AVG is not adequate virus protection

J

Jeff

With all the viruses running around these days, I think it is important for
me to share this information and it might help all of us.

I have 3 PCs at home. All 3 are protected with constantly updated AVG as
well as Zone Alarm, Spybot, Ad-Aware, CW shredder, ActiveX disabled, no
Java, etc., etc. Recently I suspected I might have a Trojan on my laptop.
(See http://forum.aumha.org/viewtopic.php?p=46746#46746 ). So I ran an
updated AVG both in regular and in Safe Mode. Showed no viruses.

I went through all kinds of searches, finally showing the presence of
FxNetsky and maybe another. Ran Symantic's FxNetsky with no improvement
plus a whole string of other things. I was finally advised to try
Kaspersky's 30-day free trial antivirus software. Kaspersky's AV found 2
viruses and 7 infected objects, removed them all and I did not need to even
go into safe mode. Of course I ran it in safe mode again and it found
nothing else.

With this experience, I ran Kaspersky on my other 2 PCs even though AVG
showed them to be clean and I had no suspicions. Guess what? Kaspersky
found both to be infected (different viruses) and successfully cleaned them
both.

Obviously I now think that my AVG is not providing me adequate protection.
I have nothing against AVG, in fact until recently I was recommending it,
like many of the experts (I am not one) on this forum have too, but the
facts are the facts. I emailed AVG but got no response back.

*** Recommendation: Run Kaspersky's free trial program on your PC. You
might be surprised at the results and if it disinfects your PCs, there would
be that many less viruses infecting others. I have no connection with
Kaspersky other than what I related.

Now, I need advice. I would love to purchase Kaspersky's antivirus even
though it is expensive, but it uses up so much RAM that when I have it
installed it slows my PC (Pentium, 2.66 GHz, 512 MB RAM and XP Home SP1) to
a crawl. So I was forced to uninstall it.

Question: what can I use instead of AVG that would provide good protection?

--

Jeff Williams
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG
 
A

Alias

Jeff said:
Question: what can I use instead of AVG that would provide good protection?

I've had good results with Trend Micro or Panda. Panda has an excellent
online scan. I, too have had AVG miss viruses that were picked up by those
two. (But were not picked up by Norton or McAffee on their online scan, btw)
I note no slowness with Trend Micro and I have a slower processor than you
do. It came with my SystemSuite 5.0. You can get it directly from Trend
Micro or bundled with SystemSuite 5.0 of V-COM l;ike I did.

Alias
 
J

Jeff

I too "thought" I never had a virus on my computer. I now wonder what you
might find if you ran Kaspersky on your PC.

--

Jeff Williams
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG
 
J

Jeff

Thanks, I'll try it.

--

Jeff Williams
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG
 
O

\old\ devildog

I use the Trend as it came with the SystemSuite5 I am using ... I don't have
any problems ... I have been using SystemSuite now for 4 years .... great
protection ... firewall and anti-virus ... I purchase and install it on all
the machines I work on ... My family has no problems with it ...
--
****************
"old" devildog
Semper Fi
****************
****************
 
J

Jeff

Again, Thanks for the suggestion. I wonder if I could suggest something.
It would be instructive to both of us: why not download Kaspersky's
software and see if you are really clean. I think that would be fascinating
to find out. http://www.kaspersky.com/


--

Jeff Williams
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG
 
J

Jeff

Thanks.

--

Jeff Williams
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG
 
H

Herb Fritatta

Jeff said:
With all the viruses running around these days, I think it is important for
me to share this information and it might help all of us.

I have 3 PCs at home. All 3 are protected with constantly updated AVG as
well as Zone Alarm, Spybot, Ad-Aware, CW shredder, ActiveX disabled, no
Java, etc., etc. Recently I suspected I might have a Trojan on my laptop.
(See http://forum.aumha.org/viewtopic.php?p=46746#46746 ). So I ran an
updated AVG both in regular and in Safe Mode. Showed no viruses.

I went through all kinds of searches, finally showing the presence of
FxNetsky and maybe another. Ran Symantic's FxNetsky with no improvement
plus a whole string of other things. I was finally advised to try
Kaspersky's 30-day free trial antivirus software. Kaspersky's AV found 2
viruses and 7 infected objects, removed them all and I did not need to even
go into safe mode. Of course I ran it in safe mode again and it found
nothing else.

With this experience, I ran Kaspersky on my other 2 PCs even though AVG
showed them to be clean and I had no suspicions. Guess what? Kaspersky
found both to be infected (different viruses) and successfully cleaned them
both.

Obviously I now think that my AVG is not providing me adequate protection.
I have nothing against AVG, in fact until recently I was recommending it,
like many of the experts (I am not one) on this forum have too, but the
facts are the facts. I emailed AVG but got no response back.

*** Recommendation: Run Kaspersky's free trial program on your PC. You
might be surprised at the results and if it disinfects your PCs, there would
be that many less viruses infecting others. I have no connection with
Kaspersky other than what I related.

Now, I need advice. I would love to purchase Kaspersky's antivirus even
though it is expensive, but it uses up so much RAM that when I have it
installed it slows my PC (Pentium, 2.66 GHz, 512 MB RAM and XP Home SP1) to
a crawl. So I was forced to uninstall it.

Question: what can I use instead of AVG that would provide good protection?

