anti virus programs-a discussion

Status
Not open for further replies.
There are many antivirus to mention but .....

I have much time using different antivirus like NOD32, Avast, Norton, Panda, Avira, and others who now can not remember but the truth is that every day creates a new virus most often mentioning the antivirus not keep pace with hackers and their databases become obsolete but that is still fresh antivirus is AVG is going great, I recommend it.
 
Personally I would recommend Avast since it is free and it is updated 2-3 times daily. I never had any problems and other anti-virus programs are unable to identify any virus on my stick, and it is plugged in 24/7. :)
 
anti-virus software

Just bought a Toshiba laptop (consumer reports rec) from Best Buy with
Kaspersky preinstalled. The geeks there claim it is the best. I'm no expert but it has caught a lot of bad ware on its scans. But I also run search and destroy and I think it catches stuff Kaspersky misses.
Also, is search and destroy an antivirus software? That's how muchI know!!
One question, should i turn off anti-virus when using spybot?
 
Hello billepete,
Just bought a Toshiba laptop (consumer reports rec) from Best Buy
Also, is search and destroy an antivirus software?
Spybot-S&D is not an anti virus program. The application searches for spyware, malware, adware, trojans, hijackers and keyloggers.
One question, should i turn off anti-virus when using spybot?
The short answer is no. ;) Do you mean while running a scan, did someone at the store suggest you should. Which version of Kaspersky do you have installed.

Best regards. :)

Edit
 
Last edited:
Best AV product?

I personally run Kaspersky from a thumbdrive, and use F-Secure as my main
AV program. Please note that virus authors often target the popular(not necessarily the best) antivirus programs. They uninstall or block them before infection. Having more than one AV product is better in my opinion.

No, I am not going to say how I do that :)
The thumbdrive is a full blown operating system that is bootable. (that was
a hint)
 
Reminds me of an Ultimate Boot CD; just a mini version inside a thumbdrive. Course you cannot fully blast out a Windows OS from a flash drive.
 
Been long time since i posted on here(never in tavern just to get rid of crap of system), but am kind of interested as to what is being recomended for a free AV as AVG newest updates seem a little risky(OA saying screenlogger detected with one of them) and you can no longer shut down the program itself easily to run a complete defrag of your system. I have been reading through posts and it seems Avast and Avira both seem to come up quite often and was wondering what the difference is between them and which people seem to prefer for safety ease of use is not as important?
 
Rarely do I hear about anti-virus updates backfiring (like McAfee once which made a false positive several times); the stories about Avira and avast! having updates that resulted in false positives are almost non-existent. I am not saying it in a flattering way but I honestly have not heard any stories about them yet.

AVG might have a few updates that backfired a few times; however that does not justify an inference that it is a bad anti-virus. The company made mistakes in the past but they did take the effort and time to fix it.
-
Lastly, I do not have a clue about this "OA" program you are talking about. Is it some kind of keylogger detector?

I doubt AVG would distribute malware via updates. That is impossible.
-
and you can no longer shut down the program itself easily to run a complete defrag of your system.
I have no idea what you are talking about.
 
OA that i am talking about is Online Armour (or Armor if you live in the US). and that is the program that has identified a screenlogger in AVG when update came down.

TY about the other 2 inputs about avira and avast though.
 
To be honest I have not heard of a story where an AV update went wrong and the system could not defrag the drive. Alright, maybe unable to shut down that is plausible.

Online Armor is not bad because it is well respected and earned good marks on the Matousec firewall test.

It is not the firewall that is you the alert about AVG's updates, rather it is the HIPS (Hosts Intrusion Prevention) that is alerting you.
 
I use Comodo - it's free and a full program... not lite. With myuse of other commercial prog's over the years vindicates my feelings for the Comodo product! It's 'up there' with the world's best. To further my cause, I also use Ad-Aware Pro (purchased) and of cousre Spy-Bot 1:6:2 All together, a great combination!

Good luck Man
 
VIPRE...

I wont lie, I pirated the shit out of other AV for the longest time, tried out CounterSpy for a few months, during those months i would run things like SpyBot, Malwarebytes and AdAware (not the new bloat version) then run CounterSpy, almost always it would find more (and not just cookies but Spyware/Malware)...

VIPRE came out, I tested the 30 day trial first, had lower CPU/RAM usage, higher detection rates (live protection at that), they added the "sandbox" function 5 days left in my trial, so I downloaded a few files I KNEW where infected but others werent catching, well VIPRE didnt catch it with definitions, but when I clicked on it, it seemed to stop for a second then VIPRE poped up with infection details and method of detection "sandbox"...



Since then I gladly pay the yearly fee and now VIPRE Premium with Firewall, end of story (in my 2nd year now, 3rd in January)!



*as a disclaimer, I dont work for VIPRE (I do resell though, it was that worth it), and I still keep updated copys of the aforementioned other software on my system for an every-other-month check-up... a few times I have found something (significant not just cookies/trackers), otherwise VIPRE it is! (and with site licensing i have it on all 6 computers and not costing out the ass!)



KerryC


ED: Cannot wait for v2 SpyBot-S&D... I have seen so many others "grow up" and "mature" through the XP-Vista-7 changes and can only hope that v2 shatters my sadness :D (also immunization still #1)
 
Last edited:
Announcements.
Warning! Vipre strongly recommends to uninstall Spybot-S&D!

The current version of Vipre Antivirus from Sunbelt Software proposes uninstalling Spybot-S&D during their own installation process. But there are no known compatibility problems.

You can avoid the uninstall in their installation wizard by pressing "Next" instead of "Go to uninstall" or "Show me how". Then you will be asked "There are other Antivirus products still installed on your computer. Are you sure you want to continue?" There press "Yes", then Spybot-S&D will stay on your computer.

