Anti-virus/Spyware protection

[lcjjdnh]

So just got a new Eee PC 1000HA netbook for the holidays--very cool. But it doesn't come with any virus protection built in, so I'd like to, if possible, just use one of the free programs floating around. I've downloaded avast and was wondering if anyone has any experience with it. Or is it better to use something like AVG? How about for spyware protection? Does Spybot S&D work well enough?

Thanks for any help.

[DaddyTorgo]

avast is good. you may be able to get AVG internet security suite for free still (they are giving away a ton of free copies).

see this link for details AVG 8 (paid version) or AVG Internet Security Suite FREE thru 02/26/2018 to first 145,000 people! - SlickDeals.net Forums (http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=1101176)

[cartman]

Asking people for the best anti-virus is like asking which girl you think is the hottest. You'll get a ton of responses, hardly any of them wrong. :) Both of the ones you mentioned work fine. Myself, I use AVG.

But for spyware, it never hurts to have multiple types of programs, unlike anti-virus, where you can really only run one app. I use a combination of Windows Defender, Spybot S&D, as well as Ad-Aware.

[Suburban Rhythm]

avast is good. you may be able to get AVG internet security suite for free still (they are giving away a ton of free copies).

see this link for details AVG 8 (paid version) or AVG Internet Security Suite FREE thru 02/26/2018 to first 145,000 people! - SlickDeals.net Forums (http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=1101176)

+1

I've used AVG for awhile now.

[MJ4H]

I heartily recommend Avira Anti-vir after using Avast, AVG, and it all very extensively.

[rjolley]

Is AVG pretty lightweight? Does it slow down the system and hog resources like Norton reportedly can?

[Suburban Rhythm]

Is AVG pretty lightweight? Does it slow down the system and hog resources like Norton reportedly can?

Yes...one of the reasons I used it. Like you said, Norton bogged me down drastically.
I've rarely had any issues-- let it update daily and scan daily. And doesn't hurt to run some other stuff weekly, like S&D mentioned above.

[Galaril]

AVG is a good light on the system resources AV app and I would recommend Superantispyware:SUPERAntiSpyware.com - AntiAdware, AntiSpyware, AntiMalware! (http://www.superantispyware.com/)
over Spybot S&D, as well as Ad-Aware which were good a year or so ago but as things change so does thetarget for these. If you do use Spybot S&D you should also use Spyware Blaster which is a type of blacklister program put out by the same developer, that works well in tandem as a kind of HIPS program. I have also heard good things about AVIRA and another good in demand scanner to load and use often is MalwareBytes Antimalware scanner. ........Also, if you are going to run Firefox you can get away with somewhat lighter security protection than if you are using a windows OS.
Best Free Security Tools:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/pc/security-tools.html

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Love WinPatrol. It's free to use and you'll never have an issue with any spyware or viruses. It halts any attempted changes to the registry and stops any installs. The beauty of that method is that you don't need constant virus definition updates like in other programs. I've never had any problems with spyware since I started using it.

[Buccaneer]

For free, I use AVG on the boys computers. But on mine, I use one of the best rated av software: NOD32. It's been working 100% in 2 years.

[MizzouRah]

AVG 8.0
Superanti Spyware

[weegeebored]

The absolute best FREE antivirus software is Avira AntiVir. Download it at free-av.com. It is better than most commercial programs. Use it in combination with Threatfire (threatfire.com) and you will be good to go (although you may still want to use anti-spyware program like Spy Doctor as well).

Or my personal choice for a commercial Security Suite -- ESET Smart Security. But alas, not free.

[jeff061]

I prefer Avast.

AVG is pure garbage in my opinion. Clunky bloatware. They all suck equally, I just look for a small footprint.

[lcjjdnh]

Thanks for all the help. Guess I'll just stick with Avast, then.

[Anthony]

i use avast on my main mega pc. haven't had any probs.

[Galaril]

I prefer Avast.

AVG is pure garbage in my opinion. Clunky bloatware. They all suck equally, I just look for a small footprint.

