AVG or AVAST ?

[Peter Taylor]

Very good.

What do you folks know about Panda?

A friend is trying to get another friend to pay 40 dollars a year for
it. Does anyone else charge nearly that much?

Panda's one of the worst around. Resource hungry and very ineffective.
If you want to pay for an AV, pay for Kaspersky.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per mm:

What do you folks know about Panda?

A friend is trying to get another friend to pay 40 dollars a year for
it. Does anyone else charge nearly that much?

I know nothing about Panda, but in light of Avast's being free
and doing the job would want to hear some serious justification
for paying forty bucks a year.

Paying is defiantly no guarantee of quality. I came to Avast
after paying for Trend Micro's PC-Cillen. Don't know enough to
comment on the Trend Micro product anti-virus-wise, but the UI
for a certain type of notification was the pits.

 

[mm]

Per Bruce Hagen:

"And NEVER open an attachment directly from your email. ALWAYS
save it to your desktop (or another easily accessible folder) and
scan it with your anti-virus program before opening it."

Seems to imply that not running the email scan could result in a
virus/worm/whatever getting through if the user does not follow
the above admonition - and just double-clicks on the attachment
while it is in the email.

Have I got it right?

That url is too long to read this early in the morning, but I agree
that one could just click on an attachment, by accident even,
especially if it was represented by an icon on the desktop**.

More important, the default for win95 through winxp is that windows
doesn't show common file extensions, making a file like
nakedgirls.jpg.exe look like nakedgirls.jpg . Someone might not even
know when the icon first appeared on the desktop or that it was an
email attachment and he might click on it just thinking it's a jpg
file.

Why does MS allow this; or at least why does it make it the default
when it's so dangerous, and by now they know about viruses, etc. The
first thing people should do with a new computer is go to folder
options and change this. It's the right-most tab.

**I don't know why MS wants to put dl'd even valid files on the
desktop. I see friends' computer with such files there years after
they have used them. What a waste. And if each desktop shortcut uses
1K of RAM, do whole program-files use more than that?

Only with Eudora would I say that email doesn't have to be scanned,
becuse Eudora immediately saves every attachment as a separate file,
so under almost everyone's settings it will be virus-checked right
away because it's a new file.

 

[Jim]

That url is too long to read this early in the morning, but I agree
that one could just click on an attachment, by accident even,
especially if it was represented by an icon on the desktop**.

More important, the default for win95 through winxp is that windows
doesn't show common file extensions, making a file like
nakedgirls.jpg.exe look like nakedgirls.jpg . Someone might not even
know when the icon first appeared on the desktop or that it was an
email attachment and he might click on it just thinking it's a jpg
file.

Why does MS allow this; or at least why does it make it the default
when it's so dangerous, and by now they know about viruses, etc. The
first thing people should do with a new computer is go to folder
options and change this. It's the right-most tab.

**I don't know why MS wants to put dl'd even valid files on the
desktop.

When you d/l a file , you can put it where you want .

 

[Peter Taylor]

Or what about Avira? I think they also have a free edition.

I've never used it but I hear it's good.

 

[Fuzz]

I recommended AVG to my son and he has had it on his system for a year but
recently he wished to increase the memory on his system and got a local
'expert' to fit it When he was there he recommended taking AVG off and
installing AVAST in its place
I have used AVG for some time with no problems and before I tell him to
revert to AVG I thought it wise to ask here if I am right
Blair

Avast is rated the best of the free AV's. I used AVG for years until my
computer had major issues with version 9. I've used Avast for a year now
and have had no issues at all. Does it's scan nice and quietly in the
background while I am busy doing other things. Not a resource intensive
program, checks for and updates itself several times per day.
Very happy with Avast.

 

[Cat_in_awe]

Avast is rated the best of the free AV's. I used AVG for years until
my computer had major issues with version 9. I've used Avast for a
year now and have had no issues at all. Does it's scan nice and
quietly in the background while I am busy doing other things. Not a
resource intensive program, checks for and updates itself several
times per day. Very happy with Avast.

I've used free Avast for a long time and agree it's been trouble-free. The
wife has a new Win7 machine and we put MSE on it and that seems to be
working swimmingly as well. No slowdowns at all from either of these,
AFAICT. I just can't see spending good money every year for a AV solution
with good free ones available.

 

[Guest]

One reason MSE may not work as well on your old laptop is that
uninstalling previous AV programmes does not always remove registry
entries and MSE may see them as a potential threat.

In the MSE forum it is recommended that after uninstalling old AV
programmes you should run the relevant COMPLETE uninstall programme for
any previously installed AV. See:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com...t/thread/407bf6da-c05d-4546-8788-0aa4c25a1f91

Thanks for the tip, but I'm satisfied with Avast for now - on the basis of
'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

Cheers.

