Anitvirus Recommendations

I'm was running it on AthlonXP 2400+ (overclocked to 2800+) and it works fast as ever on High settings (v4.5). But if you have a very slow and old hard drive,that could also be the source of slowdowns (i have DiamondMax 9 Maxtor 7200RPM 8MB cache Maxtor on ATA133 rail).

 

Good point, but I think the problem was the fact that I am running several DC projects under BOINC.....which are constantly causing I/O and writing to the disk....and monitoring avast as IT monitor/scans the updated files seemed to show where the slow down was ocurring...........

 

Oh my! My opinion of AntiVir/PE's update capabilities are no secret. I think they are very poor, however I also am restricted to using dial-up, and I now use AntiVir/PE. The other available free programs degraded the performance of my machine to unacceptable levels. It is assumed that you have a current clean program installed on your machine. The following procedures, while not ideal seem to work the best and quickest:

(1) Manually down load updates, disable automatic, if you have it set.

(2) Utilizing the tools options select Internet update, deactivate AntiVir Guard, follow the instructions from that point on. This takes on average about 13 to 15 minutes on my machine.

Hope this is of help.

Thanks
wildman

 

Avast is probably the best of the free AV's assuming you can't get a free home copy of an enterprise AV from school or work. Although AVG is popular, it tests poorly both on overall detection rates and false alarms. It rarely passes VB100.

Sometimes you can get Norton AV for free after rebates if you can come up with a proof of purchase from the prior year.

eTrust, while free for a year, is weak on detection. It is resource light if you have an old computer.

I saw something around here that panda was free for a year as well.

 

I think avast! Home Edition is probably the best free AV. However, you should try a few before making your decision.

 

Hmmm... AntiVir-PE also is free. So check HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.

PS- in the last link given above, Avast is "Alwil" and AntiVir-PE is H+BEDV.

 

I agree your point of view.

But there are a lot of people expecting to get 100% security for free, and they will or cannot realize that's impossible....


Ciao,

Smokey

 

Hi Bellgamin: Do you have any contacts at H+BEDV? If so, they really could do a better job with their update method, method to obtain the product and forum for AntiVir/PE, all of which are rather abysmal.

Thanks
wildman

 

Hi there, Wild Person. I'm sorry but I have no contacts at H+BEDV.

I agree that AVPE's updater is a bit old-fashioned. Actually, I prefer to manually update all my security applications (I have several of them). It makes me feel useful. I consider that automatic updates are sorta like kissing my wife with somebody else's lips.

As for the AVPE forum, I usually like the Teutonic abruptness & acid humor of their Mods. But I also like anchovies on my pizza, & pickles with my ice cream.

The *other* AVPE forum at Castle Cops MIGHT be a bit more congenial. Have you tried them?

 

What's with that MS Partner Pack? I have XP Pro and I use your link and am told that I need at least IE5.01 or greater and am encouraged to download the latest version of IE.

 

It really is a toss-up between Antivir, AVG or Avast. Your best bet, as with all things, is to try them all and choose the one that you fancy best.

For me, Antivir's large updates and more frequent false poitives put me off.
The new AVG I like, but stopped using it, because some things took longer than usual to load - Java while browsing to be exact.

So I settled on Avast. Nice small updates - No major slow downs on my system - Doesn't look like it is software from the Win 3.1 era and no crashes like in previous versions that initially put me off using Avast.

So I am quite satisfied with Avast.

 

HAAHA hahahahahahahaha...
LOL
Man that's good... wish I'd thought of it (rather than MS..)
Seriously tho', MS is a snipped company snipped as well

 

eScan is good too, its light on system resources, doesnt bog down your system, and comes out with new definitions every day (atleast) sometimes even 2 till 3 times a day..... and it has REALLY REALLY REALLY good detection and deletion abilities...

 

I agree. Look at my last scan.

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

Lately i have seen full generic signatures for WootBot and SpyBot class of malware on Jotti (Win32:WootBot-Gen and Win32:SpyBot-Gen). Just the way how Kaspersky and some other do it. Looks promising if they start making such signatures for others too.

 

Hi Bellgamin: Do you use the method I indicated or another way? Thanks for the other forum, I will give them a try. Have seen some post from their mod on other sites, and have been impressed with him.

Thanks
wildman

 

I must have missed the info as to how you update. Here's what I do: (1) Load AVPE's main GUI. (2) Click the 2-computer icon on the GUI, which calls the updater. (3) Click Start on the updater. (4) Click Yes, if there's an update available.

I do this every day ~3PM Hawaii time. The download comes in at ~135Kbs. Smooth as a baby's behind.

 

Firefighter,

Could you run that test with a collection of free AV's side by side and say one mainstream commercial AV (Norton or Mcafee) for reference?

 

You can setup AVPE to eliminate step (3) Click Start on the updater:

1) Load AVPEs main GUI
2) Click Options
3) Click Configuration
4) Click Internet Updater
5) In the box "Automatic download if the internet update program is started"
put a checkmark in "Allow automatic internet update downloads"

Thereafter, the update will start after simply clicking the updater, with no need to then click Start.

Of course, not everyone will want to streamline the process even this much, since operating the crazy updater is half the fun of Antiver, the other half being watching Luke Filewalker's archaic HD graphic do its thing.

 

Just about the same, except I disable AntiVir Guard before I do item (4). I also have set the program to install upon completion of download. Once all has been completed AntiVir Guard automatically reactivates itself. Takes on average 13 to 15 minutes on my old Compaq Presario 5070 desktop utilizing Windows98 and a 56k dial-up modem.

Thanks
wildman

 

I have done that several times before, but when I have to remove one Exploit from my testbed every time I'm making my scan with AntiVir, because it disables the scan although that file was sent to AntiVir several months ago, it's quite frustrating.

With AVG 7 free, I couldn't get a proper scan log, only the summary of infected FILES, not infected ARCHIVES, therefore I just can't use AVG 7 Free (and AVG's results were far below the second scanner next upwards in my scanning table before, AntiVir, even with those infected FILES summary).

Last but not least, about Norton, I don't touch even with a rotten stick, because I have to be able to uninstall my av:s afterwards and that's impossible with Norton properly.

PS. About the reference av:s you mentioned. You can compare Avast now against McAfee, to beat McAfee in TrojanDownloaders isn't bad either with Avast 4.5 Home.

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

thank you FF.

 

That's a shame Firefighter. NAV 2005 seems to be a massive improvement on 2004 both in spyware\trojan detection and also in removal and resource usage. I would be expecting very good results.

 

If this is the commercial eScan AV, you must have a really fast computer.

 

This is the problem that i see again and again..
When i clean a very virii infected computer for one of my (gamer/P2P/warez-) customers with a top5 virusscanner. And clean and reboot it until nothing else can be found..
And i decide after that, to i install a 2nd virusscanner (also top5)..

It always finds virusses and/or trojans etc. etc. near my personal opinion,
the best virusscanners find about 70 % of the virusses that are out there.

And regarding the tests... all testreports you can find on websites in magazines etc. give different results..

So if you want to buy a virusscanner choose any top5 scanner,
or better use more and switch (uninstall / reinstall etc.) from time to time
with those, you will be surprised to see the results.!!

good luck