Actually, I looked at Avast a few times, and though they are the lightest on resources; they also have the highest rate of false positives. I got sick of responding to pointless alerts and haven't had that much slow down in system speed. I prefer AVG due to it's nonobtrusive nature but each to there own.

[weegeebored]

If you stay away from "bad" sites, don't open email attachments or click on links in your email, don't use torrents or P2P file sharing, etc. you will be fine with any anti-virus program -- provided that you are also "invisible" on the 'Net, but that's another thread.

As I can't really do lab tests for this stuff (nor do I want to), and I don't believe in anecdotal reports with regard to apps like this, I usually research this kind of stuff. Just Google "antivirus independent lab tests" or something like that to find out where your AV software of choice ranks.

FYI, Maximum PC with the help of Virus Bulletin just reviewed AV apps. Memory footprints: AVG (free) - 83MB; Avast! (100 MB); and Avira Antivir (70 MB). Pay versions -- ESET (57 MB), AVG (97 MB), McAfee (95 MB) and, believe it or not, Symantec (52 MB) which was also their #1 choice for a security suite.

[jeff061]

Symantec Corporate up to version 10 was pretty good. 11 is a different beast. I haven't read performance analytics, but I have deployed it in a few organizations where it brought older systems to a stand still. Where 10 was working fine.

[Galaril]

If you stay away from "bad" sites, don't open email attachments or click on links in your email, don't use torrents or P2P file sharing, etc. you will be fine with any anti-virus program -- provided that you are also "invisible" on the 'Net, but that's another thread.

As I can't really do lab tests for this stuff (nor do I want to), and I don't believe in anecdotal reports with regard to apps like this, I usually research this kind of stuff. Just Google "antivirus independent lab tests" or something like that to find out where your AV software of choice ranks.

FYI, Maximum PC with the help of Virus Bulletin just reviewed AV apps. Memory footprints: AVG (free) - 83MB; Avast! (100 MB); and Avira Antivir (70 MB). Pay versions -- ESET (57 MB), AVG (97 MB), McAfee (95 MB) and, believe it or not, Symantec (52 MB) which was also their #1 choice for a security suite.


Weegee thanks for those stats they are eye opening though not surprising.

[Alan T]

If you stay away from "bad" sites, don't open email attachments or click on links in your email, don't use torrents or P2P file sharing, etc. you will be fine with any anti-virus program -- provided that you are also "invisible" on the 'Net, but that's another thread.


This is what I used to tell people, but unfortunately now that more than 200,000 "legitimate" web sites have reported in the past year as having been hacked with various exploits that can infect end user systems (most commonly some form of an iframe exploit), you now can't be safe just with the assumption that you'll be ok if you don't visit "shady" sites.

I don't necessarily like to recommend which Anti-virus software for people to get since I work for a company that develops one of the leading pay-security suites, but I don't have many objections to most of what people have posted so far in this thread for people to try. I am definitely not a big fan of symantec however.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Anybody got a recommendation for a free AV replacement for Avast?

It's to the point that the 99% to 100% CPU utilization that Avast triggers periodically is causing constant grief. Some Googling shows this as a known issue dating back as far as 2005, but it's only gotten really problematic in frequency for me in the past couple of months & especially the last month or so. Enough is enough already, so what should I replace it with?

[DaddyTorgo]

really? avast that bad? yikes

[JonInMiddleGA]

really? avast that bad? yikes

Used to not be, but it wasn't hard to find multiple tech support board threads about the problem which seems to have been around for a long time. Seems to be pretty random who/when it kicks in, but it's driving me f'n nuts.

The only recommended fix has been to uninstall & reinstall but I figure if I'm going to do that why not try something else that doesn't have the issue.

[DaddyTorgo]

yikes

[Alan T]

Avast is one of the better free ones. If you suddenly are having issues with it, then no reason to stay with it. There are other good free ones. One of the ones I've been using for a while without issues on my families systems is Antivir (from Avira) and it seems to work ok without many problems and is one of the more reputable free ones out right now. (I don't run it myself since I pretty much have to use the one my company develops).

