Anti Virus

Post by **buksida** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 9:26 am

From my experience 70% of computers are infected by viruses that people open from attachments in their email, 20% or so come through un-patched browser flaws (99% IE), and the remainder are the more sneaky variety that will get in regardless.

There is nothing wrong with the free AV programs, I have seen infected machines that AVG has detected where Norton will miss. In answer to Randy yes, you can get torrent or pirate full versions of AV software and I've tried most of them. They don't suit me as I hate all the 'bloatware' and extra crap that comes with them - IMO antivirus should sit in the background consuming as little system resources as possible, not slow the machine down and chew 250 Megs of RAM.

Virus removal is relatively easy for 90% of infections also, they generally work with the same pattern so if you know where to look in the registry you can get rid of them. What I do like about Symantec is their fix-tools that they have created for most viruses and trojans ... very handy!

Spitfire · Post by **Spitfire** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 7:14 pm

Well, I must say, excellent comments from everyone going on here and keep on going as it's very interesting.

Sorry to interject everyone, but can I ask a layman's question, as I'm not an expert on this(sorry to be naive), which is:

In the Kaspersky free trial job I have at the moment that terminates in about 3 days, it says in the options that I can report and send suspect files/reports/viruses/stuff that it can't deal with to the "Lab" via the web and they will "deal" with it and send me up-dates etc specifically for that individual problem.

Can I have thoughts on this, please? What are they exactly getting at? How often is this plausily possible? Are they just hyping it up etc?

Have had a look at some of the suggestions you have raised and noted them, very interesting. While I still have this windows machine I would like to have this final question "put to rest".

Many thanks.

Post by **buksida** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 8:18 pm

Essentially they're trying to sell you the software, this is their digital sales pitch ... "we'll find a bunch of 'viruses' on your computer but won't fix them until you send us $49.95".

Toast it and download Avast!

Post by **BaaBaa.** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 10:02 pm

Spitfire, do as Buksi says and get Avast or another free one.

Google free antivirus reviews and see what suits your needs.

Spitfire · Post by **Spitfire** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 10:26 pm

OK BaaBaa, just wringing the towel, when Buksi is 'short and sweet' with the answer, time to defer.

Spitfire · Post by **Spitfire** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 10:49 pm

Don't roast me Buksi, I was being honest with the post before, just some banter with BaaBaa.

Post by **Guess** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 10:56 pm

Redzone,

If it works for you stick with it and upgrade tom 2009 asap. Many improvements and all the SP3 problems fixed now.

Spitfire,

Kapersky is not brilliant and there is at least one piece of freeware out there that uses that Kapersky engine.

Grab Avast while it's still free. I read they had reached 10 million downloads now. That's a lot of money to ignore.

BTW make sure that Kapersky is completely removed. You can do it manually or get a free "total deletion tool" for free with a Google search. Run a registry clean (Wise, Auslogics or Eusing) after deletion.

Spitfire · Post by **Spitfire** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 11:05 pm

Cheers Guess, nice one.

Thanks to all, great stuff from everyone, very informative.

Post by **buksida** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 11:12 pm

One thing to remember though is that you'll also need anti-spyware and malware protection also, there are too many nasties out there.

... why didn't I get a Mac.