anti virus protection

[Guest]

I have been offered free anti virus,spyware and pop up protection from my
supplier telewest.All I want to know is,how does this compare to say norton
anti virus.Hope somebody can be of help.

 

[Tom [Pepper] Willett]

Hard to compare without knowing what they are offering you.

 

[MikeCT]

It's a case of 'You get what you pay for'. Norton should certainly help keep
you virus free. However, it does no harm to have more than one anti virus
programme installed on your computer, just as long as you only have one
Firewall in operation at any one time.

MCT

 

[Larry Samuels]

Sorry--wrong answer.
Multiple AVs can conflict with each other and slow the pc to a crawl,
especially if you allow both to scan on access.
Some AVs will peacefully coexist IF you disable real time and mail scanning
on one, but Norton doesn't play well with any other AV.

 

[Rick]

I have been offered free anti virus,spyware and pop up protection from my
supplier telewest.All I want to know is,how does this compare to say norton
anti virus.Hope somebody can be of help.

Does it reside on your PC or is it resident on the ISP's server? If the
later is true the you want some sort of AV software on your PC

--

Rick
Fargo, ND
N 46 53.251
W 096 48.279

 

[Rick]

It's a case of 'You get what you pay for'. Norton should certainly help keep
you virus free. However, it does no harm to have more than one anti virus
programme installed on your computer, just as long as you only have one
Firewall in operation at any one time.

MCT

Not necessarily true. Many times the two (or more) AV programs will
conflict with one another. That is particularly true if one is Norton AV.

--

Rick
Fargo, ND
N 46 53.251
W 096 48.279

 

[James Silverton]

Rick wrote on Sun, 23 Apr 2006 09:05:21 -0500:

R> MikeCT wrote:
??>> It's a case of 'You get what you pay for'. Norton should
??>> certainly help keep you virus free. However, it does no
??>> harm to have more than one anti virus programme installed
??>> on your computer, just as long as you only have
??>> one Firewall in operation at any one time.
??>>
??>> MCT
??>> --------
??>> "madcaplost" wrote:
??>>> I have been offered free anti virus, spyware and pop up
??>>> protection from my supplier telewest. All I want to know
??>>> is, how does this compare to say norton anti virus. Hope
??>>> somebody can be of help. -- cya
??>>
R> Not necessarily true. Many times the two (or more) AV
R> programs will conflict with one another. That is
R> particularly true if one is Norton AV.

I went to McAfee (or however it is spelled) and actually bought
it after being nagged practically ever day by my free trial of
Symantec. My ISP, comcast.net, now provides McAfee antivirus and
personal firewall as an included service. It is updated quite
frequently, seems to work well and has declared that it has
caught a virus a couple of times. It was necessary of course to
remove the Symantec software and deactivate the rather inferior
Microsoft firewall. The McAfee virus scan of the whole machine
takes a while but you don't need to do that often and I was
pleased to find that none were reported.

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

 

[Guest]

Hi,

I think Telewest offers PCGuard as antivirus. I have friends who are using
them, and also others who have opted out and using their own NAV.

All of them are living peaceully, so it is your choice what you are happy
with. As the one that comes with Telewest is free, why dont you try it for
sometime, and if you really dont like it, then think of switching to NAV (or
rather Norton Internet Security).

There are even free antivirus lke AVG, firewall like ZoneAlarm, adblocker
like AdAware... all of them are free, and they work pretty well, as far as I
have read.

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

I have been offered free anti virus,spyware and pop up protection from my
supplier telewest.All I want to know is,how does this compare to say
norton
anti virus.Hope somebody can be of help.

Never, ever, NEVER accept what is offered by your ISP. It is designed to
allow their paying advertisers and partners unfettered access to your
computer.
Get Norton Internet Security 2006...it is the one essential thing you should
have on your computer. There are those that will say they do not like
Norton, but ignore them. There are no other products on the market that can
offer the level of protection that NIS offers.

Bobby

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

Rick wrote on Sun, 23 Apr 2006 09:05:21 -0500:

R> MikeCT wrote:
??>> It's a case of 'You get what you pay for'. Norton should
??>> certainly help keep you virus free. However, it does no
??>> harm to have more than one anti virus programme installed
??>> on your computer, just as long as you only have
??>> one Firewall in operation at any one time.
??>>
??>> MCT
??>> --------
??>> "madcaplost" wrote:
??>>> I have been offered free anti virus, spyware and pop up
??>>> protection from my supplier telewest. All I want to know
??>>> is, how does this compare to say norton anti virus. Hope
??>>> somebody can be of help. -- cya
??>>
R> Not necessarily true. Many times the two (or more) AV
R> programs will conflict with one another. That is
R> particularly true if one is Norton AV.