Some of the other well known free ones aren't as good recently (such as AVG) as far as detecting exploits quickly.

[cartman]

Don't laugh, but the new offering from Microsoft is getting good reviews.

First look: Microsoft Security Essentials impresses - Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/first-look-microsoft-security-essentials-impresses.ars)

[Alan T]

Don't laugh, but the new offering from Microsoft is getting good reviews.

First look: Microsoft Security Essentials impresses - Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/first-look-microsoft-security-essentials-impresses.ars)


From what I understand of the beta of the Microsoft Security Essentials, that it might work ok for casual users, for power users they likely won't find it very usable in some cases.

The footprint on it from what I was told is decent and not too bloated. The EULA for it is horrible (which is the norm for many microsoft products however) and it is pretty invasive privacy-wise vs some other antivirus programs.

It has had a good number of "false positives" thus far on commonly used programs like VNC (which is not unique to just microsoft security essentials however, other AV companies have this occur).

The big question mark thus far will be how well it detects critical viruses and how quickly it will respond to day zero vulnerabilities in detection. Since it is so new, I don't think anyone knows yet.

My advise is unless you like being a guinea pig, let someone else try this out for a while. Anti virus programs with a small footprint that don't actually detect what they need to are a problem, so until it is known better fully how decent MSE will be, I'd avoid it for now, especially since there are solid free programs out there with a longer track record.

[Galaril]

Avira Anti-vir

[Oilers9911]

EVERYTHING is lightweight compared to Norton's crap. I use Avast! Anti-Virus, Windows Defender and I also like MalwareBytes and SuperAntiSpyware.

[PilotMan]

I have been a big supporter of Panda AV over the years, and I thought that I would bump this. Panda has just released a new, free AV, called Cloud, that has gotten good reviews, and scored as Best Free AV by PC Magazine. If anyone is needing one I would recommend it. Basically it's super fast by offloading a lot of the scanning needs to an online collective database, so PCs don't get bogged down as much with the AV.

Panda Cloud Antivirus, The first free cloud antivirus against viruses, spyware, rootkits and adware (http://www.cloudantivirus.com/en/)

[INDalltheway]

So happy since I've switched to Avira..

[Bobble]

Bump. Any new news on antivirus that I should be aware of? What's the latest recommendation? Is there still a free version of AVG that I'm missing somehow? Lil' help, please.

[Alan T]

Bump. Any new news on antivirus that I should be aware of? What's the latest recommendation? Is there still a free version of AVG that I'm missing somehow? Lil' help, please.


AVG has fallen behind other solutions as one of the better AVs of late.

Right now most knowledgeable people recommend either Avast or Avira for a free Windows Antivirus Solution. More people are also running Microsoft Security Essentials these days for a free AV as well, but it does not score as well as Avast or Avira on most side by side tests.

[Icy]

I used to be a huge AVG free fan, but it became more and more resources intensive, so i decided to install the free Microsoft Security Essentials and I must admit i'm so happy with it both in the virus and spyware protection.

[PilotMan]

I have been running Panda Cloud on all of my systems and have had no trouble with it at all.

[Alan T]

I have been running Panda Cloud on all of my systems and have had no trouble with it at all.


Panda is a real light weight AV that doesn't use up many system resources at all. Most of the latest tests that I have seen though does not have them scoring well for reliability or early detection though.

[Alan T]

I used to be a huge AVG free fan, but it became more and more resources intensive, so i decided to install the free Microsoft Security Essentials and I must admit i'm so happy with it both in the virus and spyware protection.


Yes AVG used to be considered the best free Antivirus, but they fell behind the times due to a combination of trying to do too many unnecessary things while not keeping up with other competition.

[FrogMan]

I used to be a huge AVG free fan, but it became more and more resources intensive, so i decided to install the free Microsoft Security Essentials and I must admit i'm so happy with it both in the virus and spyware protection.

