Anti-virus question

[musical74]

I have Norton anti-virus, but it's out of date because I can't afford the subscirption to keep it current. My firewall and anti-spyware programs ARE up to date however...

Here's the big question: there are supposedly some good free anti-virus programs out there - at least, according to Kim Komando. Do I risk getting one of these free AV programs, where everything will be up to date, or do I stick with Norton, even though it's about 7 months out of date? I'm a little wary about going after these Free AV programs but when you can't afford the subsciption...

I use Zone Alarm for my firewall and Ad-Aware SE for my anti-spyware program, and update both of those as needed. Just...wondering about my AV situation because that's not current, but at the same time, I'm skeptical about the free anti-virus programs out there.

Any advice would be appreciated! =)

[EwanG]

Personally, I have Norton's at work, and have the AVG free edition at home, and find the AVG product is just as good at identifying things, while being less intrusive and less resource intensive.

YMMV,
Ewan

[dizzcity]

Me too. I liked AVG from the moment I first got the free edition. Unfortunately, it looks like the trial version is about to expire in January, so you might want to look for something else.

-Dizzy-

[Jake]

Personally, we use McAffee at work, and I use AVG free edition at home, and also find that AVG is less intrusive, less of a memory/CPU hog and I've never had any cause to complain about its protection. The sysadmin at work was happy enough to let my laptop onto the corporate network once it was up-to-date with AVG updates, so he trusts it, at least...

(McAffee, on the other hand... let me tell you about totally random five-second system hangs... :/)

Unfortunately, it looks like the trial version is about to expire in January, so you might want to look for something else.

The announcement on Grisoft's free-version website is as follows:

GRISOFT is announcing a new version of the AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition. This new 7.5 version with improved performance and user interface is available. Users that are using AVG Free 7.1 will be provided with a specific dialog, within the next few weeks, with the opportunity to choose the right option fulfilling their needs. AVG Free 7.1 version will be discontinued on 15th of Jan 2007.

Note the "announcing a new [7.5] version" and "7.1 version will be discontinued" - that says to me that they're forcing an upgrade to the latest version, but not cancelling the free software altogether.

[dizzcity]

Ah, I see. You're right. (Must remember to read more carefully next time...)

-Dizzy-

[monele]

I'm using Avast but used to have AVG (until a new version crashed my old Windows 98 and forced me to switch). Both are free and are probably good enough. Viruses are *very* rare unless you just insist on downloading illegal stuff on weird websites and accepting strange e-mails, so... I tend to think it's not very important what antivirus you have.

[musical74]

OK looks like AVG is a good one to use...another question: how do I get Norton OFF the computer? I imagine Norton AV and AVG AV aren't going to like each other, and I when I tried to get rid of it directly it said *change* but nothing on *delete*...any ideas?

[monele]

That's the reason I've never put a Norton on my machine... it just won't come off ~_~...

[Matt_D]

A good router/firewall is waaay more important then av.

There are plenty of AV products that give year trials so you can skip between them, my currnet is etrust as it's just a virus scanner (unlike many "home" products which include a whole range of infuriating services)

and emmm getting norton off of your computer... now there's a saga in itseelf, took 3 rebuilds and some third party software for me to get most of nortons security suite off, I still can't run realtime scanning from other vendors though.

[Adorya]

In the norton official website you can find a walkthrough to completely remove any norton from your computer (usually it can be resumed to normal uninstall then use special uninstall software then if not all removed registry entry deletion).

The most important software indeed is a firewall that can monitor net traffic and a good knowledge in processes management. With only that you can tell if your computer is being used for malicious purpose or not (for piracy purpose, a good computer is a controlled computer online, there is no use to destroy one if you can't use it "à l'insu de son plein gré" ).

[DaFool]

I too notice recently there are very few viruses and more worms and trojans.

Adorya is right on... you can even make money subverting computers for harvesting or spam, but you can't do anything by just making carcasses.

At home I'm just on dialup and have no anti-virus whatsoever. I never needed one. And I'm the type of person who would never install anything I wouldn't use, so for a 5-year old system it boots up faster and can run circles around some of the graphics workstations at work

[Adorya]

I agree, I have some old computers (from x486 to 300 Mhz) at home that can boot in less than 20 sec, I only use them for work with old text processing software and they work very fine.

Same at work, we don't need brand new hardware unless it is a requisite (unfortunately it is often the case and we get a more problems with new than old materials), and we can optimize processes with old tools (image processing with win nt 3.5x )

[Radhreni]

My husband and I both use Avast! -- my dad has had no end of problems with Norton and McAfee, so I'm a little leery of both of those (not to mention the cost).

However, you didn't mention Spybot: Search & Destroy in your anti-malware armada -- you should get it. Now. It can and will pick up things that Ad-Aware will gloss over, and the two of them make for a good combination.

[Boch]

*raises hand*
I use AVG Free as well, used to try out their earlier versions when I still had a working Norton AV. Their UI was really ugly back then. It looks better now.

For firewalls, I switched to COMODO some weeks back because the latest version of ZA free was very buggy (6.5.737.000). Their True Vector services kept getting shut down and restarting on my PC. The last stable version I used was 6.1.737.000.

Also, according to this little test here: http://www.firewallleaktester.com/tests_overview.php
The free ZA was not as strong as the retail ZA in terms of leak tests.

For combating spyware, I use Ad-Aware, Spybot, Spyware Blaster, and common sense.

I've updated my IE to v7 some time back, but I still don't use it except for Windows update. It looks prettier though.

[GorillaKick]

Hey, guys. Sorry that I disappeared on you.

Anyway, back on topic, I recommend either AVG or Avast. Of course, you could always search the armpits of the internets (EMule (LAWL!), Limewire (ROFL!), or Bittorrent (Gets a fair amount of legitimate usage)) for some "free" Anti-Virus software.

Personally, I love NOD32. It got a 100% award!

Warning: I do not advocate piracy in any way. Just because I said to go look on Limewire for some software and then you got busted by the RIAA doesn't make it my fault. Have a nice day!