In case you have uninstalled Spybot with Vipre, to get Spybot - Search & Destroy back, we recommend a fresh installation of Spybot-S&D 1.6.2.

That is the same marketing behaviour that McAfee and Kaspersky uses to kick competitors out of the business. Please do also have a look at this link on our homepage.



More...
 

Sorry, I should have mentioned that, however it does the same thing for EVERY Anti software as a "safeguard", I really dont mind it at all, just continue past it :D (additionally its not like the other guys who basicly force you to uninstall it, wont install without removing it, or telling you that it IS bad or has compatibility issues, it only says there COULD be! again VIPRE gains my respect!)

(on a side note, its funny to watch SpyBot, Ad-Aware, Malwarebytes', SuperAntiSpyware do a scan, and VIPRE to pickup all the crap they miss, it really works well as a COMPLETE multi part solution!)
 
Last edited:
I second and will expand upon an earlier poster's note about the shameful business practices of several major anti-virus makers who go out of their way to either deliberately make their products incompatible with competitors' products, or at least claim that they are during installation. This is a crime in my view and those vendors should be prosecuted.

In my own experience, Kaspersky is the worst offender in this regard (there may be others as bad or worse, but I don't know of them first hand). For example, Kaspersky's Anti-Virus will refuse to install if you have the ZoneAlarm Pro firewall installed (and perhaps other competitors' products), which is widely considered the most secure on the commercial market.

Kaspersky also refuses to install if you have one of several competitive anti-malware tools installed. The goal is quite clearly to try to coerce you to buy Kasperky's other security products instead. I find that outrageous!

The truth is, however, that if you install Kaspersky AV first (you have to uninstall those other products before the KAV install will work), and then re-install them afterward, they usually work just fine together! You may have to disable specific options, such as uninstalling ZoneAlarm's bug-ridden Browser Defender / Toolbar from your browser's add-ons or make sure you don't have two simultaneous email anti-virus monitors going, but otherwise there's no actual conflict or reduction in security like they claim there would be.

That's another important fact: Most vendors and sites loudly insist that you must never, ever have more than one anti-malware tool installed, but I've found that that's almost always a flat-out falsehood. In this regard, Avira -- especially their user fora -- is one of the very worst offenders around! If you post a problem with Avira Anti-Vir, commercial or free, they make you post a "Hijack This" log and if the other forum users or moderators see that you also have a third-party firewall or anti-spyware tool installed, they'll almost always blame that other piece of software for everything. They'll order you to remove it all before they'll even bother with you, and even then they'll very probably just insult or ignore you for even suggesting that there just might be something wrong with their apparently "sacred" software.

As such, I was quite shocked to see some positive comments about Avira's user fora above in this thread because every single time I've asked for help there I've been lied to or otherwise treated terribly. Also, Avira's moderators are considerably more power-mad than most mods.

That being said, I guess it's a bit ironic that I currently use Kaspersky's paid anti-virus on one XP Pro box and Avira's paid anti-virus on the other four XP or Win7 boxes because they've both been highly rated in independent AV tests. And I use the paid versions because you really do get better tools that way: The XP machines that I've used freeware AV tools on have been infected countless times (though of course they never reported that, so I had to learn of these infections through other means), while the machines I've used highly rated paid AV tools on have been infected far less often.

In the past, I used G-Data's Anti-virus tool which was then extremely highly rated because it used multiple anti-virus engines and therefore had extraordinarily strong detection ratings. Unfortunately, it was quite a resource hog for precisely the same reason: it used multiple anti-virus engines. That's why I switched: Avoiding infections is not the only thing you want your computer to do!

I find Kaspersky's AV to be distinctly superior to Avira's in terms of detecting and removing viruses, yet I nevertheless use Avira's AV on every machine that I use to download very much because, of the two, only Avira provides an on-demand virus scanner that you can invoke using the extremely useful and popular Download Statusbar browser add-on. That way, you can automatically scan every file immediately after you download it.

Kaspersky didn't even understand the question when I asked their tech support team about a dozen times if their AV tool provided a similar capability! Finally, a higher-ranking person admitted that their product simply does NOT support that, but he promised it would be added to their 2011 AV product. They're selling their 2011 AV now, yet when I emailed their tech support department recently several times to see if they actually did add that capability, they simply sent back form letters with nothing but unrelated sales claims and still has never even tried to answer my actual question.

YMMV, of course....
 
Comodo anti virus

Hello All,
Does anyone have any recent experience with C A V free?
I see that Matousec rates Comodo I S v4 very highly, but my interest is CAV.
I currently have AVG v8.5, and for some time, have monitored their forums through the release of v9 and now v2011, and I think it is time to change.
My firewall is XP sp3 and I also have Spybot S&D and Malwarebytes. I trust both of those programs, so there must be no conflict with whichever AV that I choose.
I would also appreciate any other advice with comparisons with the features/perfomance of CAV.
I would be greatful for your advice
 
My votes go to AVG free and Ad-Aware. I've used these for about 5 years now and ive never EVER had a virus related problem when used along with spybot.

As far as registry cleaners i absolutely love WinASO registry optimizer. its a PAID registry cleaner but the trial version that i use can clean 10 entries at a time. Its very reliable and as long as u scan one section at a time to clean its a breeze since the scanning is very quick.

Ive used all these programs like i said for years. I have at one time paid for a version of WinASO before but i found it senseless with the simple scanning i mentioned. Also provides a booster if you wanted to use it and nice interface that links to many windows tools and also includes a nice start up manager.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top