Is there any freeware anti virus that is any good ??AVG ??? thanks larry
Notan, Tell me what you know or have experienced with AVAST. I see they have over 2+ million downloads at CNET. I'm going to bring this down just in case AVG decides to stop offering free home installs. (ie- like CA did with InoculateIT a few years ago). Perhaps I'll remove AVG and try this for a bit.... Stew
I haven't had a whole lot of experience with it... I installed it on my wife's computer and a laptop that I'm using strictly for home automation. So far, it's caught a handful of viruses on each of the systems. I'd love to ramble on, about how good or bad it is, but I can't. While, as I said it's caught virus attacks on two systems, it's tough to do an A-B comparison of antivirus products, unless you're exposing all systems to the same attacks. While the magazines have the resources to do that, I don't. What the hell! Go for it! Give it a try! Notan
When are people going to buy software based on what works best, not whether it's free or not??? There are a lot of varying opinions, for example on some packages like NAV, but with rebates, it's always less than $50. It's even free if you are upgrading and get it at the right time. It continually amazes me that people get all hung up about spending $50 to protect their $1-2K computers from viruses that can trash the entire system......
Becuase those "free" anti-viruses do work. Keep in mind many of them are only free for home users and are practically identical to the commercial versions licensed to companies. They're offered for free in the hope that people will use them at home, see how well they work and hopefully vring them to the workplace (which is similar to why MS doesn't give a shit about some college student pirating Office -- big business licenses is where the real money is). I do agree hat you get what you pay for, but frequently all that you pay for is a name. Most peiple would argue that Norton & McAfee have become particularly bloated these days even if they were free, they wouldn't use them (I certainly wouldn't). When you consider how many people have thousands of dollars of possessions "protected" by a lock on their front door that cost under $50 at Home Depot, the fact that they aren't willing to spend $50 on an anti-virus software shouldn't come as much of a surprise.
When Norton or McAfee produce a current version of their products that will work on everything from a 5-year old Celeron 600 with 64mb of RAM to current P4 systems, I'll use it. AVG works. It works especially well on machines that are older (usually that have Norton or McAfee expired subs), have little or no horsepower/resources to float a hugely invasive AV in the systray. Install NAV or McAfee on one of these granny boxes and then tell me it is a practical, workable solution. Those users would be forced to spend for the AV as well as a nice RAM upgrade -if- the box is capable of one. It's not whether or not it's free, it's all about if it actually -works-. (*and I paid for CA InoculateIT/ETrust for over 3 years until they had 2 major security loopholes located in less than 3 months in the program....) Stew Stew
Along with what other people said, Mcafee and Norton simply do not work as well as the free ones, especially AVG in my experience. Also AntiVir is another good one. I have worked on countless machines that have updated versions of either Norton or Mcafee and AVG still finds viruses. AVG will catch lots of spyware and malware trying to install too. Norton especially is a huge bloated mess. It takes forever to install and uninstall and unless it is being installed on a fresh install of windows the potential for problems is great. I have a machine right here that Norton refuses to work properly on. This machine is free of viruses and spyware or other issues. NIS installs, but liveupdate won't work and unless NIS is disabled blocks all internet access no matter how the firewall is configured. I have reinstalled it four times. I used SymNRT, deleted all the symantec folders and registry entries that are still there even after an uninstall and the problem persists. The machine works fine with AVG and Sygate personal firewall, both free programs. What I need is a Norton Anti-Norton program. I had a machine awhile back that I spent most of the day uninstalling and reinstalling NIS and every time it was installed, it had a different error or problem. Not fun.
Interesting that you found the above: We manage the IT for several sororities, of all the machines moving into the house each year, the only clean machines we've ever seen were those running Norton AV with updated and valid subscriptions. We've found countless compromised McAfee and CA and others that were just undetected by their updated scans. We also install AVG as a means to check machines, the Norton ones come back clean when properly updated and running a current version, none of the others have. Now, I should also state that some of the Norton installs are not clean, but that's where the user has never updated the definitions and they are often more than a year old - while also running P2P apps on the same box. As for Symantec, I've never had a box running the Corporate Version compromised.
Be advised that Avast will prevent the automatic creation of System Restore points. I like the program and for now am routinely making manual restore points. MLD
Be advised that Avast will prevent the creation of automatic System Restore points. I like the program, it seems to be doing a good job, and for now am making manual restore points. MLD
Norton works, but the cost is a *huge* drain on system resources. Unless you're running a system with unlimited resources, the impact is significant. Notan
Once again, on a healthy machine that is properly maintained, Norton does not drain resources and does not slow a healthy system down. We need to stop perpetuating the myth that Norton is a resource hog. It is not, if certain guidelines are followed. Bobby
If you were right, I'd agree with you. <g> For some recent feedback on NIS, head over to microsoft.public.security and search for "NORTON," "NIS," etc., or have a look at a recent thread, "NIS or XP firewall." Notan
