Kaspersky is a good 2nd choice.
I think that if the AV is properly installed and configured that it shouldn't cause any serious impact to performance. Sure, there will be some but my Vista and Win2k boxes don't seem sluggish.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
I support a large network of Dell machines (both Enterprise and Home Use) and have never had a problem with AVG in 4 years of use like you're having. I can count the number of Inspirons that I've purchased for users and the only thing thing that comes to mind is that you are using the Dell Wireless radio (Rebadged Broadcom?) rather then one of the Intel wireless units.
If you do have one of the Intel cards inside your Inspiron, download the latest driver from Intel (the one on Dell's website will be way out of date)
I've seen a range and performance boost going from the Dell 11.5 driver to the Intel 12.1x driver for my Lat D830 which has the 3945ABG card.
YMMV
BM
Yeah, I wish someone could find a way to keep some central collection of safe software on digitally signed servers...
Some kind of... oh I don't know repository. Heck, if they were to do that, they could even have the software download itself automatically and install itself automatically when you request it. But now I'm starting up a huge wish-list. Like that could ever happen.
i use linux and don't surf porn or download pirate software. it seems to keep my system healthy.
"You are still innocent until proven guilty. What's changed is what they do to innocent people." by notnAP (846325)
I've been using it for 2 years now and it is by far the best AV I have ever had. PLUS it doesn't slow your computer down by scanning every files everytime..
I'd recommend their Prevx2.0 version, which offers realtime protection, over their "CSI" one.
I tried to replace our current av here at work (which is mcafee) but they don't have a real buisiness solution for now.
Give it a try, really worth it for personnal use!
www.prevx.com
Adding onto my last reply (w/ evidences of security suites failing vs. today's threats from reputable security sites who analyzed it)...
"Considering that most people I know don't do much more with their computers then surf the Web, check their email and use some office software, you don't need much more than what I outlined above." - by apathy maybe (922212) on Saturday October 25, @05:47PM (#25512183) Homepage
&
"Firewall blocking all incoming connections / Alternative web browser (not based on MSIE) and email client / Don't download and run random programs (especially not from websites linked to from ads)" - by apathy maybe (922212) on Saturday October 25, @05:47PM (#25512183) Homepage
Those aren't enough... but, your last suggestion is/would be, & here is why + how:
----
"Learn about computer security" - by apathy maybe (922212) on Saturday October 25, @05:47PM (#25512183) Homepage
Absolutely on this point of yours: & more importantly, HOW TO IMPLEMENT LAYERED SECURITY!
HOW TO SECURE Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 & even VISTA, + make it "fun-to-do", via CIS Tool Guidance (& beyond):
http://www.tcmagazine.com/forums/index.php?s=7f3029e844e2c17eefa57768b1bf1fc0&showtopic=2662
----
Evidence as to WHY the techniques I listed in the URL above (in my last reply) are more effective than just using a firewall, antivirus, &/or antispyware program + patching your OS + programs:
Take a look @ this CURRENT information on SECURITY SUITES failing left & right on tests run, vs. the threats out there, TODAY (not yesteryear tech in them):
----
Top security suites fail exploit tests (COMPUTERWORLD):
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9117042&intsrc=news_ts_head [computerworld.com]
&/or
Top security suites fail exploit tests (SECUNIA):
http://secunia.com/blog/29/ [secunia.com]
----
The "old-school methods" (what security suites use generally - like anti-virus programs using virus detections signatures, which only work vs. KNOWN threats, when they ought to be concentrating on white or blacklisting sites &/or HEURISTICS levels of detection ("smells like a duck, tastes like a duck: IT MUST BE A DUCK!" type logic))
Signatures-based detections aren't working that well nowadays guys, vs. std. viruses... & MOST of what folks get today? They're bad javascript driven (in combination with iframes &/or bad or vulnerable plugins) usage, anyhow. AntiSpyware programs do better here, imo @ least, than antivirus programs do. By far...
After all, you know it, & I know it:
People - out online, today/nowadays?
The REAL, TRUE threat's out there today are coming thru your email, webbrowser, instant messenger programs!
(& even Adobe .pdf files with javascript active in the program, & plugins like Adobe Flash (which I guessed correctly on here weeks before it was revealed -> http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=976325&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=25158611 [slashdot.org] no less, as to the "mystery program" that was involved that J. Grossman & crew (discoverers of the clickjack issue) kept under covers, due to "responsible disclosure"))
The guide's steps in the URL above shows you how to lessen/mitigate that also, with some common-sense rules & tools, & if you can adhere to them?
You can take you
Kaspersky gives you three licenses for the price of one. My copy I have on two of the three computers.
The cost of free solutions exceeds the expense of going with the best. Think downtime, loss of data, and overall identity theft. Most AVG users who have fallen victim to identity theft would have been protected by Kaspersky.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I totally agree with Avast. It seems to use very low system resources, and the majority of the updates it does on its own. As such, you practically will not even notice it is running unless it wants you to do a major update, or unless it actually catches a virus. I discovered Avast as they were the first antivirus company that offered a free Antivirus that worked with 64-bit Windows.
And I have never had Avast mess with a driver or any other operations of the system.
Avast all the way...love it. I have not had ANY problems in over 2 years of Avast usage.
I've had a few things land on my computer and the free online scanner at eset.com seemed to pull off the trojan as well as some spyware. Torontoman.
Just to stick my boot on here: If your house had a problem with bugs and insects coming in through the cracks and open windows, would you: a) Move to a different country that had fewer bugs and insects, Or b) Patch the holes and cracks as best you could and get something to zap the beasties if they did get in? I think you can see where the analogy is going.
I have installed:
(diskettes)
Windows 3.1
Windows 3.11
Windows 95
(cd)
Windows 95 OSR 2
Windows 98
Windows 98 SE
Windows NT 4.0 Workstation
Windows XP Home
Windows XP Professional
(dvd)
Windows XP Pro with SP2 on the disc
Windows Vista Business N
For all of the above, installation has been painless and flawless except for two items...
HP Scanjet 3c - it used a SCSI card and the SCSI card was no longer supported under Windows 98. Note that it was never meant to be supported under 98 - it's a DOS era scanner. I had to poke at drivers a bit as the alternative (which would make it happily work right through to XP - might even work with Vista but can't find the info) was to buy a third party scsi card for some stupid amount that was more than a *new* scanner would be. Suffice to say I do now have a new scanner, but simply because I want to scan at a higher quality than the 3c allowed... so it was on its way out.
Philips webcam driven through parallel port (and a separate microphone plug that went into the MIC IN of the soundblaster - no model number, sorry..) - no XP drivers, SOL on that one. Shame, too, as its visual quality puts most current webcams to shame ( high end CCD, great in low light ).
Both of those products were EOL well before the operating systems under which they broke were made available and I wouldn't really expect such hardware to 'just work' as such.
Now on the plus side for linux - I do believe that both of those products have Linux drivers and I *could* potentially get them up and running under Ubuntu.. with much work; see e.g. the 3c software: http://www.kirchgessner.net/sanehpfaq.html :)
However, the scanner is gone - and so is the card.. even if I still had the card, it went into an ISA slot... I don't even have a motherboard to plug that into
Avira Antivir gets my vote. It works on XP and Vista, very small memory footprint, daily updates, consistent performance (check out http://www.av-comparatives.org/ and it's free. Available at http://www.avira.com/