I went to McAfee (or however it is spelled) and actually bought it after
being nagged practically ever day by my free trial of Symantec. My ISP,
comcast.net, now provides McAfee antivirus and personal firewall as an
included service. It is updated quite frequently, seems to work well and
has declared that it has caught a virus a couple of times. It was
necessary of course to remove the Symantec software and deactivate the
rather inferior Microsoft firewall. The McAfee virus scan of the whole
machine takes a while but you don't need to do that often and I was
pleased to find that none were reported.

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

McAfee is almost as bad as having no protection at all. McAfee is
worthless.
You should have upgraded your free trial of Norton. You'll soon regret your
choice.

Bobby

 

[James Silverton]

NoNoBadDog! wrote on Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:09:30 -1000:


N> McAfee is almost as bad as having no protection at all.
N> McAfee is worthless.
N> You should have upgraded your free trial of Norton. You'll
N> soon regret your choice.

Please substantiate thus ill-tempered comment.

James Silverton.

 

[Larry Samuels]

Or screw up your system as badly when it barfs, which it will sooner or
later (usually sooner).

 

[Gil Baron]

AVG, firewall like ZoneAlarm, adblocker
like AdAware... all of them are free, and they work pretty well, as far as I
have read.

I agree and usr avg and zone alarm. McAfee is fine but is not free and most want you to pay for every computer,
Using more than one av or firewall is asking for trouble.
OTOH if you never open uknown attachments and don't accept html mail and forbidscripts the chance of getting a virus is near zero,

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

NoNoBadDog! wrote on Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:09:30 -1000:


N> McAfee is almost as bad as having no protection at all.
N> McAfee is worthless.
N> You should have upgraded your free trial of Norton. You'll
N> soon regret your choice.

Please substantiate thus ill-tempered comment.

James Silverton.

I service computers, both consumer and business. *EVERY SINGLE COMPUTER*
that I service that has McAfee on it is infected with all kinds of malware.
Computers that I service that have Norton or AVG on it are not. Simple
conclusion. McAfee is crapware. While they were at one time very good,
after they were purchased by the current German holding company they went
south.

FWIW, I see very few machines that have issues with either Norton or AVG.

Bobby

 

[Jeff]

Interesting observation;but not EVERY computer with McAfee on it is
infected. Obviously;you run into extreme examples frequently.

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

I don't think it's unusual at all...merely an indicator of how little
protection that McAfee offers. It really does miss a large number of common
vectors. I honestly cannot recall a single instance of a machine with
McAfee on it that was not compromised.

As I stated, McAfee at one time in the past was a very good program, but it
has really gone down hill in the last 4 or 5 years.

Bobby

 

[Leythos]

I don't think it's unusual at all...merely an indicator of how little
protection that McAfee offers. It really does miss a large number of common
vectors. I honestly cannot recall a single instance of a machine with
McAfee on it that was not compromised.

While I've not seen every machine with McCrappy on it to be infected,
I've seen just about every McCrappy machine fail to have automatic
updates.

Most times the users don't understand the interface and think they are
protected, but they didn't register the software, didn't follow the
update process, so it doesn't actually update and they are left with old
definitions. I've seen this same issue on more than 80 machines from all
different types of users.

At the same time, I've not seen a single Norton/Symantec user fail to
have working updates, or at least was aware that their subscription had
expired and they were not getting updates.

 

[Jeff]

Gentlemen;
Seems to me someone is missing the boat here. I too;work in the
industry. As an owner of a software consulting firm, I have seen my share of
"bad" anti-virus applications also. Just not so adamant about one company's
product(i.e. McAfee). There is always room for improvement;no matter what
product or service you sell. And in my experience; McAfee has not been 100%
accurate for every instance of malware;but then again; neither have any
other offerings,be they from Symantec; or any other firm.And to clarify this
issue to your satisfaction about McAfee; I run McAfee Enterprise 8.0i on all
my firms p.c.'s and have not had an issue in over 4 yrs as a result of
McAfee not seeing viruses/spyware etc. All have been free of any
infections;and to the contrary;autoupdate has performed unflawlessly for my
pc's-So back to the original point; I do believe the gentlemen was asking
for opinions about antivirus/spyware applications and hopefully he/she
gleaned some useful information amidst all this extraneous chatter over
who's better or worse.

 

[Guest]

I have found that Sophos antivirus protection is the best and I use it in
conjunction with Norton Firewall. Never, ever had a problem.