If not McAfee or Norton, what?

Hey all,

I see people talk about steering clear of the big names like McAfee and Norton, however no one seems to like to say what they use for antivirus software. So I am asking: whaddya'll use??

Thanks.

Oh, and is the XP firewall suficient or do you recommend using someone else's?

--
Eric Lamont
http://www.pbase.com/elamont

'Above all, it's hard learning to live with vivid mental images of scenes I cared for and failed to photograph' - Sam Abell

I use Norton AntiVirus and Norton Internet Security plus my machines are protected by an NATing router. I have, in the past used Trend Micro's PC-Cillin but they wanted way too much for an update. I got the Norton stuff at an advantageous price and it seems to do the job.

Harvey

Eric Lamont said:

Hey all,

I see people talk about steering clear of the big names like McAfee
and Norton, however no one seems to like to say what they use for
antivirus software. So I am asking: whaddya'll use??

Thanks.

Oh, and is the XP firewall suficient or do you recommend using
someone else's?

--
Eric Lamont
http://www.pbase.com/elamont

'Above all, it's hard learning to live with vivid mental images of
scenes I cared for and failed to photograph' - Sam Abell

Click to expand...

I use fprot ( http://www.f-prot.com/ ) $29 a year and I can load it on 5 computers. You can even download a full features demo version for 30 days to try it out. I used to work in a computer repair shop and we loaded Norton on to everything, but recently their stuff has been forcing people to upgrade to XP and other weird stuff. The owner of the shop found f-prot and now that is all he uses. I have used it for a few months now at home and on the network at my church and like it a lot.

Otto

I use zone alarm, e-trust, diskeepr and regedit

Eric Lamont said:

Hey all,

I see people talk about steering clear of the big names like McAfee
and Norton, however no one seems to like to say what they use for
antivirus software. So I am asking: whaddya'll use??

Thanks.

Oh, and is the XP firewall suficient or do you recommend using
someone else's?

--
Eric Lamont
http://www.pbase.com/elamont

'Above all, it's hard learning to live with vivid mental images of
scenes I cared for and failed to photograph' - Sam Abell

Click to expand...

--

Free Avast antivirus is sufficient for the job.
Free Zone Alarm firewall is the best in the market.
Free Adaware and Search and Destroy anti spywares are doing a good job.

I think you are well covered.

I can really recommend the free edition of AVG. I've used it for a few years now and it's very good, updated very often and free!

The link is very well hidden on their site because they want you to buy the other versions but it's at the bottom of this page http://free.grisoft.com/doc/Get+AVG+FREE/lng/us/tpl/v5
If the link doesn't seem to work just try it again, it is correct.

Just ignore any trials for the commercial versions and stick with the free one to see if you like it.

I use Sygate firewall because I had problems with Zonealarm, it seems very good and again I use the free version.
Hope that helps.
Regards,
John.

Another vote for Avast antivirus (and ZoneAlarm, and Spybot).

I tried Norton, but it was a total mess. Got McAfee and that was much better- until the last update which slowed my machine to a total crawl with constant HD spinning. After an hour of that I gave up and uninstalled that sucker.

Avast seems to work just fine, it's free, and I'm surprised when I DON'T get a daily automatic update. My machine's also faster than when I had McAfee on it at it's best.

Spybot is great, but you have to run it manually to see if you already got something. I got Spy Sweeper (not free), but it's a real-time checker, auto updates, and stops spyware before the fact.

By the way, I think a couple of the best free programs out there to keep your machine in tip-top running condition is CCleaner and RegScrubXP. I've used these for several months, they work like a charm, and I'll never be without them. I'm sure they've saved me from having to reinstall the OS many times.

I use nod32 it is pretty good but the best virus protection is common sence. Most virus software works good. The thing to look for is software that does screw up your computer like mcaffe and nortons can do and ones that doesn't have a sh*tload of notifications. Who wants to click on ok 9999999 times while editing a photo.
--
Shawn Grant

You can stay with XP built-in firewall IF you pair it with good AV (free Avast Home Edition is OK) and non-Microsoft web browser and e-mail client (fe. Firefox & Thunderbird or Opera). Also you should have your system tuned by someone security-conscious (fe. to make sure that you work on account without administrator privileges). That should be enough.

