Antivirus/Anti-spyware software discussion

[awg]

Re: Anti Virus programs

The Fsecure anti-virus program provided free by Optusnet to subscribers works extremely well and has great tech support
I use it in conjunction with CCleaner and Spybot.

I wouldn't load Norton on my machine. In my experience it has ordinary detection performance and slows system speed, has rubbish support service, and is almost impossible to delete.

you can download freeware that will get rid of it ( Norton)

sorry cant remember what it was.

my son exd it from his Vista machine as it is has compatibility probs with WOW.

PS it wouldnt suprise me if the big anti-virus companies have consultants working in little rooms doing.....you guessed it...writing viruses

 

[Julia]

Re: Anti Virus programs

Julia,

As others have pointed out, both Norton and McAfee are resource hog and bloatware, they simply slow your system down, where in some cases your system becomes unusable! There are also 24/7 campaign around the world by Hackers, Virus and Malware writers to find new methods and exploit to bypass popular anti-virus, because they know around 70% of worlds pc's if running any AV are either Norton or McAfee, so once they find a way to bypass this two anti-virus they will release the virus to public, you will be better off with other small AV's where you will have much better chance against viruses and malware!!
There are hacking website selling tools to make malware undetected for Norton and Macfee for as little as $50!!


They both spend millions of $$$$ on marketing and sales campaign, but unfortunately not so much on R&D and writing better codes for their products, the only improvement i have seen for the last couple of years is to make their interface more pretty and adding new features such as anti this or anti that, which only half of them works and its only used for marketing gimmick!! ... having a program to do 10 different functions simply does not work!!

You should download trial version of different AV's and see what work best for you, but my preference is Kaspersky or NOD32 (very light AV) and the free ones i will go with AVG or Avira

OK, thanks for explanation and advice, Nick and Snake. (and the other person who replied). I've only ever used Norton so I don't have anything with which to compare it. I've never had a virus and everything works well. (Hmm, might be tempting fate to say this.)

I've previously run Spybot and Adaware but was told they're unnecessary.
Will take up your recommendations when renewal is due.

 

[skyQuake]

Re: Anti Virus programs

Also a warning for Vista users, there are still a few bugs with Norton. I'm on Avast and had no problems, and it hogs less system resources.

 

[CoffeeKing]

Re: Anti Virus programs

Due to my AVP ending have opted to try AVG IS 8.0 on the 30 day trial...
seems a lot less smaller and quicker to run, everything loads up faster.

Only bug bear is the tracking cookie warning that comes up everytime you load a page (such as ASF it comes up with 2) and it asks you what you want to do

Cannot find anywhere where you can set it to always remember that cookie or the page loading?

Will see how it goes...

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

Re: Anti Virus programs

Well it has come time to renew my anti virus software soon and one of my current one's is getting the flick because it is a resource hogging screen freezing bunch of useless crap. The computer sounds like a 737 on the tarmac.

I think I'll go with Avira for superior detection ability and will put up with the false positives. I reviewed the tests and nothing competes for detection. Any reason why I shouldn't?

 

[darnsmall]

Re: Anti Virus programs

Also a warning for Vista users, there are still a few bugs with Norton. I'm on Avast and had no problems, and it hogs less system resources.

some things never change, I had issue with Norton way back in the days of Win2000.
I try and avoid using Anti Virus software now at all costs...simply don't download or go to dodgy websites is the best solution and it goes without saying never open emails from anyone you don't know...unless it's on your work com
There are some ok anti-spy/virus vendors, but I find most of the time I can do a better job by researching and keeping track of whats running in the task manager with the help of google. I often find that no matter who I've used in the past they don't catch everything so I just do it manually.

 

[CanOz]

Re: Anti Virus programs

Because they slow down your computer! less performance, over protection.

I strongly recommend Symantec Endpoint. I think it has great balance between protection/performance.
It has Antivirus & Antispyware Protection, Proactive Threat Protection, and Network Threat Protection.

I have 2 new computers (1 XP Pro, and 1 Vista home premium) and they both run like new after a year old.

I use McAfee and we use this Corporately as well. My scans come on in the middle of the night, most of the time. It is resource hungry, but my PC seems to handle this easily. I'm very happy with the $50 i pay.

I'm also very grateful that i have had 0 issues since i got the PC two years ago. I do backups regularly too.

Cheers,


CanOz

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

Re: Anti Virus programs

some things never change, I had issue with Norton way back in the days of Win2000.
I try and avoid using Anti Virus software now at all costs...simply don't download or go to dodgy websites is the best solution and it goes without saying never open emails from anyone you don't know...unless it's on your work com
There are some ok anti-spy/virus vendors, but I find most of the time I can do a better job by researching and keeping track of whats running in the task manager with the help of google. I often find that no matter who I've used in the past they don't catch everything so I just do it manually.

What about sleepers and boot up rootkits?

Threatfire may help. It is behaviour detection.

I use Sandboxie too to save things into, or you can use a guest account with windows.

 

[Prospector]

Re: Anti Virus programs

I am using AVG free but have just decided to pay for the pro version. I have this persistent virus that I know exactly when I got it, deleted the program immediately but I get the Virus warning every couple of days. It seems to have infected my ability to do system restores. Hopefully this time I will kill it for good.
I previously used Norton and I removed it after a few days - it made everything so slooooooow.

