virus protection

[naturalmanwa]

My protection expires in a few days and I am wondering what some of the better ones are that are available currently? Right now I have Trend Micro Internet Security.

[sdcal]

I've been happy with Norton Internet Security. The newest version seems much less intrusive then earlier versions.

[Home Nudist]

I've been using AVG FREE version for over a year without any problems.
http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition

AVAST is another FREE program that is highly spoken of. (Never tried it.)

ZONE ALARM is a good FREE fire wall, which seems to be working well.

I find a lot of the expensive commercial programs to be memory hogs and do strange things in the background; conflict with things like "System Restore."

Norton was a piece of garbage. It would tell me a virus had gotten in, yet, when I did a full scan, it didn't locate any. :shrug:

Took my system a full 10 minutes to completely boot up with Norton. I quit using it 4 months short of its expiration date. Couldn't stand it anymore. Now, I boot up in 2 minutes.

[Stu2630]

HomeNudist

Now, I boot up in 2 minutes.

Buy a Mac. I boot up in 23 seconds. ;)

And I don't worry about viruses.

Stu

[NakedGuy_117]

you can use either Kapersky+ internet security its really good or McAfee Antivirus

[Agde]

There are many (http://internet-security-suite-review.toptenreviews.com/) _ software (http://www.consumersearch.com/antivirus-software) _ reviews (http://www.pcworld.com/article/158157/top_internet_security_suites_paying_for_protection .html).

It partly depends on how geek you are. Uber-geeks love Kaspersky. Mainstream geeks swear by the 2009 version of Norton (putting Norton 360 on non-geek friend's machines who want to install it and forget it). No enterprise tech would install anything but McAfee. No self-respecting college student would be caught with anything but AVG.

Personally, I just switched to Norton Internet Security 2009 from Kaspersky for my workhorse laptop, but have McAfee at work, and AVG on all the home machines. I've run each on the other machines, just to doublecheck, and they all seem to do an equally good job at keeping things clean without any noticeable system slowdown.

[maxnude]

If you happen to be on Comcast Hi Speed cable connection, they provide at no charge the full McAfee anti virus suite, firewall, and family filtering.

[naturalmanwa]

Thanks to all who replied. I am on Comcast, and one of the customer service reps told me sometime ago about the free program offered. I still had some time to go on my current program and didn't bother with it. I inquired here to see what is available out there that works good. I will look into the stuff mentioned here. Thanks again to all.

[roaddog]

The one that I use is Avast, it is free and only has one irritating issue, when it has performed an update it tells you so, in an american accent. ARGHHH!!!.
Other than that it is great.
Cheers
Mick

[usuallylurk]

HomeNudist



Buy a Mac. I boot up in 23 seconds. ;)

And I don't worry about viruses.

Stu

Not yet, you don't.

A lot of the computing world is under the impression that the Macs are immune from virus infection because of some magic science.

They aren't.

The only reason you probably haven't seen viruses is for two reasons --

1) The Mac community is minute, compared to the rest of the world that is on Windows.

2) The business community is not on the Mac whatsover, for all intents and purposes.

Virus and trojan writers know that their work is very short-lived, because the big three of virus protection (Kaspersky, Norton, McAfee) are on their toes -- once a virus hits the real world, they come up with an antidote, very quickly.

So for a scumware writer to be effective, he has to cause the most damage in the shortest period of time, then go to work on his next variant of the diseases he spreads.

It's not worth their while to go after Mac users. There aren't enough of them.

Not yet.

But when the day comes, you won't be able to hide. Oh, by the way, the virus protection / malware / scumware removal tool writers? I don't know how much they're doing on the Macs right now.

But when the day comes and the Mac community finally gets hit, and there's no way out .. you'll know.

I was an IS/IT manager in 1990-91 for a company that had both platforms. Apple and what was then called IBM-PC. Wanna know why we dumped the Apple network?

Two reasons.

One, the world was going in the other direction, and we decided that it was the better way to go. The new technologies , new software, and our clients' computer systems would be there, and not on Apple/Macs.

Two, our Apple/Mac net was hit with a virus.

When the day comes and someone writes a sticky virus for the Mac, and it gets around (and yes, most Mac users have no protection on their computers, so it's more likely to spread) -- YOU'LL KNOW.

[Bob]

The one that I use is Avast, it is free and only has one irritating issue, when it has performed an update it tells you so, in an american accent. ARGHHH!!!.


You can turn that off: Program settings - sounds - disable avast! sounds.

[mmacdonaldca]

I liked AVG when I had it as well. Now I have a suite of protection programs that are included with my broadband service strat from the provider. Works like a charm. Of course nothing is fool proof :( Just keep running the clean up and update a lot, what ever you use. As for the Mac - Virus question...could not agree more with the poster UsuallyLurk. Though I will say, now that Mac is making it easy to use Windows based programs...watch out!

[1Ace]

Switch to Linux and your worries will disappear...

[bishop5508]

My 2 cents… Go with the MacAfee as long as you have Comcast, you’ll have their top suite and it will always be updated.. .Their firewall is so so but better than any thing else you where probably looking at. If you do not have Comcast I’d use the AVG.. Don’t pay for the anti-virus as a lot of the freeware is pretty good now a days.