Nice side-effect is that your system should feel much "lighter", as all these "security suites" tend to be resource hogs.

HIH
X.

AVG anti virus has been very effective for me. As for XP's firewall, it is better than nothing, but definitely not something I'd recommend to anyone. The amount of control you have is absolutely minimal, and configuration is not fine grained. There are several free alternatives like sygate, zone alarm, etc which do a very commendable job.

After being burned with symantec's !diotic software, I stay away from anything that has a "norton" name on it. The last problem we faced was uninstall. Norton would uninstall half way through and either crash the machine on a few win2k machines, or refuse to uninstall and roll back, on the other xp and 2k machines. In the end, we had to manually uninstall norton by hand, including registry keys and services. Our IT director was so p!ssed (norton messed up his machine too) that we decided to dump it from this year.

I wrote a web site for a local garage which contained thumnails of the cars which were 120 x 90 pixels. I put it on a temporary site for the customer to se & he liked it but asked me where the thumbnails were. I looked on his machine and sure enough they were not there, not even markers where they should be! I asked about firewalls & anti virus software and he had Norton Internet Security loaded. I loaded it on my machine and sure enough the thumbnails disappeared, no warning, nothing. I then changed the size to 121 x 91 and they came back, 119 x 89 and there they were! I asked Symantec about it and infered that it might be a bug since images of a certain size are blocked without warning. His answer was amazing, he said images which are 120 x 90 are adds and therfore blocked! I could not convince him that my little images were not adds and were still the same when increased or decreased by 1 pixel!

Images on that site are now all 121 x 91 just in case someone with that program would like to see them!
Regards,
John.

I've been using NOD32 for over a year and I like it. ( http://www.nod32.com ) It is unobtrusive, which is the main problem with the big names, and it is really good at finding viruses that don't yet have an identified signature.

I've got it on five computers, and the company (Eset) will cut a custom price for you for multiple computers/years.

both free for Home editions. Note, you will need to "train" ZoneAlarm in the beginning to allow various apps to communicate over the internet...

I have been using NOD32 personally for close to two years and find it much much better than any of the "big name" programs.

NOD32 is fast, uses minimal resources and is very effective.
--
Regards, Nigel

I had cause to research the various options about 3 months ago. Norton was getting a very bad press and I found my Norton 2003 slow and not very intuitive. Zone Alarms firewall got excellent reports from this forum and from several professional reviews. Its AV programme was relatively new and I had difficulty getting reliable information on it but that has now arrived and is good. ZA firewall didn't like working with Kaspersky's antivirus on my system and Kaspersky caused very slow boot up (on my system) so I have gone for the paid for ZA Security suite.

AVG gets decent recommendations as a freebie but according to reviews is well short of the standard of the subscription programmes as an AV.

For spyware the general recommendation is a couple of programmes since no single one is apparently really good. Spybot and AdAware is a frequently recommended duo - and it works well for me (both free). Actually, I bought AdAware since I believe that if I use something that much I should be prepared to pay - and the paid for version has several advantages including auto update and blocking of spyware.

It's difficult for posters like me to be sure of the quality of these programmes - so much depends on whether the sites we visit, emails we receive etc have nasties in them. We can comment on the difficulties in using them, apparent conflicts, effects on speed, etc and if many folks say the same thing there's probably something in it.
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Sandy

I have tried:

Norton 2002
Norton 2004
Trend Micro 2005
AVG (Free)

I like Norton 2002 the best. It is the fastest and provides the best security.

I have a new Norton 2005 that I am thinking about trying.

Ok most everyone has talked about virus, spyware, or firewall I am wondering if you go with one of the recommended ones what about Spam in your emails. That is the only reason I am using McAffee right now.

Jim

I use nod32 and I like it though it isn't good for those with little computer knowledge but it isn't made for the ignorance
--
Shawn Grant

"I have a new Norton 2005 that I am thinking about trying. "

Why not just shoot yourself in the head.
--
Shawn Grant