Anti-Virus

[Alain]

Hi chaps and chapesses,

My anti-virus is coming up for expiry - I use Norton at the moment, and was wondering whether to renew my subscription or pick another. What do y'all think?

Thanks for your advice

[ThatReallyHurt]

I've used McAfee and Norton, and I prefer Norton. Seems to cause fewer problems or slowdowns for me. Mind you, others have berated me for saying that and then claimed the opposite.

[esskreemr]

It's a neccessity. The choice is yours, save $40.00-$50.00 now, or pay 2-3 times that later to have your computer cleaned.

If you don't want to shell out there are free versions available. Grisoft's AVG Free Edition is one that I can recommend. http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

Your just beggin for trouble if you don't have an updated virus scanner. I've cleaned computers with 8-9 viruses. In most cases, the best thing to do is format and reinstall.

[Have At You]

I'm happy with the combination of different services, plus a few tweaks of my own, that have kept my computer virus-free thus far (knock on wood). Norton is fine, so is MacAfee. Each does a very good job by itself.

[Larrison]

I use MacAfee and have for some years. Not a bad service, but you've got to make sure the updates function is enabled. I note I get updates every couple of days. I only use their virus scanner function, as I use BlackICE for a firewall. There is some incompatibility between BlackICE and MacAfee in that MacAfee keeps identifying part of BlackICE as a questionable and potentially a virus -- so give some thought as to what else you will be loading for security (Firewall, spam/popup blocker, etc.).

[AndrewH]

The ultimate antivirus is a Mac.

[Araznal]

If you don't want to shell out there are free versions available. Grisoft's AVG Free Edition is one that I can recommend. http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

I use this. It's great. It updates itself around twice a week and spots more trojans than Norton ever could. My Norton expired around 6 months ago and AVG has been a much better (and cheaper) alternative.

[akaiyuki]

I used to have MacAfee until my stupid school made us all uninstall our anti-virus program and install Sophos otherwise they won't let you go online in the dorm. Sophos SUCKS. MacAfee was pretty good. I used Norton before too and that wasn't bad either. If norton didn't do a bad job for you, I'd say go with it. As least you're familiar with it =)

[howtobrew]

Get a Mac.
Get a Mac.
Get a Mac.

[Cerian]

I prefer Norton over McAfee.

And both over Sophos. Sophos sucks. They just recently got there act together and made it so the program would update itself rather than making you manually unzip and install updates, though I haven't been able to get the auto-updater to work yet...

[Larrison]

Umm.... Mac users should get both a spyware and a virus scanner too.

While OS X hasn't been hit with a lot of viruses (viruii?) (a handful of Max OS X viruses have been found, if memory serves), its not that long ago that Mac operating systems were the home of scores of viruses and other malware.

And there are still some around -- for example "Opener" is a piece of malware script which was infecting Mac's running OS X in the last year. It disabled Mac OS X’s built-in firewall, steals personal information and can destroy data. Fortunately, it wasn't very widespread. Doing a quick google search, there are a couple of other floating around now, with another example being Mac/Cowhand-A (a proxy Trojan for the Mac OS X platform -- ref: http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/anal...ccowhanda.html)

Similarly, there is spyware around for the Mac, including some which are sold commercially such as Spector (http://www.spectorsoft.com/press/pre.../02_01_24.html), so its not like no one might want to put something in your machine to watch what you do on it or watch for passwords, or the like.

You do need to be careful, even on a Mac. If you have personal or financial data on your Mac, or if you keep critical data on it (work related, etc.), most pros recommend you having a virus scanner and a spyware scanner on a Mac. (And of course, keep up with all the patches and security upgrades for the Mac OS as well).

[mrbiggs]

I hate Norton with a passion. It may be that I had Internet Security (a bunch of programs, including firewall and antivirus). But maybe not. It was extremely intrusive, difficult to use, and it slowed down the computer, especially on startup, by a factor of about 2, at least. The only program that I have ever hated more in my entire life, short as that may be, is Windows itself.

But if you like it, keep it, I guess.

[jeff]

'Get a Mac' is great advice for virus avoidance, but unfortunately (well, not from Inq's shareholder point of view) requires you buy a new machine from them.

By funny coincidence, I'm doing a user group presentation next month on "becoming Windows-free", though I'll be talking about Solaris and Linux instead. Both run on standard PCs and laptops, both are essentially virus-free (among other benefits)

In any case, switching OSes is a substantial choice - you have to add up the applications you make use of and see if they exist (or have equivalents) on the other platforms. Frequently alternatives do exist - and you might be even happier than with the original applications.

[VELISARIOS]

Hi chaps and chapesses,

My anti-virus is coming up for expiry - I use Norton at the moment, and was wondering whether to renew my subscription or pick another. What do y'all think?

Thanks for your advice

Hi Alain,
at work I use the Panda antivirus 2005. It is very good antivirus...but heavy. I suggest to use it.
At my home I have the Capernsky. I have not any promblem with it. CU

[Zesty]

AVG all the way. Norton is a very memory hungry program, so the scans are a bit slower. Also, AVG is better at detecting viruses and updates itself very frequently. Plus its free - more money for fencing stuff!

[duel mom]

I use Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security. But I haven't used the others so I cannot compare. But I got one clean machine. The company is very responsive by phone when I have called. Lots of functions offered with this software and daily updates.

[broncofencer]

I use Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security. But I haven't used the others so I cannot compare. But I got one clean machine. The company is very responsive by phone when I have called. Lots of functions offered with this software and daily updates.

This is the best anti-virus packages out there period. forget about updating once a or twice a week this updates daily or as often as new viruses are found to exist. AVG would be my second choice. throw both macafee and Norton right in the trash. I got a horrible worm when I was running both and neither one found it. as soon as I put PC-cillin on I found it realized all data was doomed and started over if I had caught it before I would have been fine.