Any other virus protection other than Norton and McAfee?

Warden · Dec 6, 2007

I think Grisoft AVG has it, plus its free.

Used it for about 5 years, first rate product.

Harry

KilroyCD · Dec 7, 2007

I've been using versions of Trend's PC-Cillin for seven years now, and I highly recommend it. No problems, and very quick to get updates out.:eusa_clap

Hemingway Jones · Dec 7, 2007

Samsa said:
I have a bad feeling that this is going to become less and less true the more popular Macs become.

Agreed!

And I was totally kidding when I brought up the Mac. You guys are so funny, so sensitive about your computers. It's endearing.

Truth be told, I use both. I use Macs exclusively at home and PCs at work. At work, they use McAfee and the company firewall, which seems to have the ability to block most ads the way that Opera does if you set it up properly.

I know that I am very careful what I will open as an attachment to email. I don't want to be known as the guy who let the virus into the bank's systems.

Good luck Ohairas! Let us know which you decide.

Slicksuit · Dec 7, 2007

I would recommend checking out the reports over at www.av-comparitives.org/ they do independent tests of various Windows Antivirus on a regular basis. This quarter, it seems that TrustPort Antivirus Workstation and Avira Antivr both got the best overall detection rates. My personal preference is for AVG and NOD32, as they both have the lightest hit on system resources (Norton especially has been historically bad for some time in this regard).

That said, it is just as important to make sure your virus definitions are updated daily, as it does no good with new viruses otherwise. Also, there is always a latency between the introduction of a new virus, and the antivirus companies catching up with them. Therefore, the best defense is a good offence-
*Never run Windows XP as an administrator for normal internet surfing/email
*Never run a Windows computer naked on a broadband internet connection. A hardware firewall (ie. a router) is always superior to a software one
*Do not open attachments from people that you do not know, or things that are unexpected. The email message preview pane in most common clients counts as opening the email.
*Ensure that Windows updates are run regularly, preferably automatically
*Avoid programs from P2P and Bittorrent that are not legitimate

Miss Brill · Dec 7, 2007

I have AVG.

Samsa · Dec 7, 2007

Hemingway Jones said:
Agreed!

And I was totally kidding when I brought up the Mac. You guys are so funny, so sensitive about your computers. It's endearing.

To be sure, I use a MacBook almost exclusively. I was just saying that as Mac users we are in danger of feeling a false sense of security.

wedding belle · Dec 7, 2007

AVG too

works very well.

rebelgtp · Dec 7, 2007

Slicksuit said:
*Never run Windows XP as an administrator for normal internet surfing/email
*Never run a Windows computer naked on a broadband internet connection. A hardware firewall (ie. a router) is always superior to a software one
*Do not open attachments from people that you do not know, or things that are unexpected. The email message preview pane in most common clients counts as opening the email.
*Ensure that Windows updates are run regularly, preferably automatically
*Avoid programs from P2P and Bittorrent that are not legitimate

most of this i agree with except the auto windows updates. having just spent the last 9 years in the trenches as a computer tech i know first hand all to often that microsoft does updates that hose peoples systems. now sometimes these issues are fixable with a bit of work. however there was a particularly nasty update that came out about 2 years ago that we dealt with several thousand customers in my office that all ended up having to format their systems all because of a windows update. to test it we subjugated one of our crash systems in the office to the update, yep did the same thing. we actually called microsoft told them about the issue and they pulled the update since they were getting similar reports from around the country.

hmmmm maybe that is why i run linux at home.

KittyT · Dec 7, 2007

rebelgtp said:
most of this i agree with except the auto windows updates. having just spent the last 9 years in the trenches as a computer tech i know first hand all to often that microsoft does updates that hose peoples systems. now sometimes these issues are fixable with a bit of work. however there was a particularly nasty update that came out about 2 years ago that we dealt with several thousand customers in my office that all ended up having to format their systems all because of a windows update. to test it we subjugated one of our crash systems in the office to the update, yep did the same thing. we actually called microsoft told them about the issue and they pulled the update since they were getting similar reports from around the country.

