Author Topic: Free Anti Virus program? (Read 833 times)

Furball · « **on:** January 16, 2005, 03:48:02 PM »

I have norton antivirus and my subscription needs renewing.. i dont want to pay for it.

anyone know of a good free anti virus program?

or if not, a good antivirus program to pay for?

thanking you in advance.

Elfie · « **Reply #1 on:** January 16, 2005, 03:53:01 PM »

sure do, AVG anti-virus by Grisoft http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/

I use that one just because I hate paying for updates

Elfie · « **Reply #2 on:** January 16, 2005, 03:53:53 PM »

oh yeah, and because Silat told me about it

Furball · « **Reply #3 on:** January 16, 2005, 04:03:05 PM »

thank you elfie, had downloaded that already after i found it on google. makes me feel much better that it comes reccommended

214thCavalier · « **Reply #4 on:** January 16, 2005, 06:12:38 PM »

http://www.av-comparatives.org/

and

http://www.icsalabs.com/

Angus · « **Reply #5 on:** January 16, 2005, 06:39:03 PM »

For previewing your mailbox use: Mailwasher.

For some blocking of traffic, try Zone Alarm.

For little ad-bugs: spyware blaster and ad-aware.
note, that regular use of those will keep your system running better, since all them bugs eat CPU.

For on-line virus scan and cleaning, Trend Micro's Housecall.

Those are all free, and I highly recommend all of them..

P.S. I am writing this on a totally overused computer, - online all the time with several users, and it's not been reformatted yet, - it's 5 years old now!!!!
The biggest thing turned out to be the mailwasher though. Just look at everything and only let through what you want to get.

culero · « **Reply #6 on:** January 16, 2005, 09:06:37 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Angus
For previewing your mailbox use: Mailwasher.

For some blocking of traffic, try Zone Alarm.

For little ad-bugs: spyware blaster and ad-aware.
note, that regular use of those will keep your system running better, since all them bugs eat CPU.

For on-line virus scan and cleaning, Trend Micro's Housecall.

Those are all free, and I highly recommend all of them..

P.S. I am writing this on a totally overused computer, - online all the time with several users, and it's not been reformatted yet, - it's 5 years old now!!!!
The biggest thing turned out to be the mailwasher though. Just look at everything and only let through what you want to get.

What he said.

culero (last format = 1999)

capt. apathy · « **Reply #7 on:** January 16, 2005, 09:37:43 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Angus
For little ad-bugs: spyware blaster and ad-aware.
note, that regular use of those will keep your system running better, since all them bugs eat CPU.

I've used spybot and ad-aware both for awhile, they each catch a few the other misses. the new ad-aware seems much better though, there is rarely anything left for spybot anymore.

Microsoft also has a new beta ad-ware remover. it works well and found a few bits that have been missed by all the others for quite a while. it found registry entries from Kazaa and it has been off my system since early 2002.

beet1e · « **Reply #8 on:** January 17, 2005, 02:53:12 AM »

Angus!

I have Trend Micro PC-Cillin Internet Security 2005 and it's great! It's a 3-in-1 package - antivirus, firewall, spyware remover. BUT... it won't run with Zone Alarm installed. Bear this in mind if ever you decide to upgrade your TM product - you will have to get rid of Zone Alarm.

Steve · « **Reply #9 on:** January 17, 2005, 02:54:41 AM »

Sometimes you get what you pay for. Hey, protection might just be one of those thjings that you don't want to be a cheapass on.

Sort of like: Hey, all my condoms are used up and I need more but don't want to buy any. Anyone know where I can get some free? Used would be ok, I just don't want to buy any.

capt. apathy · « **Reply #10 on:** January 17, 2005, 04:15:36 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Steve
Sometimes you get what you pay for. Hey, protection might just be one of those things that you don't want to be a cheapass on.

Sort of like: Hey, all my condoms are used up and I need more but don't want to buy any. Anyone know where I can get some free? Used would be ok, I just don't want to buy any.

you often get what you pay for. but I've had nothing get past my AVG.

and one other huge advantage that AVG has over Norton (other than saving the $$) is that since it's free they don't have to try and defeat people sharing it and loading it on many machines.

what this means for the average user is that, unlike NAV, AVG wont shut down and leave you without virus protection every time you plug/unplug an external drive because it thinks it's now on a different machine.

it's a real hassle to find yourself without AV protection and spend a couple hours on the phone to tech support while they pass you around to different people who have other ideas that also won't get your AV up and running.