I also used to be a big fan of AVG but the moment I installed version 9, my PC crawled to a standstill overnight. With nothing else installed, AVG went off the computer, replaced by Avast and my PC's been running smoothly ever since...

FM

[DanGarion]

Just don't put it on the internet...

[Bobble]

Thanks, gents. Or should I say Avast, mateys.

[Bobble]

Just don't put it on the internet...

Will I get hairy palms if I put my thing on it?

[path12]

I also used to be a big fan of AVG but the moment I installed version 9, my PC crawled to a standstill overnight. With nothing else installed, AVG went off the computer, replaced by Avast and my PC's been running smoothly ever since...

FM

Interesting. Now that you mention it, my PC has seemed slower since then as well, I just never connected the two. I'll have to look into Avast. Thanks!

[Mac Howard]

I've never understood why security companies don't realise that a system that kills the PC almost as badly as malware doesn't cut it.

Years ago I had a new laptop with Norton pre-installed. I was very disappointed with the speed - until my 3 month trial period ran out and I removed Norton and the laptop suddenly had the speed I'd originally expected of it.

On getting a new desktop PC I bought the ZoneAlarm firewall system. It was fine at first but then a couple of "upgrades" later and I was crawling around again. I removed it and the speed recovered.

I moved to AVG and was happy with it - until a new release (might have been 9.0 I don't recall now) which would take over my desktop PC with 100% cpu usage.

It doesn't make any sense for companies to do this but they all seem to go that way eventually.

[MizzouRah]

AVG 9.0 runs fine on all 4 of my pc's, not sure why you had slowdown issues FrogMan.

Doesn't really matter that much though.. the main problems with pc's today are not viruses, but spyware - just make sure to run a program like superantispyware once a week.

[FrogMan]

AVG 9.0 runs fine on all 4 of my pc's, not sure why you had slowdown issues FrogMan.

Doesn't really matter that much though.. the main problems with pc's today are not viruses, but spyware - just make sure to run a program like superantispyware once a week.


no clue why either, but the coincidence was just too good. PC was running fine, then I upgraded to AVG 9.0 and boom went REALLY slow. Googled a bit to see if others had experienced the same, a few had. Uninstalled AVG and was back to normal. Then install Avast and no real slowdowns were noticed.

FM

[Mac Howard]

I've just spent all afternoon after downloading and installing AntiVir. Anyone else had problems with the reporting of HTML/ADODB Exploit Gen?

On my first full scan I found not one but four reports of this trojan. Problem was, though it may have been a blessing in disguise, that AntiVir crashed when I selected the "Apply" option to quarantine the files. Happened twice. Same both times.

I googled the problem and, after going through about 3 pages of the results, I began to realise that AntVir had a habit of reporting this problem rather too often. A visit to the AntiVir forum and a search for this returned god knows how many pages. Including how to cause AntiVir to omit searches for ADODB Exploit Gen but also update after update of AntiVir to fix the false positives problem.

The problem with this, of course, is do I have false positive reports or do I genuinely have the virus - four times over? I suspect they're false - I searched for the files that this trohan downloads and they're not on the PC.

Which is why I said the crash may have been a blessing in disguise. I scanned again and went looking for the "infected files". It turns out they are serious system files which, had they been "fixed" could have screwed up the PC.

It reminds me of the London police who shot and killed an innocent Asian guy because he walked onto the London underground - they thought he had something bulky under his jacket and it really wasn't the weather for a jacket. So they shot him!

This stuff makes you paranoid! Take it too seriously and you'd never go near the Net :rant:

[the_meanstrosity]

Mac,

I used to use Antivir, but have since switched to MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials). You might try using them both in combination especially if it looks like Antivir is giving you too many false positives.

[Alan T]

Mac,

I used to use Antivir, but have since switched to MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials). You might try using them both in combination especially if it looks like Antivir is giving you too many false positives.


I wouldn't advise using both Antivir and MSE together at the same time. That could lead to more problems than it is worth as they might step on each other pretty often.

