What Antivirus Do You Use?

notamchris

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Mar 20, 2003
Messages
86
Location
Canada
What is your favorite Antivirus program? I personally like Panda Antivirus Titanium. It is not as well known as the big ones (Norton, McAfee, etc), but it seems to be a pretty good one, plus it doesn't hog the system resources like Norton.
 

UK Owl

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Feb 15, 2003
Messages
250
Location
Wales, UK
AVG Antivirus from grisoft. Pretty much as good as all the others i.e. Norton, McAfee etc..

It allows you to update virus definitions regularly, but best of all it is Free for home users.
 

Beretta1526

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 9, 2003
Messages
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Location
SW Orlando
e-Trust InoculateIT from Computer Associates (CA). It's a corporate version. It takes very little CPU time and is almost completely transparent. It also allows you to update virus signatures when you want, or flexibly schedule them. I have no idea how much it costs though.
 

raggie33

*the raggedier*
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Aug 11, 2003
Messages
13,453
im just carefull plus i back up a lot. can have system restored in like 10 minutes
 

Chris M.

Flashlight Enthusiast
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Jan 17, 2001
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South Wales, UK
Another happy AVG user here. http://grisoft.net to get your free copy.

It`s due its weekly update in an hour or so. I`m careful what I do and it hasn`t caught anything yet, but there are always new things being unleashed that will nobble even the responsible users - just look at the Blaster worm. Who knows how the next one will propagate, and what it will do.

I believe having an updated AV program is obligatory if you`re connected to the `net (and use MS Windows). Don`t just think about the inconvenience to your self if you get infected, think also about the others who your compromised system will infect, and more who`ll be infected from those, and so on. With good quality free AV programs like AVG avaliable, just about no-one has any valid excuse not to use one. Mac users excluded of course!

</rant>

wink.gif
 

was_jlh

Enlightened
Joined
Oct 15, 2002
Messages
751
AVG

Might want to search the Cafe, lotso threads on this and related subjects lately.
 

The_LED_Museum

*Retired*
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Aug 12, 2000
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Federal Way WA. USA
I have Norton and AVG on this thing.
Norton wants a credit card now (which I don't have) to update itself and its virus definitions, but AVG is free.

Both of them do a scan of the system once a week, all by themselves. Norton hasn't found anything yet (surprise surprise surprise), but AVG has found a couple of "hoax" viruses on my D: drive. And that drive is not connected to the internet in any way (directly, or through load/save pointers), so it probably picked the bugs up when I had it as my C: drive in my old computer (prior to late June 2002).
 

_mike_

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Joined
Aug 14, 2003
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1,198
Location
Wa. State
I have AVG pn my wifes laptop and on my W98 partition. But I have heard decent things about Panda. One thing about running more than one anti-virus suite. You should only have one run at startup, and use the second one to perform manual scans with. If one is out of date and/or cannot be updated, you might as well un-install it off your computer.

It is also not advisable to run more than one software firewall on your computer at a time.

Mike
 

Xrunner

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Aug 21, 2002
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1,608
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Colorado
Norton here because it is what I have used for a long time. I've never had major problems with it except for the resources it uses.

-Mike
 

ZENGHOST

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Joined
Jun 29, 2002
Messages
434
Location
Mililani, HI
I use McAfee since it's free from work/school. I have it set to update every morning at 4:00am and run a full scan at 4:30am. I also use Housecall.antivirus.com occasionally as a secondary scanner.
 

Greta

Flashaholic
Joined
Apr 8, 2002
Messages
15,999
Location
Arizona
Interesting thing happened to me today with my Norton. I started my computer and got a virus warning. It was some file named "sus.exe"... described as a Download Trojan. Now if that doesn't scare the snot out of you first thing in the morning before the first cup of coffee, I don't know what does!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

Norton then told me that it couldn't be repaired. So I put the coffee on and started a full system scan. It found the file twice on my machine. I quarantined it and then moved to the net to find out what exactly this thing was and what damage it had done. I was VERY pissed when I found out what it was...

From this site

[ QUOTE ]
It's enough to make anyone nervous.... Suddenly your system begins running noticeably
slower. Or maybe you've seen some internet traffic you can't explain. Or there
are a few mysterious new icons in your system tray. What happened? Is it a virus?
A Trojan Horse of some kind? Or maybe that new piece of shareware you or someone
in your family just looked at installed a 'few extras' that weren't advertised.Startup
Sentry to the rescue! Startup Sentry is an extremely powerful yet easy to use
management tool designed to track and report on every application, service and
driver that loads automatically when Windows starts and alerts you when new
ones appear. With Startup Sentry you'll always know when something new or unexpected
is being launched 'under the radar'. You'll be alerted to any spyware, adware
or Trojan Horse applications that install themselves in your system's registry.
You'll learn about drivers that are still being loaded for hardware that you
might have removed long ago. You'll see any application 'extras' that load at
startup which you might not use, but are consuming precious resources.Most systems
load dozens, even hundreds of applications and drivers at startup. Startup Sentry
goes well beyond simply keeping tabs of the startup folder. It monitors multiple
areas of your system where startup items lurk. Whether you're arming yourself
against spyware, adware, Trojans and rogue applications, or you want to optimize
your system's startup routine, Startup Sentry can help.

[/ QUOTE ]

Who do I file the lawsuit against? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon8.gif
 

Negeltu

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Aug 28, 2003
Messages
724
Location
Oregon, USA
I use Norton AND AVG.. I find it very helpful to have to scanning systems. You can get a prog to manage two systems..but I wouldn't recommend for the common user. AVG is one of the best free antivirus progs I've ever used... Just keep your virus definition files up to date. I update weekly. InoculateIT messed up my system once and I had to reinstall my OS...haha... Maybe the corporate version is better.
 

Negeltu

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 28, 2003
Messages
724
Location
Oregon, USA
Sasha,

Could still be a trojan. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Just because it has the same name as a legitimate program doesn't mean that it's the same one. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I would keep it quarantined or delete it... Times are getting very dangerous in the digital domain.

I hold all files that trigger antivirus warnings suspect now. I've found multiple exe's that had the same name as good programs. They turned out to be very very bad. Now I have a FireWall...A Script Blocking Program...AND TWO antivirus programs... I'm not taking any chances anymore.. Too much hassle the amount of time it takes when you get infected..
 

eluminator

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Mar 7, 2002
Messages
1,750
Location
New Jersey
McAfee works well for me. The automatic updates means I don't have to remember to do it. With ZoneAlarm watching like a hawk, it's still done under my control and with my knowledge.
 
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