Fed up with Antivir

[mike]

I am sick and tired of the new antivir personal, with it's nagging splash
screen every time I go on line, the updater kicking in (I thought it was
only meant to do it once a day).

So, ungratefully, I want to kick it into touch.

I'm not up to speed on A/Vs, so can anyone tell me what is a current OK
one; not too bloated, not too obtrusive, perhaps a reminder to update, or
even a daily one, but please not one that runs *every* damn time I connect.

Thanks for help

mike

 

[Gert van der Kooij]

I am sick and tired of the new antivir personal, with it's nagging splash
screen every time I go on line, the updater kicking in (I thought it was
only meant to do it once a day).

So, ungratefully, I want to kick it into touch.

I'm not up to speed on A/Vs, so can anyone tell me what is a current OK
one; not too bloated, not too obtrusive, perhaps a reminder to update, or
even a daily one, but please not one that runs *every* damn time I connect.

Thanks for help

mike

I use AVG. With the right settings you never see any reminder. The
system tray icon will change if your AV definitions are out-of-date and
that's the only 'reminder' you will see.

 

[Kerodo]

I am sick and tired of the new antivir personal, with it's nagging splash
screen every time I go on line, the updater kicking in (I thought it was
only meant to do it once a day).

So, ungratefully, I want to kick it into touch.

I'm not up to speed on A/Vs, so can anyone tell me what is a current OK
one; not too bloated, not too obtrusive, perhaps a reminder to update, or
even a daily one, but please not one that runs *every* damn time I connect.

Thanks for help

mike

The other 2 free ones are Avast and AVG. Take your pick..

 

[Huss]

The other 2 free ones are Avast and AVG. Take your pick..

I've been trying Avast for a couple of months, and I find it bloody
brilliant. I can even block a URL.

 

[stephen.west2]

I use Avast and it never nags - it downloads every day but without telling
you and is not memory intensive either. Only drawback is that it takes
about 2 - 3 hours on my new system to scan all files. It is also easy to
set up and is very customisable, or you can just set it at a High, medium or
low level of security.

Recommended


---
avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
Virus Database (VPS): 0617-2, 26/04/2006
Tested on: 27/04/2006 20:41:10
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2006 ALWIL Software.
http://www.avast.com

 

[jedisb]

I love Avast as well. I switched to it after it found about 50 infected
files on my father-in-law's PC that AVG missed. The only downside was
that you have to run your scans manually in Avast. AVG would run a full
scan at a scheduled time. Scheduling is only available in the Pro
version of Avast. However, I found a way around that and posted it to
the Avast forums a while back. The post is linked below:

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=3796

 

[Thip]

I use Avast and it never nags - it downloads every day but without telling
you and is not memory intensive either. Only drawback is that it takes
about 2 - 3 hours on my new system to scan all files. It is also easy to
set up and is very customisable, or you can just set it at a High, medium
or
low level of security.

Recommended


---

I also recommend it after being a hard-core AVG fan for several years. I
had so many problems with updates I switched to AntiVir, didn't care for it,
went to Avast (which I had used when it first came available years ago), and
I doubt very much I'll change again unless they go totally $ware.

 

[mike]

I also recommend it after being a hard-core AVG fan for several years.
I had so many problems with updates I switched to AntiVir, didn't
care for it, went to Avast (which I had used when it first came
available years ago), and I doubt very much I'll change again unless
they go totally $ware.

I used to use AVG, but the latest version was too demanding for the
computer I had then, which was why I changed to Antivir, which I liked
until the latest version.

Thanks to everybody for the suggestions, I'll be getting Avast

mike

 

[Jast]

Don't use one. I think they cause far more trouble than they are worth!
They slow your machine down. One of them incorrectly quarantined my
mum's email and totally stuffed that up. It locked Thunderbird's inbox
so that it couldn't compact and the file grew to over 1Gb. I had to
stuff around to fix it.

Keep your system patched instead and exercise common sense, ie don't
open dodgy emails, and you will be fine. Ideally you should sit behind a
hardware firewall like a router, but you can also run up a software
firewall.

People have this false sense that because they are running AV software
that they are safe and secure.

 

[Tim Weaver]

Don't use one. I think they cause far more trouble than they are worth!
They slow your machine down. One of them incorrectly quarantined my
mum's email and totally stuffed that up. It locked Thunderbird's inbox
so that it couldn't compact and the file grew to over 1Gb. I had to
stuff around to fix it.

Keep your system patched instead and exercise common sense, ie don't
open dodgy emails, and you will be fine. Ideally you should sit behind a
hardware firewall like a router, but you can also run up a software
firewall.

People have this false sense that because they are running AV software
that they are safe and secure.

You are insane.

