Recommendation Needed for Email Scanning and Download virus protection

[John Smith]

For years I used a full suite of Symantec problems on various win98SE machines
in my office and encountered no problems whatsoever. However, when I was
installing a new version of antivirus on one of my machines recently, I
encountered major problems, tried to contact tech support and encountered a
series of web loops, dead links, etc. After wasting three hours I concluded
that Symantec doesn't want to support their products. They want customers to
buy their products, but don't care when those products don't work out of the
box. OK. Goodbye. I immediately uninstalled norton anti-virus from all my
machines.

My next choice was McAfee -- which I had used for several years in the early
90s -- so I picked up a 2-license retail box of virus scan professional for
evaluation. After loading the cdrom I got a splash screen saying that the
installation program would remove older virus software and that a reboot might
be required. There was a button at the bottom to "restart". After ten
minutes, it became clear that the machine was inactive, so I pressed the
restart key. After restarting, I got the same splash screen, waited another
ten minutes, but nothing happened. I hit restart again, and when the machine
rebooted I got a message from the OS that the setup script had committed a
fault and would be stopped. After repeating this circle two more times, it
was clear that help was needed.

I went to the McAfee website and pressed the link for live web tech support.
The subsequent pop up window said, "Hello, my name is Barbie. How can I help
you today?" I typed in a description of the problem and got another popup
window explaining that this sounded like a problem for tech support. The
"Barbie" BOT said that she/he/it would send me a browser window and that I
should click on the link for live tech support. Deja vue, but I decided to
play ball. After clicking on the new link for live tech support, I got a popp
window that said "Hello, my name is "Buffy". How can I help you today?". I
retyped a description of the problem and got an identical response as before --
telling me that I should click on the button for live tech support. HOWEVER,
in this instance the BOT also mentioned a "900" number where I could call and
get support over the phone --- for $3 per minute.

OK, enough of this crap. Is there a company out there that makes decent
anti-virus products that are SUPPORTED? Web support is fine -- when it works
-- but AI bots and knowledge bases can't resolve all problems, so it would be
nice to have a number that someone could go to resolve implacable issues. Any
ideas for a product that supports both win98SE and more recent MS OS's,
preferably a product that offers email scanning that will work with non-MS
browsers like firefox and mozilla?

 

[Shay]

Hi there John,
I can say that I've been there and I've got the proverbial T-Shirt.

I would seriously recommend Kaspersky Anti-virus and Anti-Hacker (
www.kaspersky.com ).

The Antivirus is an excellent program that uses very little system resources
and has some of the best detection rates.
It scans both incoming and outgoing email.
The customer support is the best I've seen before (far better than
Symantec/Norton which costs about £28GBP to call), the is free support via
forums, Telephone, FAQ's and E-Mails ( http://www.kaspersky.com/support )
it's also really easy to find and doesn't try to make you give up.
Also... Kaspersky updates non-stop.. nearly hourly (you can set it to check
for updates every hour, 3 hours, day etc) (unlike Norton's weekly updates -
which is how I always got infected).

Free 1 Month Trials can be downloaded from here:
http://www.kaspersky.com/trials

Good luck... I hope you find it as good as I do.

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the wonderful
person John Smith <[email protected]> said
<snip tale of woe>

Trend (PcCillin) have got halfway reasonable tech support these days
(after much bitchin and moaning these several years), at least by
web/email (which is all I ever use).

I don't bother with their email virus scanner - that's what ISPs are
for. if yours doesn't take out the cr&p before sending it down the wire
at you, get a different ISP.

 

[Ionizer]

For years I used a full suite of Symantec problems...

I can't think of anything to add to that.

Regards,
Ian.

 

[John Smith]

I can't think of anything to add to that.

Regards,
Ian.

I see now that I'm guilty of committing a freudian slip. In truth I
didn't have any difficulties with Symantec over the years, and was unaware of
the fact that Symantec's service was non-existent until the shit finally hit
the fan. I'm now exploring another posters suggestion re: kaspersky.