You may have proven something about AVG, but it doesn't say that
anything else you might use is superior in general. In other words, AVG
missed something that Kaspersky caught, but it's within the realm of
possibility that the reverse might happen. I'm quite sure that there's
no AV software that will catch everything every time. This is not a
defense of AVG (I don't use it myself), but a defense of logical thinking.
 
J

Jeff

On the first PC it was "TrojanDownloader.Win32.Delf.cq " plus another whose
name I forgot. The second had a form of Bagle. The third, unnetworked, with
almost no spam (mostly used by my wife) had one whose name I did not write
down but might have also been a version of Bagle virus. Not sure.

My challenge is for all those who feel comfortable they are clean - as I was
sure I was because of all my precautions - should download the free 30-day
trial Kaspersky version, update it to have the latest definitions and run it
to see if they are as clean as they think they are. I was personally
shocked when I found that AVG had missed not on one of my PCs but on all
three! Especially since it was not one virus that AVG missed but 2-3 on
different PCs! That is truly scary. Maybe one reason for the proliferation
of viruses today is because so many of us think we are clean (how can we
know otherwise if our virus checkers tell us we are clean?) while we are
spreading the stuff with every email we send out.

I have no connection with Kaspersky whatsoever but am just letting you all
know that we may not be as clean as we all think we are - and I am fairly
knowledgeable around PCs.

--

Jeff Williams
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG
 
J

Jeff

You may have proven something about AVG, but it doesn't say that
anything else you might use is superior in general. In other words, AVG
missed something that Kaspersky caught, but it's within the realm of
possibility that the reverse might happen.

Possible, but I think doubtful. Maybe the huge RAM memory footprint of the
Kaspersky software (which makes my system too sluggish to be useful) is
because it has a much larger virus definition database in memory and
therefore it finds more viruses because it searches for more of them,
including the rare ones that slip by the others. Remember, these were
different viruses on 3 different PCs! That is more than co-incidence.

I really wish AVG would explain what happened. My thinking is that most of
the antivirus checkers we all use look for the most likely viruses and
therefore miss the others. Kaspersky's website says they update their virus
definitions every 3 hours (!) and automatically send the updates to your PC.
Frankly that is overkill and impractical for me but it does suggest that if
we use the "practical" AV viruses we all use, we are probably not as safe as
we think we are. Using something like a Kaspersky once every month or so in
addition to whatever we use, might be a useful thing.

I wish PCWorld or similar would check out a bunch of "clean" PCs with a more
substantial AV like Kaspersky to see how many really are clean. In my case
3 out of 3 were not despite clean checks with AVG and the online virus
checkers. That is what worries me.

The proof is easy. Try it on your own PC and see if your AV checker is
really protecting you.

--

Jeff Williams
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG
 
G

Greg R

Jeff
I always wonder if they will find a false virus just to get you to buy
the program.
 
C

CZ

With all the viruses running around these days, I think it is importantme to share this information and it might help all of us.

I have 3 PCs at home. All 3 are protected with constantly updated AVG as
well as Zone Alarm, Spybot, Ad-Aware, CW shredder, ActiveX disabled, no
Java, etc., etc. Recently I suspected I might have a Trojan on my laptop.
(See http://forum.aumha.org/viewtopic.php?p=46746#46746 ). So I ran an
updated AVG both in regular and in Safe Mode. Showed no viruses.

Jeff:

What AVG product and version did you use?

TIA
 
J

Jeff

I thought about that, but they actually solved a real problem I had that the
others could not.

--

Jeff Williams
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG
 
J

Jeff

AVG 6.0, free version.
Program version: 6.0.752 Release date: 9/2/2003
Virus database: 503 Release date: 9/3/2004

--

Jeff Williams
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG
 
?

=?iso-8859-1?B?uyBtcnRlZSCr?=

The AVG free version offers no e-mail support, that is why you did not get a response from Grisoft. When did trojans (On the first PC it was "TrojanDownloader.Win32.Delf.cq ") become virus? That is what Adaware and Spybot Search & Destroy are for.

--
Just my 2¢ worth,
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| AVG 6.0, free version.
| Program version: 6.0.752 Release date: 9/2/2003
| Virus database: 503 Release date: 9/3/2004
 
C

CS

AVG 6.0, free version.
Program version: 6.0.752 Release date: 9/2/2003
Virus database: 503 Release date: 9/3/2004

Hi Jeff:

In just about every review I've seen on AV software, the free version
of AVG does not do well at all. NAV is usually in the middle of the
pack with Kapersky always in front. Your results do not surprise me.

As for free AV software, not sure any of the current packages are all
that good. I like AVAST www.avast.com better than the others, but
have no real experience with it finding viruses or trojans.

Regards.
 
J

Jeff

I have both Adaware and Spybot, updated and running as well. Actually I
believe Trojans are considered a type of viruses. This one was detected by
the Kaspersky Antivirus software.

--

Jeff Williams
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG

The AVG free version offers no e-mail support, that is why you did not get a
response from Grisoft. When did trojans (On the first PC it was
"TrojanDownloader.Win32.Delf.cq ") become virus? That is what Adaware and
Spybot Search & Destroy are for.

--
Just my 2¢ worth,
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| AVG 6.0, free version.
| Program version: 6.0.752 Release date: 9/2/2003
| Virus database: 503 Release date: 9/3/2004
 

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