Anti-virus/spyware - which one?

[crewmeal]

Having been a computer buff for a number of years I now find myself going through a minefield of antvirus software. I used to use one called virobot which found problems that norton didn't. When having problems with my new laptop I was told to use one called avpersonal which to give credit picked up problems that the virobot didn't. I now can't use avpersonal because it wont download updates and just 'hangs'. I got rid of that and was duly invited to use 'windows onecare live' beta version. Hopefully that will work. I have never used macafee as 'experts' say it doesn't pick up ALL virus's. So what do i do? which is the best?
As for spyware its the same problem - I now use Microsoft antispyware so thus keeping it all in the family!!
The problems with my laptop relate to the ATI graphics card which keeps freezing and crashing. An 'expert' said it was the anti-virus and spyware I was using that caused the problems. Here we go again - going round in circles

[Tone]

MS Antispyware is absolute rubbish, test it for yourself. Do a scan with the MS product and then follow it with a scan using Ad-Aware, the results are amazing.

[frostbite]

For anti-spyware, I don't think you can beat the free Avast - gets updated on an almost daily basis and inspects everything running without fuss or delay. Get it at http://www.avast.com

[Conan the Librarian]

Interesting isn't it? Only a year ago, Spyware/Adware/Malware was a subject fit for only Geeks. The most important thing in my book is not which prog to run (Though I use MS and am happy with not only it, but the host of tools it brings with it) but that you are aware of the problem.

That same awareness will lead to a thought bubble when you browse certain net areas and that in itself is the biggest enhancement to the safety of your PC. When reaching that state of enlightenment, hit it with everything you can. Only proviso, is that running more than one program, can give rise to spurious alerts, as prog A has quarantined a few suspect bits and prog B reports same quarantine as being almost 100% spyware.

Think about it :}

Conan

[737TG]

I use AVG free antivirus which also screens email. Spampal is superb for spam filtering and I run 'Spybot - search and destroy' and 'CCleaner' occasionally.
All free and NO problems!
:ok:
Cheers!

[Jinkster]

I use McAfee antivirus and Zone Alarms firewall and ant-spyware!

[tso310]

Spybot should also be used with Spyware Blaster and this will give you excellant protection. Both are free and have been updated to compliment each other. AD-Aware is also a good freebie and does a different job to the other 2. For anti virus I use ZoneAlarm and I would also recommend McAfee. Norton is well behind these two.

[P.Pilcher]

Well, I seem to have no problems with Avast for virus protection which also integrates itself into Outlook and prevents any trace of those dreaded infected e-mails from being opened. I paid for Adaware SE plus together with Adwatch and the combination of these seems to prevent any spyware from entering my machines. Regular runs of the excellent Spybot utility rarely, if ever find anything untoward. - Or am I just not browsing the "naughty" sites?

P.P.

[superpilut]

I use a AVG free and Bitdefender combo.
This since a while back a new worm came out, which took a couple days to be recognised by AVG. Bitdefender Internet Security features as well a Spam filter and Firewall.
Normally every program has weaknesses; that's why I use 2. Anyway, AVG doesn't have any impact on th performance of the PC, so its no penalty.
Avoid Norton, since that one is honestly overrated.
Good luck on your choice!

[Mac the Knife]

MS Antispyware is absolute rubbish.......

MS Antispyware is actually pretty good, probably because MS didn't write it themselves, but bought it from Giant Software. It offers a degree of real-time protection that goes beyond Adaware (Adaware isn't designed for this).

AVG is to my mind one of the best AV apps around, even the free version is pretty good - I'm slowly replacing Norton with AVG full on the MS systems I oversee.

I do run Adaware and Spybot weekly though (along with HiJack This and Rootkit Revealer and a few other things) - just call me paranoid.

:cool:

[Tone]

OK Mac - so why, when I do a scan with MS, does it find absolutely nothing to report but Ad-Aware and SpyBot find plenty? Anyone else get the same results or is it me?

[willby]

Like Frosbite and P. Pilcher I use Avast and find it very good.
Willby

[Blacksheep]

I now can't use avpersonal because it wont download updates and just 'hangs'. I was using Avg Free then it stopped downloading updates - I just kept getting a "server timed-out" message. I wondered if it was an intruder that disabled the anti-virus programme. I haven't connected that notebook to the internet since. The upside is that I definitely won't download any nasties, the downside is I don't get my regular MS XL updates.

