Antivirus

[red bandit]

I have Microsoft Essentials Antivirus. I've heaard there are better ones out there. I would like to get a good one, of course for free. Is there such a thing or do I have to pay to get a good one? Any suggestions for a good one? I have a Dell 2400 Windows XP bought in 2004.

[DGXSER]

I've always used AVG free antivirus, I also add on Superantispyware.

[jjz28]

I really like the Microsoft security essentials. That's all I have used since the one care was discontinued and I have not had any viruses. It has caught a bunch though. I am no computer guru either.

[BA80]

This is what I've used for years and it works quite well. I just use the free version but there are many other good add ons you can buy to enhance it.

[trbig]

This is what I've used for years and it works quite well. I just use the free version but there are many other good add ons you can buy to enhance it.

Says the guy who's computer is always locked up with some kind of virus and at Habeeb's getting fixed...

[BA80]

Not since I keep my kids off MY computer.

[hamjam]

Not since I keep my kids off MY computer.

so you are the virus protection programme if it lets in the kiddies stuff cant be that good

[BA80]

They kept downloading stuff they shouldn't have and some of the bugs that you can get from the music sites FREE anti virus isn't even going to slow down.

[fredintoon]

- - - I have a Dell 2400 Windows XP bought in 2004.

Hi bandit,
nurture that thing like a sick child!
My computer died and I had to buy a new one.
No more WindowsXP, the new ones come with Windows8.
Windows8 is sh1t!

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Red,

I use the AVAST that Greg/BA80 recommends also. I "purchased" one copy for my desktop, but I use the FREE versions for all of my laptops and other slave desktops. I still only use the basic features of the Paid version, not all of the other bloatware. It works quite well, I do visit some nefarious type of sites sometimes and it has caught and stopped some serious stuff...the fake FBI Browser/computer Lock virus and such.

However, like Greg said, IF YOU don't know what you're doing on some sites...
they will put up FAKE notices like your FLASH PLAYER isn't the latest version, please click "here"...some link on their site....to install the latest version/codecs, etc.....and then they gotcha!

I'm also running WinXP SP3 on my desktop system....I don't want to pay M$ anything I don't have to. My laptop has Vista, wife's laptop Win7, and yes FRED....Win8 is CRAP....for the touchpad generation...YUCK! Fred...I'm pretty sure you can downgrade to Win7.....or you can select for Win8 to work like Win7 instead with the same Start Menu/desktop type system/interface!?

T.C.

[Cobia]

Early last year PC Magazine ran a comparison of the most popular free AV software and some of the popular paid AV software.
Beyond the criteria of effectiveness and speed at detecting and stopping the viruses, malware, and adware they threw at them, they measured the "weight" of the footprint of said programs. The "weight" meaning the intrusiveness and annoying question asking.... you sure you want to do that? kind of second guessing you all the time.
As it turned out in this study the most effective AV program, that also had the lightest footptint, was MS Security Essentials.
I have used all of the above mentioned software plus Norton Enterprise, McAffee Enterprise, and Kaperski, and have been very pleased after switching to MS SE.
I like the way it runs in the background and takes care of business all on it's own without all the fuss.
One caveat though, you MUST keep it and all your MS software updated with the MS automatic updates. MS used to issue these updates once a month, now the seem to happen every week.
I am an MSCE, btw.

[BA80]

MS SE runs on my computers anyway. That goes without saying. It's free with Microsoft.

Avast runs and cooperates well WITH it.

[red bandit]

Thank you all for your input. Greatly appreciated.

[TopCatGr58]

Speaking of Viruses/Virii !

I help fellow coworkers and friends work on their computers/laptops, repairing or cleaning when they get infected and such. One coworker's family member had an ACER Aspire with Win7, it was a couple of years old. It had developed a problem of not booting into Windows. It would just reset and go from the Bios Splash screen to a black screen with a little white dash in the upper left corner, then would shutdown/reboot and repeat. I went into the bios and set to boot from DVD, ran the Win7 recovery disk, it checked the hard drive and found no errors, then I ran a check on the Ram/Memory, also no problems. After shutting down the disc, rebooting, it would boot into windows just fine. But let it sit overnight turned off, and then try to boot cold and it would do the same previous black screen.

I finally checked the BIOS version, and their site, found that just a version before that had a non-boot bug....the actual version she had on the laptop wasn't listed anymore, they skipped that one. So..I downloaded and Flashed the latest Bios version, and that fixed the cold no boot problem.

But while I had it checking things out, was monitoring Task Manager, and found several instances of Explorer running and it would go up to 1.5 Gb ram being used!? I would shut down the extra instances, and then a few moments later about 10 instances of CTFMON.exe would pop up.....and then more explorer.exe's would pop up and again start eating up ram and hogging the CPU up to 90+ %!

But if I disconnected the internet then it just sat there at idle just fine! I had run multipe virus scans, and had even performed a RECOVERY disc reinstall. But after much searching I came across a reminder about checking for ROOTKITS. So...I ran the Kaspersky TDDSKiller.exe and actually found a rootkit! Once it cleaned it, and rebooted, with the internet connected it still just sat there at idle perfectly! I didn't expect/suspect that type of infection AFTER performing a HD format and reinstall from discs? These discs were the ones that are created at home from the utility built into the laptop. SO...I'm creating a new batch of RECOVERY discs now that the Rootkit is gone just in case for future troubles...ie. hard drive crash/die!

Be safe out there!

T.C.

[Jerry]

No single programs offers all the protection you might like. On our corporate units I run MS Security Essentials, ESET Nod32, and Malware Anti-Malware Bytes (AKA MBAM) and a few others on occasion.

In my experience the main difference between between the free and paid for versions is the free versions don't generally prevent infections; they scan after the virus or malware is already on your system. The paid for version often scan files as they come in before they can be written to your drive. Inportant difference. For that reason I recommend you run at least 1 paid-for program on your system.

At home I run ESET Nod32, Macintosh version.