This is true. Microsoft is notorious for releasing updates and upgrades before fully testing them for compatibility or flaws. I work as a Helpdesk tech and we have automatic updates disabled on all of our user workstations. We have special software we use to push out Windows updates to all of our users on our own schedule - after we have approved them and are sure they work and will cause no problems on our systems.

ohairas · Dec 7, 2007

Ok guys, I don't know what this means or how to figure out if I'm doing it!

Nikki

*Never run Windows XP as an administrator for normal internet surfing/email
*Never run a Windows computer naked on a broadband internet connection.

KittyT · Dec 7, 2007

ohairas said:
Ok guys, I don't know what this means or how to figure out if I'm doing it!

Do you log into your computer as Administrator or do you have a separate user account set up that you use.

What type of internet connection do you have? If it's dialup, you have nothing to worry about. If it's DSL or cable, is your computer plugged directly into your DSL or cable modem?

Samsa · Dec 7, 2007

ohairas said:
Ok guys, I don't know what this means or how to figure out if I'm doing it!
Nikki

As to the first point: create a limited account to use for surfing the internet. You can do that by going to Control Panel/User Accounts.

As to the second point: this is a forum dedicated to Golden Era fashion. You could at least have the decency to put a fedora on your monitor.

rebelgtp · Dec 7, 2007

Kitty
Its always nice to hear from someone else that does tech in the actual country so much of it is being outsourced these days. Sadly my last stint was dealing with the general public and it severely burnt me out, so now I'm back in school [huh] :eusa_doh: . From now on I'll be doing field research for biology studies around the world

.

rebelgtp · Dec 7, 2007

Samsa said:
As to the second point: this is a forum dedicated to Golden Era fashion. You could at least have the decency to put a fedora on your monitor.

see we just need more people in this group to run Fedora ON their computer http://fedoraproject.org/

ok I actually don't run Fedora (I use to) but these days I'm partial to Suse.

KittyT · Dec 7, 2007

rebelgtp said:
Kitty
Its always nice to hear from someone else that does tech in the actual country so much of it is being outsourced these days.

I work for the 3-person IT department of a medium-sized NPO. We made the choice to exclusively use Thinkpad laptops for our users (desktops are a different story) based on the fact that IBM support is still based in the US.

ohairas · Dec 9, 2007

Ah, I'm sure you all just love the computer illiterate!

I'm the administrater but I don't log in, just turn it on and go.(?)
We have dsl, thru the phone co. plus linkskys wireless.
Nikki

KittyT said:
Do you log into your computer as Administrator or do you have a separate user account set up that you use.

What type of internet connection do you have? If it's dialup, you have nothing to worry about. If it's DSL or cable, is your computer plugged directly into your DSL or cable modem?

Ugarte · Dec 9, 2007

I'm late to the thread, but I have some experience here.

I used to really like Norton products, but that was years ago. Tony and somebody else mentioned NOD32. I am going to be replacing the expired ZoneAlarm AV on my daughter's machine with NOD32. She has had problems catching everything out there. I am not impressed with ZA stuff anymore.

I have used/currently use Avira Antivir, Grisoft AVG, and Avast! I like the first two quite a bit, but nothing is bullet proof. On top of whatever AV I have loaded on my home machines, I use Windows Defender and try to scan the machines regularly with Adaware and Spybot Search and Destroy.

My desktop is rock solid and runs no AV software. It's a Mandriva Linux desktop. My primary server is also a Mandriva box and I scan my windows shares on that machine with ClamScan.

That's mostly it. Now if I could just clamp down the proxy server to keep the kids off the phishing sites and train them not to open attachments, things would be rosey.

Mark
.

Miss Brill · Jan 28, 2008

Edit: Thanks, MKL!

Any other virus protection other than Norton and McAfee?

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