I used to use Norton but they got funny as renewal time approached. Their constant unwanted 'pop-up' reminders annoyed me so much I uninstalled it and won't go there again. We use Symantec at work but in the meantime, while I make my mind up, I'll give Avast a go before connecting back to the internet for XL updates.

[frostbite]

IIRC, Norton & Symantec are out of the same stable.

[huckleberry58]

I use Kaspersky, it's russian.

[colmac747]

The package i use was integrated with the deal on my system.
Seems a good 'un: http://www.pandasoftware.com/

[IO540]

The reality of AV software is that a lot of people have problems with a lot of it, with all kinds of weird effects on certain application programs, or aspects of Windoze operation.

Norton/Symantec works most of the time, and really messes up the PC for some people. As does McAfee.

I now use Kaspersky everywhere - it works best. The Personal Pro is the one to go for; the Personal only has no options for excluding folders from being scanned. It's an excellent clean program which does what it should.

Russian programmers are the best today :O Forget America - the best people they had went off surfing 10 years ago.

[hobie]

Norton/Symantec works most of the time, and really messes up the PC for some people. As does McAfee.

What does that mean? .... :confused:

[IO540]

AV software, to be effective, has to hook into various places deep inside Windoze. Some of these hooks are going to be undocumented and not authorised by Micro$oft.

I give you one example: typical AV software checks every Word doc you open, for (typically macro) viruses. A problem with Norton AV, for years, used to be that if the document was password protected, the AV s/w would wait for you to enter the pwd (otherwise it could not check the document) but the box where you entered the pwd was covered up by something else which the AV s/w put up, something like "checking document for viruses". So you got a deadlock... AV s/w is known for all kinds of weird stuff like that.

It's getting better as the years go by, and as almost everybody moves over to XP and M$ Office (and very little else).

I got fed up with these quirks. Life is too short, unless you get paid for doing this :O So far, Kaspersky has been fine.

And yes, on one occassion I had to reformat the whole hard drive, after the damn thing totally trashed it... that was Norton I think.

[hobie]

A problem with Norton AV, for years, used to be that if the document was password protected, the AV s/w would wait for you to enter the pwd (otherwise it could not check the document) but the box where you entered the pwd was covered up by something else which the AV s/w put up, something like "checking document for viruses". So you got a deadlock

Well I have to confess I've never run into that one before in the many years I've been viewing NAV/NIS or similar installations, but it certainly sounds like an easy fix would have been possible ..... :)

[shuttlebus]

McAfee at work (7000+ seats) as chosen by our IT department

McAfee and Norton at Home, for AV and firewall - never see a lot of difference, although if I had to choose, I prefer Norton's firewall, but McAfee's AV.

For Spyware, I run MS Defender and Webroot Spy Sweeper. Preference is probably MS, as Webroot seems to have an unusually high processor overhead (noticable when the laptop is on battery).

All machines sit behind a SPI firewall, so that helps as well.

I know free is very good and I don't knock it, but rightly or wrongly, I feel the "pay" products should/are offering something more (other than a lighter wallet :{ )

Regards,

Shuttlebus.

[RiskyRossco]

Yer not wrong there, Scuttlebutt ;)
I'm with colmac viz. Pandalabs. I tried Titanium freeware some time last year, then splashed out for the full deal. Avg, anti-spyware and firewall.
Went through various freeware: AVG (Grisoft) very good, a-Squared, nod32, avast. The Spanish Panda is awesome, no conflicts with Zonealarm, which I also run, or my ISP's spyware.
But, one point of note, I use Firefox and have to disable Panda's firewall initially to log on, or I get a "server has reset the connection-try again" window. Turning on firewall once it's running is no probs.

Was told Norton/McAfee are viruses anyway and avoided them apart from one or three of their "Fix Tools".

And CCleaner is a must have. :ok: Clears up what system tools' "disk cleaner" won't. I run it at least once a day.

Now all you need is a top-shelf registry cleaner.