If you are looking for a pretty light footprint for an antivirus, MSE does not use many resources and does not seem to adversely affect system performance. It does not have the best score however when compared side by side with some of the other Antivirus products right now in detecting threats however.

If Antivir is not working well for you, the free Antivirus I usually recommend right now is Avast.

[OldGiants]

I was a great AVAST! fan for many years. However, in early December last year, I downloaded the latest version (it might have been automatic) and this update blocked many of my programs from running. OOTP in particular. No matter what I tried nothing authorized these programs to run. Not running OOTP is unacceptable, so I uninstalled and went with AVG, no problems since.

My conclusion was that AVAST! wanted to force you buy the full version and had made the free version clunky and unmanageable. AVG has been fine, and I haven't thought about AVAST since.

[albionmoonlight]

We've been using MSE for a couple months and it has not adversely affected performance in any way that I have noticed.

[Mac Howard]

Mac,

I used to use Antivir, but have since switched to MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials). You might try using them both in combination especially if it looks like Antivir is giving you too many false positives.

Thanks, the_meanstrosity. It's behaved ok so far apart from the original scans so I'll continue with it for a while. They don't recommend using two checkers together - in fact they specifically advise against it - and one of the problems I read of on the forum was that a second virus checker used with AntiVir actually reported this trojan in an AntiVir file. So go figure :rolleyes:

Another thing I love about the Windows environment: yesterday I clicked on the "Updates available" balloon and upgraded my PC. This morning I read that MS will release updates next Tuesday - 34 of them!

I'm not sure if the report that Google have removed all Windows PCs from their operations is true but it's understandable if it is.

[the_meanstrosity]

I wouldn't advise using both Antivir and MSE together at the same time. That could lead to more problems than it is worth as they might step on each other pretty often.

If you are looking for a pretty light footprint for an antivirus, MSE does not use many resources and does not seem to adversely affect system performance. It does not have the best score however when compared side by side with some of the other Antivirus products right now in detecting threats however.

If Antivir is not working well for you, the free Antivirus I usually recommend right now is Avast.

I really think any of the the quality free ones (Avira, Avast, MSE, etc) combined with smart browsing habits are the best protection. I personally like MSE because of the small footprint.

I didn't know that Avira and MSE together could cause problems. What kind of problems might you see with both installed?

[the_meanstrosity]

Thanks, the_meanstrosity. It's behaved ok so far apart from the original scans so I'll continue with it for a while. They don't recommend using two checkers together - in fact they specifically advise against it - and one of the problems I read of on the forum was that a second virus checker used with AntiVir actually reported this trojan in an AntiVir file. So go figure :rolleyes:

Another thing I love about the Windows environment: yesterday I clicked on the "Updates available" balloon and upgraded my PC. This morning I read that MS will release updates next Tuesday - 34 of them!

I'm not sure if the report that Google have removed all Windows PCs from their operations is true but it's understandable if it is.

Not a problem. Sorry for the poor recommendation. I just assumed Avira and MSE could work together. Do you use Malwarebytes as well? Might not be a bad idea. I couple Malwarebytes with MSE.

[Mac Howard]

Not a problem. Sorry for the poor recommendation. I just assumed Avira and MSE could work together. Do you use Malwarebytes as well? Might not be a bad idea. I couple Malwarebytes with MSE.

Yes, I do. In fact that was part of my recent security upgrade. Everything seems ok so far apart from the false positives that still come up when I do an anti-virus scan.

I was fascinated by some figures on malware which I came across while searching for answers. I can't remember the exact figures but they went something like this:

Malware items currently on the Internet:

Apple: zero
Linux: 100
Windows 87,000

:rolleyes:

[Mac Howard]

Not a problem. Sorry for the poor recommendation. I just assumed Avira and MSE could work together. Do you use Malwarebytes as well? Might not be a bad idea. I couple Malwarebytes with MSE.

Yes, I do. In fact that was part of my recent security upgrade. Everything seems ok so far apart from the false positives that still come up when I do an anti-virus scan.

