promethuem5 Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 Hi, My mom and I were looking at alternatives to Symantec anti-virus as on one computer the program's all screwed up, and Symantec has failed to release a stable program for 3 year editions in a row We found a few alternatives with some reviews, ad wanted to know if anyone else was running a non-Symantec or McAfee anti-virus and internet security program. The ones we found information for were Bit Defecner, PC-Cillin, Shield Pro, and AVG Anti Virus. Is anyone using any of these, and if so, could you tell me how it's going? Thanks so much! Ben Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
007-vf1 Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 I been using the AGV free for a week or so..I have beeen without antivirus for about 2 months. I don't visit unknown/questionable websites and so far the program hasn't found any viruses lingering around. it seems the firewall has done it's job just fine. If I can't log in in a couple of weeks then I know I downloaded a piece of crap... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
promethuem5 Posted November 10, 2005 Author Share Posted November 10, 2005 How obnoxious is the program? Like, Norton is a system hog and always popping up asking you about stupid things.... how is AVG? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeszekely Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 I use the totally free AntiVir Personal, and I do happen to visit some... questionable... websites. I've never had a problem with it (which is more than I can say about Norton). Completely unlike Norton, AntiVir is not resource hog at all. It just runs quietly in the background. And unlike Norton, it isn't denying you access to anything or trying to tell you how to run your computer. Every two weeks, a reminder will come up asking if to update if you haven't recently, and it does a fully system scan once it finishes updating. A full system scan takes about an hour. Should you choose not to update for whatever reason, it will continue to run quietly in the background. As mentioned before, I have been to some shadier websites. Every time, AntiVir has caught an infection at the door and destroyed it before any harm was done. One other minor feature I like is that, when the computer is booting, the umbrella icon on your system tray is closed. It opens when the computer has finished booting. That's when I know I can start to play with the computer after a boot up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shake n Bake Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 Norton is damn near a virus itself Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB0 Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 ... so far the program hasn't found any viruses lingering around. it seems the firewall has done it's job just fine. No, it doesn't. Firewalls are NOT to protect you from viruses. Aside from a agood antivirus, the only thing that can REALLY protect you rom viruses is good sense. If you recieve an e-mail from Angelina_Jolie@yahoo.com entitled "I WANT YOUR COCK!" with an attachment entitled "naked pictures of me.jpg.vbs" and you run it "just in case" you deserve everything you get. Sadly, that's what MOST virus propagation amounts to these days, is people running every piece of crap that falls into their inbox without ever thinking about it. They turn their brains off when they sit down to the computer, they see an attachment in their e-mail box, they click an attachment, then they bitch about how crappy computers are because their's has self-inflicted problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uxi Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 AVAST and AVG are both good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akilae Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 My vote goes to AVG. Been using it for two years now and it's blocked two or three suspicious files. AVG is light, fast at scanning, and FREE. By default it scans at 8 AM every day (I think), and updates itself shortly after. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azrael Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 Firewalls are NOT to protect you from viruses. Aside from a agood antivirus, the only thing that can REALLY protect you rom viruses is good sense. If you recieve an e-mail from Angelina_Jolie@yahoo.com entitled "I WANT YOUR COCK!" with an attachment entitled "naked pictures of me.jpg.vbs" and you run it "just in case" you deserve everything you get. Sadly, that's what MOST virus propagation amounts to these days, is people running every piece of crap that falls into their inbox without ever thinking about it. They turn their brains off when they sit down to the computer, they see an attachment in their e-mail box, they click an attachment, then they bitch about how crappy computers are because their's has self-inflicted problems. 343772[/snapback] Ain't that the truth. PC-cillin is a good alternative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grss1982 Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 Using AVG here at the office, seems to be working fine. No viruses found so far. Seems AVG updates and checks for viruses everyday, might be a nifty feature for some users, but really annoying for me. (BTW my office PC is a Celeron 400 on an Asus 815e mATX mobo with 192mb RAM, shared VGA, blah blah, it kindda slows down evwrytime it updates and checks for viruses.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppy Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 I second avast, and it's free! Just installed it and it cleaned off 2 viruses that have been in my PC for god knows how long. Wish I could turn off the annoying voice though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big F Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 AVG is very Stable and we have used it a work now on most of our net work for arround acouple of years. We did have one problem with one workstation a while ago but it was due to someone meddling with the o.s. I use Norton on my system at home have done for years there have been some issues with the updater mucking up the o.s, but touch wood the last year or so its been o.k. It is a bit resource hungry but set it up right and it hardly bothers you. Mcafee is bollocks IMO I hate it every call out i have that is virus checker/virus related you can alway say it a Mcafee installed system. I used to work for a company that were main agents for it and it was still crap then. If you want free and easy AVG is cool. Get yourself a firewall as well though like say Zonealarm (also free) they work very well together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Togo Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 Eset's NOD32. Kaspersky AV is hard core and top of the line, but even with a high end system, it will put a noticable strain on things. I wouldn't use AVG if you paid me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gui Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 Kaspersky's AVP remains the best protection against viruses IMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Random Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 I've been using Avast for quite sometime now. It automatically updates, is not obtrusive and is free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big F Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 (edited) Eset's NOD32. Kaspersky AV is hard core and top of the line, but even with a high end system, it will put a noticable strain on things. I wouldn't use AVG if you paid me. 343837[/snapback] Running any application on Windoze eats system resources. It is computer suicide not to have some sort of protection while on the internet. Edited November 10, 2005 by big F Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emajnthis Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 I've never tried it, but i've heard Trend Micro has a good AV program. I know MSN switched over to it and stopped using McAfee to