[hobie]

Was told Norton/McAfee are viruses anyway and avoided them apart from one or three of their "Fix Tools".


and I'm sure the millions of happy punters who use integrated protection systems might care to disagree with that dramatic statement but then why should they bother ..... :p

[frostbite]

"Was told Norton/McAfee are viruses anyway and avoided them apart from one or three of their "Fix Tools"."

I suspect the word like is missing between 'are' and 'viruses', as in 'the AOL browser infects your machine like a virus'.

[effortless]

AVG, Spybot, Zone alarm and Mailwasher are the easy and effective option. AVG especially. I use a Linux box as a firewall.

[EI-WAT]

I use Eset Nod 32 Anti Virus and Ewido Anti MalWare and computer and laptop are as clean as a whistle

[FL460]

AVG with Zonealarm. Both free versions and always good at detecting virus/intruders. Never had any problems. Use Adaware and Spybot once a month.
As said before Norton is very good at crashing systems...avoid at all cost. They should have a blue screen on the box as thats what you get !more often than not !!
cheers

[Tarq57]

Recently purchased this computer, WinXP (sp2) and it came with the full Norton suite (which was a B to get rid of after it interfered with several other applications)
Using all freeware, hardly ever have any problem.
"Javacool's" Spyware blaster
AVG antivirus
AdAware
Spybot
CWShredder from Trend micro
Bazooka scanner
CCleaner
A2 scanner
The standard XP firewall.
Winpatrol
Hijack This.
All free and do a great job

[VH-GRUMPY]

Go to: http://security.iia.net.au

A web resource provided by the Australian Internet Industry Association to assist people with security issues.

I declare my interest. I am the web manager for the site.

[airborne_artist]

McAffee came pre-loaded on my new Dell desktop, and I'm not impressed with the spam trapping module. Yesterday it lost the account settings of the three email accounts I use - no big deal, but a few minutes to re-enter them and re-start. A couple of weeks back it was collecting all the emails from the ISPs, but not releasing them to Outlook and Thunderbird. I slapped it, re-started and then had a hundred to read.

Added to that it assumes that anyone sending me an attached jpg is spam. Grrrrr...

[oldbeefer]

Prefer AVAST! to AVG - seems to work seemlessly in the background.

[Saab Dastard]

VH-GRUMPY, are you sure you want to publicly associate yourself with typos of this magnitude? :O

I am the web manager for the site

Copied directly from the "Latest News" section of the home page...

Anti Spware is a majpr priority og this site

[Tarq57]

Well I've just had an unpleasant little adventure with malware, despite all the security gizmos. This little nasty first announced itself by AVG kindly alerting me to the "Zolob trojan.downloader",(my wife later commented: Gross. sounds like something you'd hoick up.), which I reacted to by instructing it to "heal" it (since it doesn't default to delete). The PC then went through increasing strata of craziness. A new "antispyware" program installed itself, (Spyware quake),placed a (then) immovable icon in the system tray, and after I turned the entire arsenal of scanners loose on it, one at a time, and again in safe mode, remained un-fixed. So in desperation I turned the modem back on and asked Mr G. for help. There were several likely answers, the one I utilised was at MajorGeek forums, where I downloaded a DOS repair kit for this one infestation, and followed a time consuming proceedure involving three restarts, renaming a .dll, running the tool, rebooting to normal. It worked.
Interestingly, AVG detected but couldn't kill it. A2 detected a corrupt reg. entry and a tracking cookie not of any site I'd visited. Ms (Giant) found something - can't remember what - (but related) and killed it. AdAware didn't find a thing. Spybot found 3, a "vcodec", "smit" something, and "antim" something, and needed to run on reboot to kill them. And still it grew back. And all the time, Winpatrol continued to warn (and prevent) changes to homepage,startup entries, sheduled tasks, and IMO prevented a much worse infestation. (I saw the Hijack this logs of some affected users, mine was a tenth the size!)
Apparently this wee beast is only a week or 3 old. I'm real grateful that someone has developed a proceedure and application to zap it.

[frostbite]

"McAffee came pre-loaded on my new Dell desktop"

Pre-infested is what I call it, AA. And isn't it fun to get rid of!