S

 

[~Mahler Mlle.~]

My understanding is that all the decent freeware AVs and MS stay in
communication on infection activity - so why not just use MSE on a MS
system? It's a constant chore to keep up finding auto files, and those that
open our ports on freeware other than MSE - again IMHO.

 

[The poster formerly known as 'The Poster Formerly]

My understanding is that all the decent freeware AVs and MS stay in
communication on infection activity - so why not just use MSE on a MS
system? It's a constant chore to keep up finding auto files, and those that
open our ports on freeware other than MSE - again IMHO.

MS is already responsible for patching security leaks in the OS, why
would you want to put all of your eggs in one basket with them? It
would be much safer IMO to use a 3rd party AV, thereby not trusting
everything dear to you on your machine to protection by only one source.

 

[~Mahler Mlle.~]

The poster formerly known as 'The Poster Formerly Known As Nina DiBoy'
wrote:

Bruce Hagen wrote:
I recommended AVG to my son and he has had it on his system for a
year but recently he wished to increase the memory on his system
and got a local 'expert' to fit it When he was there he
recommended taking AVG off and installing AVAST in its place
I have used AVG for some time with no problems and before I tell
him to revert to AVG I thought it wise to ask here if I am right
Blair


AVG has been found to be the culprit in a few issues with all
Windows e-mail client programs lately, while Avast has not. Not
many people reporting this, but enough for me to say Avast.

Whichever you choose, they should be installed in custom mode
allowing you to opt out of e-mail scanning when offered.

Why you don't need your anti-virus to scan your email
http://thundercloud.net/infoave/tutorials/email-scanning/index.htm

And then there is another option, MSE. Anti-Virus, Anti-Malware
and Anti-Spyware all in one.

Microsoft Security Essentials
http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/default.aspx
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA

My understanding is that all the decent freeware AVs and MS stay in
communication on infection activity - so why not just use MSE on a
MS system? It's a constant chore to keep up finding auto files, and
those that open our ports on freeware other than MSE - again IMHO.

MS is already responsible for patching security leaks in the OS, why
would you want to put all of your eggs in one basket with them? It
would be much safer IMO to use a 3rd party AV, thereby not trusting
everything dear to you on your machine to protection by only one
source.

2 AVs on one system????

 

[The poster formerly known as 'The Poster Formerly]

The poster formerly known as 'The Poster Formerly Known As Nina DiBoy'
wrote:

2 AVs on one system????

That is not recommended, 2 AVs one one machine!

 

[Kernel]

Please top post, ya'll are wearing out my scrolling wheel.

I've used Avast or AVG for many years. I got a trojan virus earlier this
year while using Avast, so I switched back to AVG. I'm not very pleased
with the new AVG but I guess it's working. The Avast that permited the
trojan was automatically updated daily. There was no warning of the trojan.
Don't know how it slipped into my PC, no suspicious emails, no porn
sites...but Avast sure missed it.

 

[Chuck U. Farley]

That's a bunch of crap, HoopleHead.

Avast is for virus` not trojan(s) .

 

[~Mahler Mlle.~]

The poster formerly known as 'The Poster Formerly Known As Nina DiBoy'
wrote:
precisely!!!

 

[Jim]

< plonk >

That's a bunch of crap, HoopleHead.

 

[mm]

That is not recommended, 2 AVs one one machine!

You have forgotten what you had said just 6 hours earlier. He was
replying to you, as if you had said to use 2 av's on the same machine.
What you were saying is to not use an MS AV, because MS is supposed to
solve virus problems by writing security updates for IE (or do they
affect other browsers too?).

So let another company worry about finding viruses as they arrive and
removing them after they are here.

Mahler misunderstood you, and you agreed with him.

And then he said "precisely"!

 

[The poster formerly known as 'The Poster Formerly]

You have forgotten what you had said just 6 hours earlier. He was
replying to you, as if you had said to use 2 av's on the same machine.
What you were saying is to not use an MS AV, because MS is supposed to
solve virus problems by writing security updates for IE (or do they
affect other browsers too?).

So let another company worry about finding viruses as they arrive and
removing them after they are here.

Mahler misunderstood you, and you agreed with him.

And then he said "precisely"!

IOW, we all agree, he just doesn't get it yet.

 

[~Mahler Mlle.~]

Yes, 2 AVs on one system IS NOT RECOMMENDED!

 

[mm]

When you d/l a file , you can put it where you want .

The instructions on many webpages and many or all MS instrcutions say
dl "to the desktop or whatever place you desire". With many
non-computer types, this will always be the desktop. That's why I see
so many files on the desktop, showing all the time.