filter e-mails. I've used their free online system scan but i'm with JBO when it comes to avoiding virus'. I have no AV software on my computer and have never gotten a virus ever, spyware is a different story, but that is removed with different tools. (namely spybot and a MS' new free anti spyware program) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big F Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 (edited) I've never tried it, but i've heard Trend Micro has a good AV program. I know MSN switched over to it and stopped using McAfee to filter e-mails. I've used their free online system scan but i'm with JBO when it comes to avoiding virus'. I have no AV software on my computer and have never gotten a virus ever, spyware is a different story, but that is removed with different tools. (namely spybot and a MS' new free anti spyware program) 343894[/snapback] Trend`s system is supported by a lot of mother boards at a bios level if your board has this then you are on to a winner as it also checks the low level stuff on the harddrive that other systems dont see as the y load after that info is loaded to memory. There are three areas you need to address for a happy computer life. Viruses, Spyware, Intusion. cover these areas and you should be o.k Edited November 10, 2005 by big F Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB0 Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 Eset's NOD32. Kaspersky AV is hard core and top of the line, but even with a high end system, it will put a noticable strain on things. I wouldn't use AVG if you paid me. 343837[/snapback] Running any application on Windoze eats system resources. It is computer suicide not to have some sort of protection while on the internet. 343891[/snapback] Runing any application on ANYTHING eats system resources. How many depends mainly on how well the app was coded. Sadly, much commercial software manufacturers figure that they can just rely on upgrades to make their sloppy bloated code run acceptably, and if it has issues, they can just point and laugh as Windows gets blamed for everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
promethuem5 Posted November 11, 2005 Author Share Posted November 11, 2005 Togo, why do you recommend against AVG? I've been getting alot of recommendations for it on a couple forums I posted my question... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zentrandude Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 I like avg, never had a problem from them yet since using them for a couple years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
007-vf1 Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 ... so far the program hasn't found any viruses lingering around. it seems the firewall has done it's job just fine. No, it doesn't. Firewalls are NOT to protect you from viruses. Aside from a agood antivirus, the only thing that can REALLY protect you rom viruses is good sense. If you recieve an e-mail from Angelina_Jolie@yahoo.com entitled "I WANT YOUR COCK!" with an attachment entitled "naked pictures of me.jpg.vbs" and you run it "just in case" you deserve everything you get. Sadly, that's what MOST virus propagation amounts to these days, is people running every piece of crap that falls into their inbox without ever thinking about it. They turn their brains off when they sit down to the computer, they see an attachment in their e-mail box, they click an attachment, then they bitch about how crappy computers are because their's has self-inflicted problems. 343772[/snapback] Even any non-geek would know that..what I meant about firewall ( which I should have elaborated more on my statement) it that by itself it keeps me out of sites that otherwise would get me into trouble. they log your presence and somewhat compoanies find out about your IP and then they send you all that unwelcome junk mail that by chance might contain a viruse. Firewall can be set in a way that keep you from getting into those sites and thus making the blind mistake of not using common sense... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeszekely Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 AVG is light, fast at scanning, and FREE. By default it scans at 8 AM every day (I think), and updates itself shortly after. Considering how much time I spend online, and all the dark corners of the net I've peeked into... I really have to say that scanning and updated DAILY is FAR too excessive. 99% of the time, I've never found a virus doing a routine virus scan, and that's even after going a severely long time without updating. That's why I prefer AntiVir. It only reminds you to update every two weeks, and even then, should you happen to really need to use the computer at the moment, it only ask for permission. What's more important than frequent scans is an anti-virus that runs quietly in the background at all times that can quarantine and kill and infection the moment it gets on the computer, before it spreads. Combine that with JB0's time-tested method of common sense, and updated once a week, every other week, or even just once a month seems okay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zentrandude Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 avg does that already. plus you can set when you want it to scan and update. mines updates every day and full scan once a week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dangaioh Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 PC-Cillin A/V is worth the money... constant updates, warns you without mainstream media telling you that a new virus is out and it's not a resource hog. However, don't use Pc-Cillin firewall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1/1 LowViz Lurker Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 (edited) I use AVG. It does get annoying when it scans while I am on the computer, but even when that happens, just stop. Like a nag screen, it can be annoying, but it is reassuring that it is constantly being updated all the time because for many people, more than a single person might use the same pc, and you never know when someone from work, college, school, brings home some nasty infected files with them from where they worked. Better to be cautious and limit what damage is done by scanning whenever you can imo. Common sense works when you are the only person involved, but you can never tell what crap managed to infect and spread to other people's disks and made there way to your comp. Although I haven't had much problem so it must be my paranoia. For spyware I use spybot. Adware I use adaware. Edited November 11, 2005 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB0 Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 Even any non-geek would know that.. You'd be surprised. what I meant about firewall ( which I should have elaborated more on my statement) it that by itself it keeps me out of sites that otherwise would get me into trouble. they log your presence and somewhat compoanies find out about your IP and then they send you all that unwelcome junk mail that by chance might contain a viruse. ... You know, it's not actually POSSIBLE to extrapolate your e-mail address from an IP address. The people extracting and using it are getting it from things like bulk forwards and progams taht look at webpages for e-mail addresses. That's why you see sites where peoply type their address out as "yaddayaddaATsomethingsomethingDOTcom" It confuses the spiders, which don't recognize it as a valid e-mail. Aside from which... EVERY site you visit knows your IP. It's required for the internet to work. AND the spammers aren't the ones passing viruses around. I've also never seen a database of malicious websites. And wouldn't trust the accuracy of one for 5 seconds. Firewall can be set in a way that keep you from getting into those sites and thus making the blind mistake of not using common sense... Again, there's no substitute for common sense. Least of all firewalls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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