[DBTL]

Try following these instructions:
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=1958

In principle you always do this after an infection:
Disable/disconnect any network connectivity;
Start up in Safe Mode (Hit F8 -> into menu while booting Windows up);
Use regedit to remove all references to infection-carrying code;
Delete infection-carrying code (may be any .EXE .DLL etc file or files).
I know, the hard bit is to decide which files and references to remove! For some infections (rootkit type) a separate utility is required.
The basic tools are msconfig (built-in with Windows) and HijackThis
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html .

After repair you must APPLY ALL SERVICE PACKS immediately. It's a very good idea to have Service Packs on a CD. They can be loaded as independent (administrator) packages from the MS site.

[Out Of Trim]

Markjoy

I know how you feel, I spent a few hours doing the same as you. Trying to get rid of Spyware Quake. Visually the software looked quite nice! But, quite a barsteward to get rid of!

I had much the same indications as you; Norton Antivirus found Zlob but despite that running, also had Zone Alarm Firewall, MS Antispyware, Spyware blaster, Spyware Guard running as well.. They all failed to stop Spyware Quake downloading and installing!

I saw the technique you used on Major Geeks but, used a different but similar one on gladiator-antivirus.com/forum.

They also advised use of Ewido antimalware software in safe mode. This worked a treat, it found plenty that Spybot and Adaware had missed. Ewido has 14 day full use licence. I quite liked it and may well buy it!

Anyway best of all It's Gone!

[Tarq57]

Out of Trim
Thanks for that post. Just downloaded and ran Ewido (3.5) myself. Picked up 3 remnants of spyware quake and zolob downloader that the others hadn't spotted!
Does make me wonder what else is out there, lurking in the registry or other mysterious places.
Seen mixed reviews for Ewido, most of them (for this version) extremely good, though there are complaints it's a resource hog and slow.
Not too noticeable with a gig of RAM and 3500+AMD cpu, though! Full scan (all extensions) took about 15 min.:)

[Blacksheep]

Something new got through my security on Monday (Avast/BlackIce/Adaware/etc.) and caused a multitude of application problems, one being disabling explorer.exe so I couldn't search through the files. Folder Guard continued to keep my D: data partition safely under lock and key. I spent a few hours last night reformatting C: and doing a clean install of XP. The old notebook is humming again.

No matter what security you have, something will break through occasionally and for a large organization there's no alternative to fixing such things by running clean-up programs on the network. Reformatting a couple of thousand PCs isn't an option. For single user home PCs though, its simply good practice to back up data regularly and do a clean install once in a while to sort out all the corruptions and orphan files that build up over time. Its the only way to really keep your hard drive nice and clean and efficient.

Incidentally, when reinstalling BlackIce, I was informed that my extended download had expired and I would need to purchase a renewal. Now, given that BlackIce let whatever caused me to do a clean install through the door in the first place, I see that as a Rip-Off, so as with Norton AV, I'm not inclined to do business with them anymore. Using the XP firewall for now, but any suggestions for good alternatives to BlackIce?

[DBTL]

1st and foremost: you must have ALL the OS patches installed and ALL the service packs applied.
Unless you have it that way, the bugs will come through, IRRESPECTIVE of your anti-virus program and your other surfing behaviour.
In my academic institution F-Secure (www.f-secure.com (http://www.f-secure.com)) antivirus-firewall combination has the protection responsibility, also on the staff's home computers, and I can testify nothing comes through, with new virus database updates downloading often several times a day (But see above).

[Tarq57]

BlackSheep
I've read lots of good reviews for ZoneAlarm (a "learning" firewall, takes a wee time to get it trained apparently) and would use it, but am happy (I think) with the XP, which performed 100% at a test site. https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 (this one, called shields up).
MikeJ,
(also see above re: ZoneAlarm) I understand that feeling, but have come to the conclusion that it's sometimes not money well spent. I wasted a few $ on a Norton suite, that doesn't integrate well with the way I want to use this (XP) computer. Apart from my nasty little adventure the other night, I've found the freebies work very well, but might consider purchasing the Ewido, if it doesn't still work well after 14days.
MS "beta" (Giant) is replaced by windows defender (my Beta expires in about 120days) but the reviews I've read about Defender have been a little less than glowing. Limited configuration options etc.