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

Re: Anti Virus programs

I am using AVG free but have just decided to pay for the pro version. I have this persistent virus that I know exactly when I got it, deleted the program immediately but I get the Virus warning every couple of days. It seems to have infected my ability to do system restores. Hopefully this time I will kill it for good.
I previously used Norton and I removed it after a few days - it made everything so slooooooow.

It sounds like it is booting up on startup and reinfects. If you can't do a system restore then yuou have been infected and maybe your machine is part of a botnet. You need to deal with it.

If you use your machine for trading transactions you should reformat it.

 

[Boggo]

Re: Anti Virus programs

I am using AVG free but have just decided to pay for the pro version. I have this persistent virus that I know exactly when I got it, deleted the program immediately but I get the Virus warning every couple of days. It seems to have infected my ability to do system restores. Hopefully this time I will kill it for good.
I previously used Norton and I removed it after a few days - it made everything so slooooooow.

This freebie finds and removes most of those "sleepers"
http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Boggo

 

[macca]

Re: Anti Virus programs

Hi Prospector,

Do you run Spybot ? very good for persistent problems (free), update and run weekly.

Also agree with Boggo, free Malwarebytes is recommended by those who know more than me.Update and scan weekly.

I also run free AVG and is better than any that I used to pay for, and it updates automatically every day.

I also run Adaware and update and scan weekly.

Touch wood, no problems in 5 years since adopting this strategy

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

Re: Anti Virus programs

Hi Prospector,

Do you run Spybot ? very good for persistent problems (free), update and run weekly.

Also agree with Boggo, free Malwarebytes is recommended by those who know more than me.Update and scan weekly.

I also run free AVG and is better than any that I used to pay for, and it updates automatically every day.

I also run Adaware and update and scan weekly.

Touch wood, no problems in 5 years since adopting this strategy

According to AV comparatives the best detection ability is with Avira and Kaspersky engines. The new adaware uses the avira antivirus engine.

 

[Prospector]

Re: Anti Virus programs

Yikes Snake you scared the bejesus out of me so I have now backed up all my files onto an external drive. I did a search on the virus and it took me to kapersky's site. I have now run adaware, and removed a few things and AVG is grinding away - have now run it twice to make sure it got rid of the nasties. I used to run spybot but it takes so long. But might do it again. Thanks for the other link, will have a look at that too.

Will update later!

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

Re: Anti Virus programs

Yikes Snake you scared the bejesus out of me so I have now backed up all my files onto an external drive. I did a search on the virus and it took me to kapersky's site. I have now run adaware, and removed a few things and AVG is grinding away - have now run it twice to make sure it got rid of the nasties. I used to run spybot but it takes so long. But might do it again. Thanks for the other link, will have a look at that too.

Will update later!

Prospector, getting infected is serious stuff. Particularly when using a computer for trading etc. If I was infected and couldn't do a system restore I would do a reformat to wipe it all clean and start out fresh.

What virus was it?

 

[beamstas]

Re: Anti Virus programs

I use CA antivirus

It's live scanning is amazing. It can find and delete a virus before you even know you have one

Not for the faint hearted though (or people with slow computers).

Luckily mine can handle it, and i have the piece of mind that my computer is safe with it always as the live scanning picks just about everything up.

Never had a single virus or problem since getting CA.

It costs around $80 per year

 

[outback]

Re: Anti Virus programs

I had a similar situation as you Prospector. I ran the free scanner from Kaspersky, but couldn't figure out if it would remove my malware for free.

Then I used Spybot, malwarebytes, and downloaded Avast for virus protection, my trial ends this week, so I think I'll get the paid version.


P.S. Before this I relied on AVG free version, and ran Spybot intermittently.

 

[Prospector]

Re: Anti Virus programs

OK, so I have run AVG paid, Adaware and Malaware and each one picked up different things. The virui AVG is picking up is called Cryptor, and the other Generic 13 CW and Generic 13 EZT. The latter two being the system restore ones. I have changed all my banking pins on a different computer but havent been able to change my Trading pin so have contacted NAB and as I havent done much trading recently then it should be ok for a while. I should know by the end of today if I am clean!

 

[Prospector]

Re: Anti Virus programs

OK, I have now run AVG paid again (nothing), Spybots (first time, and found 2 malaware plus the usual tracking cookies), Adaware (nothing), and Malaware (nothing) and will try to run Kapersky Lab's online scanner but am having trouble with the Java thing but will keep trying.

From another laptop I have gone into my banking system with the new password and all is ok there. Am I almost clean yet?

Grr, Kapersky isnt working for me, and when I try to get the trial version it says I have already applied for it using a different email address; I have used 3 different emails and it gives me the same message. Given I have not heard about Kapersky until yesterday and this was my first trial, that is quite weird!

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

Re: Anti Virus programs

Prospector, try using the free version of Zone alarm internet security suite and do some scans with it. It is slow but has very good detection because it uses the kaspersky engine. It is easier to use too. There may be a compatability problem with AVG though ( not sure).

According to this site: http://www.symantec.com/norton/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2000-121515-4637-99&tabid=2

The virus uses a complex polymorphic engine, meaning that the virus is self-mutating and difficult to detect.

...the Crypto is a polymorphic virus which means it mutates using encryption and is hard to detect but only after it has activated. (my layman's understanding) There could me more on the machine but not activated yet.

I repeat if I had that stuff on my machine I would do a re-format, especially with XP operating systems.

One of my infections was a polymorphic one and Zone alarm kept picking things up for days as they activated.. I got sick of it and just did the re-format after Avira picked up two that Zonealrm did't catch. Perhaps it would have if it had longer to go on the trial.