I was fascinated by some figures on malware which I came across while searching for answers. I can't remember the exact figures but they went something like this:

Malware items currently on the Internet:

Apple: zero
Linux: 100
Windows 87,000 (or was it 97,000 - I don't recall now)

:rolleyes:

[Alan T]

Yes, I do. In fact that was part of my recent security upgrade. Everything seems ok so far apart from the false positives that still come up when I do an anti-virus scan.

I was fascinated by some figures on malware which I came across while searching for answers. I can't remember the exact figures but they went something like this:

Malware items currently on the Internet:

Apple: zero
Linux: 100
Windows 87,000 (or was it 97,000 - I don't recall now)

:rolleyes:


Those figures aren't exactly accurate, but I am assuming it is trying to prove a point. :) Apple does have some malware out there, it is just not that common right now for people to write malware for Apple, but some does exist. Also much of the linux malware that is written is pretty difficult to actually run on those systems unless ideal circumstances (ie: the user doing the most idiotic series of events possible to get it to run), but still some does exist though.

Obviously Windows Operating systems are the largest targets for attacks right now which is what I am assuming you are trying to illustrate here. I just feel it important for Apple users to understand the need for safer computing as well. Especially as much new malware is coming out targeting platforms that in the past wern't as common (Apple, or even we are starting to see some malware attacking cell phones especially the iphone)

[Alan T]

While on the subject of Apple vulnerabilities, there was a new report of MAC spyware out there this week. Behaves similar to most windows viruses. Requires someone to download a "free" piece of software from a specific site that is infected. Once that software is installed on your OSX system, during the install, it installs spyware that will scan your drive, routinely send pieces of information to servers on the internet and insert itself into other applications on your system such as Safari, Firefox, etc to monitor your internet communication.


Mac spyware infiltrates popular download sites • The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/01/mac_spyware/)

[Alan T]

I really think any of the the quality free ones (Avira, Avast, MSE, etc) combined with smart browsing habits are the best protection. I personally like MSE because of the small footprint.

I didn't know that Avira and MSE together could cause problems. What kind of problems might you see with both installed?

Not a problem. Sorry for the poor recommendation. I just assumed Avira and MSE could work together. Do you use Malwarebytes as well? Might not be a bad idea. I couple Malwarebytes with MSE.


Running Malwarebyte scans on a routine schedule isn't a bad thing and can be done with other AV running. Generally you don't want two memory-resident AV programms running at the same time though as it obviously will impact system performance, but they can also stomp on each other and possibly even report false positives of the other AV that is sharing memory space with it.

You can run an Antivirus product in parallel with a system state monitoring software (like Windows Defender or WinPatrol) without too many issues if you want.


Generally with an AV product, in my opinion finding one that detects the most viruses while reporting the fewest false positives is the primary importance, followed closely by the secondary importance of low footprint.

The reason I don't recommend Microsoft Security Essentials to people is that it doesn't fully meet my primary objective of an antivirus product. MSE does a great job with having a fairly small footprint when installed, and it has one of the best results for the fewest false positives. The problem where MSE is not as good as others is that it does not keep up when detecting script malware which is pretty important these days. In AVC's most recent report, they only gave MSE a 2 star rating, primarily due to MSE's detection rate only being in the 93-97% range as well.


In most recent tests, the best AV seems to constantly end up being GDATA, but that is not a free Antivirus, thus I don't recommend it much here as usually people are looking for a good free Antivirus. (Symantec was also another good non-free AV and I believe was their 2009 winner)


For people interested, here are AVC's 3-star AV products for this past spring:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/avc.png


I personally use Avast and Avira on my family's systems at home and both are in this list. (Not on my work system)

[sterlingice]

Bump for Firewall advice. The only thing Cnet gives more than 4.0 to is Zone Alarm which apparently now comes bundled with some Spyware, so... *sigh* Anyone with some good Firewall advice these days. It looks like Avast/Avira/AVG are all decent Antivirus options and Malwarebytes took over the mantle of good Spyware program from the old Spybot/Adaware duo. But I'm stumped at freeware firewall now...

SI