I was a loyal Norton customer for years and would have gladly kept subscribing but while I surely don't begrudge someone trying to protect their livelihood, taking it to the level that your security methods make your product unreliable in the best case, or completely unusable in the worst you might want to re-think your plan.

while this was a huge PITA, I gotta say that support seemed genuinely concerned and tried very hard to fix the problem. also, when the hit a dead-end on a workable solution and transfered me to customer service I explained the situation and told the rep that since I'd used the product with no problems for 6 months of the 1 year subscription that a $25 refund of the $49.99 purchase price seemed a fair resolution, they agreed immediately and sent me a refund. when the refund arived it was for $50, so I guess they paid me a penny to use their product for 6 months. seems more than fair.

Jackal1 · « **Reply #11 on:** January 17, 2005, 04:15:49 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Steve
Sometimes you get what you pay for. Hey, protection might just be one of those thjings that you don't want to be a cheapass on.

Sort of like: Hey, all my condoms are used up and I need more but don't want to buy any. Anyone know where I can get some free? Used would be ok, I just don't want to buy any.

Baaaaaah!
Just because something has a price tag on it doesn`t make it better.
McAfee is a freaking joke when it comes to virus protection. They can come up with some good removal tools, but I probably could too if I had produced or subproduced the virus to begin with.
I used Norton for many years. At first it did OK . Then as time went by I noticed that Norton was always about 2 steps behind when it came to protection. It`s initialy expensive and it seems to have a built in "collection plate" to stay anywhere near updated.
With Norton I could look for and expect at least one good house cleaning chore a month to get rid of a virus, be it a high or low threat.
I got a little POed with all of this and dumped it.
I got the free AVG and have not had one problem since.
As shown in posts above a lot of people confuse spyware with a virus attack.
Using programs such as Adaware and Spybot in conjunction with each other will take care of most spyware. It just has to be done regularly.
IMHO, one of the easiest and free moves you can initially make to avoid a lot virus attacks is to stop using IE and go to another browser such as Firefox, etc. The reason being is at this time most of the smaller, "dinky" viruses are aimed at the loopholes in IE.

beet1e · « **Reply #12 on:** January 17, 2005, 05:11:07 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Steve
Sometimes you get what you pay for. Hey, protection might just be one of those thjings that you don't want to be a cheapass on.

Sort of like: Hey, all my condoms are used up and I need more but don't want to buy any. Anyone know where I can get some free? Used would be ok, I just don't want to buy any.

:lol:lol Thanks, Steve - that was great!

Jackal said "Then as time went by I noticed that Norton was always about 2 steps behind when it came to protection." - My findings entirely. Even with NAV installed, and even with the updates applied, I still got zapped twice. One of those viruses was absolutely evil. Trashed a boot diskette I inserted - had to set the 2nd one to write protect - good job I had a spare. But I could not reformat the HDD because the virus had relabelled the 11-char ID to special characters not on the KB so I couldn't type in the commands to reformat it.

I eventually got out of this mess after about 5 days of effort and a new HDD. I got about 99½% of my data back. So Norton Symantec can kiss my arse.

moose · « **Reply #13 on:** January 17, 2005, 06:45:03 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Steve
Sometimes you get what you pay for. Hey, protection might just be one of those thjings that you don't want to be a cheapass on.

Sort of like: Hey, all my condoms are used up and I need more but don't want to buy any. Anyone know where I can get some free? Used would be ok, I just don't want to buy any.

yeah, and sometimes you're paying for a cheap hooker and she really ain't as good as when its free, either.

in my experience, norton is one of the most targetable pieces of software out there. found 75 viruses (no lie) on my aunts machine with avg after norton found none (even with updates)

avg has been protecting my computer for a couple years now and the new version is simply steps above the store - bought options.

Charon · « **Reply #14 on:** January 17, 2005, 09:50:00 AM »

I use Avast anti-virus with is free to non commercial users. It works really well (found and cleaned stuff off that the big $$$ names didn't) and has an auto update feature.

Great product.

charon