Anti-Virus Software?

One of the best things you can do is logon to your PC without admin rights. A lot of viruses that modify system files and the registry will fail if you dont have admin rights. Just sign in as admin when you want to install sw, but then logout and back in as another user without admin rights for day to day work. That goes a long way

 

A patch was released later on the day. But no help for those affected. In the Netherlands clients are sending in their repair bills (from €50 to €600) to AVG Netherlands.
best
Jurgen
Best

 

I go to Georgia Tech and they provide us with some great kick a$$ virus and antispyware programs. Its McAfee VirusScan Enterprise + Antispyware Enterprise. The cool thing is that I will have access to this program forever.....till the day I die. Updates automatically. If you got sons or daughters that are in universities/colleges, ask them. They should have access to these programs. Also, Ive installed this program at my house and 2 other computers. So, they shouldnt refuse giving it to their parents b/c there shouldnt a limit on the numbers of computers you can install it to. Also, lets face it....most of the parents pay for their tuition anyway.

 

I can VERY highly recommend NOD32 ...

Before I switched to Mac, I had seen them all .... McAfee, Norton, AVG, etc ... IMO NOD32 was by far the most efficient and the fastest of them all. It also updates multiple times a day!
I can't wait for the Mac version to come out.

 

AVG Free.

Its free and works well. I have had it in use for years.

 

When I started working as a IT Manager for a bank one of the first things I did was enable NTFS file permissions and took away admin rights for all users (they were operating on an "open" system). After that I never had a malware or virus problem.

 

The best product for AV changes every year. Afew years ago I would of said Symantec was the worst of the bunch but of recent years they have made lots of ground and is now one of the best, but still the FREE products are just as good for protection.

I keep up-to date with AV and firewall software products/reviews and these are the best in order based on detection of viruses, worms, backdoors and trojans.
AVIRA Version 8.1
GDATA Version 19.0
Symantec Version 16.0
McAfee Enterprise Version 8 with Artmis (avoid the plus version)
Avast! Version 4.8
Trustport Version 2.8
Kaspaersky Version 8
AVG Version 8

If you include other things like scan speed(esp with large hdds can take awhile), how often it spits out false positives and if you want some sort of support. With those in the equation Symantec takes the lead.

NOD32 which is mentioned afew times in this thread misses out because of its low malware detection but if you looking for the best protection its time to change.

Kelsa: Err how do you know you don't have any virus or trojan if you don't use any AV?? haha Your PC could be part of a botnet and its just waiting Also like I said before, no point saying product XY(in your case Norton) is crap when you are talking about something that you used afew years ago thus an old version of the product.

Also AV isn't just enough these days, you really need some sort of firewall and make sure your O/S is up to date with latest patches. There are backdoors/exploits to all O/S's and while removing admin access to users does help it's no guarantee that the PC wont get infected. Some of the biggest companies that spend $$$ on security still have dramas.

Of the Free products I prefer Avast! over AVG it tends to spit out false positives so I double check here http://virusscan.jotti.org/ which uses all the big engines(bar norton).

 

I know a lot about av products since I wrote code for McAfee for many years; with regards to VirusScan, McAfee has various 3rd parties write extensions using their engine and are able to repackage and rebrand into their own product. Sometimes ppl think they are using a McAfee product when in fact they are using a 3rd party product that is just using McAfee technology. VSE is the official McAfee product and does quite well in a Windows environment with a very low footprint as someone pointed out earlier. Personally I think Symantec is the worst, and the free stuff; well you get what you pay for. False positives are a bad thing, maybe not such a big deal on a home PC but can be a big problem in a corp setting. VSE has one of the lowest false positive rates in the industry. I worked on the enterprise (business) side so can't speak to the consumer products.

 

Same here, but this past weekend I was infected with something called gadcom.exe. Researched this and found out that AVG does not do much to prevent this particular variant. Had to ultimately find another tool to remove this particular bug.

Thinking it might be time to upgrade to something that I actually pay a little bit for!

 

Like most things in life, you get what you pay for

 

We had an idiot IT Manager whose philosophy was to open up all desktops so anyone would 'not be blocked from doing their jobs'.
He thought it took too much time for a Helpdesk person to connect to a machine and download an app somebody may want...
I think that was back when the 'love' virus hit - late 90's.
Needless to say we spent much more $$$ fixing computers because of that than we did getting approval and then installing an
approved app a couple of times a week...

That Manager didn't last.

 

cmd / netstat.

not that i know everything.

 

Some connections are "random" meaning they'll only transmit at certain intervals (keyloggers, for one). So running netstat might not be a surefire test. But, as an example, this poor sole probably has a problem or two.

I Think My Computer Is A Zombie...

 

LOL. i thought of that too, but then again AV doesn't gurrentee you virus/spyware free. AV softwares can be a pain if you uses outlook/express/live mail etc, blocking pop/smtp, pop up for various things that tabs out when you're playing games.

i don't run it, but that's just me.

 

Hi Guys,

I would suggest NOD32. My experience with Symantec and others is really bad. Often it is hard to remove these "pre-installed" AV software items.

I have had great experience with NOD32.

M

http://www.eset.com/products/compare-NOD32-vs-competition.php