 

[Eugene Esterly III]

I recommend Avast Home version (free for non-commerical use) & you can
get it from http://www.avast.com/eng/free-avast-4-home.html .

I also recommend ClamAV for Windows which can be downloaded from
http://www.clamwin.com/ . ClamAV is an open source virus detector &
removal software.

 

[Paul_B]

I use Avast and it never nags - it downloads every day but without telling
you and is not memory intensive either. Only drawback is that it takes
about 2 - 3 hours on my new system to scan all files.

You can set folders, such as the Windows update folders, to
ignore, and that saves a lot of time.

p.

 

[Kerodo]

I've been trying Avast for a couple of months, and I find it bloody
brilliant. I can even block a URL.

Yep, I used it for years myself, it's quite good. Certainly has more
features than AVG or AntiVir too..

 

[Kerodo]

Don't use one. I think they cause far more trouble than they are worth!
They slow your machine down. One of them incorrectly quarantined my
mum's email and totally stuffed that up. It locked Thunderbird's inbox
so that it couldn't compact and the file grew to over 1Gb. I had to
stuff around to fix it.

Keep your system patched instead and exercise common sense, ie don't
open dodgy emails, and you will be fine. Ideally you should sit behind a
hardware firewall like a router, but you can also run up a software
firewall.

People have this false sense that because they are running AV software
that they are safe and secure.

While this can be done by one with some experience, this is not good
advice for the 'average user'..

 

[The Seabat]

I don't think so, Tim! (with appologies to Al on Tool Time) I run only
F-Prot for DOS on my 'puter, which does not do any active scanning. I
use a decent email client (Foxmail) which allows me to delete bogus
emails on the server before they even touch my baby. Also, I run a
firewall (Kerio v2.1.5). eMail traffic runs about 20 to 30 posts a
day and I have had zero, nil, zilch, nada virus' or worms or trojans
in the last ten years or so!

I prefer a lean, mean speed machine instead of a slow, software
bloated, ignorant outfit! All it takes is a little common sense!

 

[elaich]

I'm not up to speed on A/Vs, so can anyone tell me what is a current
OK one; not too bloated, not too obtrusive, perhaps a reminder to
update, or even a daily one, but please not one that runs *every* damn
time I connect.

After both AVG and Avast failed to find mutiple planted infected files, I
found BitDefender.

The free version does not have real time capability, so I set Task
Scheduler to open it every morning at 2 AM, and set BD to scan my entire
system at 2:30 AM. This gives it time to download updates, of which there
are several every day. Then, the next morning, I read the report, and
close it. It is set to quarantine suspicious files, of which it has never
found one.

People who are scared to death of running without real time virus defense
are probably practicing every bad habit in the book. A little safe
computing will protect you 99.9% of the time. The BitDefender scans are
just for my own peace of mind. But I will recommend it over any of the
other free AV programs. In my test, it alone found infected files that
none of the others could.

 

[Jast]

Hmmn, I don't know about that.

My mum is an average user and all the media hype about viruses has her
scared to death which is what the AV companies want, however I've now
got her using common sense and she hasn't had a problem. Viruses mainly
spread through stupidity.

I've never had a virus or malicious infections and have never run AV
software both at home or at work. I highly recommend a hardware firewall
and common sense. Use a good email client, ie thunderbird or one that is
more secure than the most common one and you should be right.

Anyway it is personal preference, so no use going on about it.

 

[Morten Skarstad]

jedisb skrev:

The only downside was
that you have to run your scans manually in Avast.

avast! can be configured as a screen saver. Then your computer will be
scanned whenever it has been idle for a preset amount of time. Much
better than scheduled scans IMO, since it will not interfere with you
working.

 

[Lou]

jedisb skrev:

avast! can be configured as a screen saver. Then your computer will be
scanned whenever it has been idle for a preset amount of time. Much
better than scheduled scans IMO, since it will not interfere with you
working.

Be aware there is another program that does nice things for the world that
also runs in screensaver time http://www.grid.org/projects/hpf/

Lou

 

[Lou]

I don't think so, Tim! (with appologies to Al on Tool Time) I run only
F-Prot for DOS on my 'puter, which does not do any active scanning. I
use a decent email client (Foxmail) which allows me to delete bogus
emails on the server before they even touch my baby. Also, I run a
firewall (Kerio v2.1.5). eMail traffic runs about 20 to 30 posts a
day and I have had zero, nil, zilch, nada virus' or worms or trojans
in the last ten years or so!

I prefer a lean, mean speed machine instead of a slow, software
bloated, ignorant outfit! All it takes is a little common sense!

If you had a decent computer the "lean mean" stuff would not matter.

The only things that come close to needing real machine power are heavy duty
graphic apps and some games.

Lou