 

[Sir_George]

John,

My first recommendation would be to remove Symantec's AV program using
"Add/Remove" programs, if you haven't already done so. Some other AV
programs will have problems installing (which could be your problem with
McAfee) when there is a pre-existing AV program. Should you have problems
with removal using "Add/Remove" programs, visit the following link for
additional assistance:

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...sf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=

My other recommendation would be Nod32 as a very effective AV program, but
that's just my personal opinion.

 

[Patriot]

John,

My first recommendation would be to remove Symantec's AV program using
"Add/Remove" programs, if you haven't already done so. Some other AV
programs will have problems installing (which could be your problem with
McAfee) when there is a pre-existing AV program. Should you have problems
with removal using "Add/Remove" programs, visit the following link for
additional assistance:

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...sf&view=docid&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=

My other recommendation would be Nod32 as a very effective AV program, but
that's just my personal opinion.

I'll check out your recommendation. Thanks.

I had removed Symantec completely prior to installing McAfee, and I went a
step further and cleaned the registry. In addition I made sure that there
weren't any orphan files on the filesystem. Still, McAfee failed to install.
Worse still McAfee left the machine in an unbootable condition. Fortunately my
background forces me to see any given machine as a collection of filesystems --
rather than a discrete entity -- so I booted up a "virtual" linux system and
undid the damage by removing the McAfee files. Otherwise I may have been
forced to shell out $30-$50 bucks for their phone support. I don't mind
paying for productive support, but it pisses me off when a company's software
bugs actually improve their profits.

 

[bassbag]

I see now that I'm guilty of committing a freudian slip. In truth I
didn't have any difficulties with Symantec over the years, and was unaware of
the fact that Symantec's service was non-existent until the shit finally hit
the fan. I'm now exploring another posters suggestion re: kaspersky.

Depending on which version of kav you use , ..you may find it heavy on
resources on a 98 machine especially if its low spec Ask here for the
best version to use if you fall into that category.Kav has probably teh
best detection rate of any av or antitrojan , however something like
nod32 (very light on resources for 98 machines) and boclean antitrojan
would make a good substitute if a kav resource issue arises.
me

 

[John Smith]

Depending on which version of kav you use , ..you may find it heavy on
resources on a 98 machine especially if its low spec Ask here for the
best version to use if you fall into that category.Kav has probably teh
best detection rate of any av or antitrojan , however something like
nod32 (very light on resources for 98 machines) and boclean antitrojan
would make a good substitute if a kav resource issue arises.
me

For the most part I operate linux machines but I have four windows machines (2
XP and 2 98SE). The 98SE machines are PII-400 and PIII (Celeron)-1000
respectively. My linux boxes do all the heavy lifting so I'm not too worried
about system resource drains. I've downloaded an eval of kaspersky personal
pro just to get my feet wet. Do you have suggestions for sources on nod32 and
boclean?

 

[bassbag]

For the most part I operate linux machines but I have four windows machines (2
XP and 2 98SE). The 98SE machines are PII-400 and PIII (Celeron)-1000
respectively. My linux boxes do all the heavy lifting so I'm not too worried
about system resource drains. I've downloaded an eval of kaspersky personal
pro just to get my feet wet. Do you have suggestions for sources on nod32 and
boclean?

Nod trial can be downloaded here....
http://www.nod32.com/download/trial.htm
and has a good forum here....
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/index.php?s=c54b995f16ed176feef418c188a2a5
7f&
Boclean unfortuanly does not have a trial , but 30 day money back
guarantee.It also does not have an on demand scanner.That said however it
uses very little resources , gets updated everyday ,has excellent support
and as a registerd user of tds3 and trojanhunter also ..is my favourite
and from experience ahead in detection too.Upgrades and defenitions are
free too
Info for boclean here...
http://www.nsclean.com/boclean.html
http://www.nsclean.com/supboc.html
Also the writers of boclean frequent the security (antivirus/trojan)
sections of wilders forums (aka kevin and nancy macleavy)..

I use the above combination on a low spec 98 machine and it works
well.However if you have no resource issues , then kaspersky may be your
first choice.
me

 

[null]

Depending on which version of kav you use , ..you may find it heavy on
resources on a 98 machine

Version 3.5 runs fine on Win 9X/ME PCs. Using the "smart" scan setting
option, I've never noticed any slowdowns when using the realtime
monitor.


Art
http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg