AVG Free Discontinued

[-Chris-]

An AV I used to use was Webroot Spy Sweeper: http://www.webroot.com and I think they have a free version somewhere which is quite good for scanning and removing viruses/bugs/worms (etc). The old version I used to have once your free trial expired would still let you scan you harddrive fro possible threats which is always nice. My current AV at the moment is non-existant, I used no AV

[Moira]

A few years ago if you possessed a bit of common sense and didn't want to do anything too risky on the net, you could get away with that. My Dad for instance simply never opened an email attachment, even when it was a harmless jpeg.

Now however, I would regard anti virus, firewall and anti spyware programs as absolutely essential. Only if you don't connect to the internet might you get away with not having these.

[nihil]

Hi Folks,

I think the horizon is getting a little blurred these days as the traditional AV vendors are now going into the "security suite" market?

Now that we have ADSL, cable, satellite and so on, I can see an argument for not having a traditional AV scanning product. You just run one (or more) of the online scanners.

The issue in my mind would be interactive protection which is what the "security suite" and specialist anti-malware applications offer?

The last time I got infected was from a 5.25" floppy disk.............and the machine has a 10Mb hard drive (yes.....megabytes)

You certainly need a firewall, and I am glad to hear that the new MS one that ships with VISTA will be handling both incoming and outgoing traffic.

As for AVG, the problem that I reported in another thread where it tried to update itself in the middle of a scheduled scan appears to have been resolved.

It now wants me to reboot the computer to complete the update

[Moira]

Yes, the issue with online scanning is you get no real time protection which can be very useful.

Your AVG update wants you to reboot? That's never happened to me.

[nihil]

Hi Moira,

You will usually only get the reboot if the scanning engine or some other major component has changed.

This was a strange situation (which I have seen three or four times) where the update tried to start in the middle of the scan.

Please picture the situation: user is up in the morning and wants to check e-mail and so on. They are around for maybe 60 minutes before they leave the house? If the scanner and the updater are to run they are set in that time window.

What is happening now, is that the system seems to load a startup job for the next reboot that will read and apply the stored update files. That lets the scan run.

Electricity is expensive over here?

[Moira]

Hmm .... I'd be tempted to reinstall it. It shouldn't be doing that. Mine scans at 8 am and updates whenever it feels like it but this is usually a very quick task and always needs my intervention to OK it, which if it tried to do in the middle of a scan, I would refuse.

[brokencrow]

Common sense still works actually. I don't run AV apps. Too much overhead
on the older units I run. No Internet Explorer for me, and no email clients
either (web-based only). I use online scans like Panda and Trendmicro. If
I get infected (can't remember the last time), I prefer the small, dedicated
removal tools from Symantec. Works for me. Still.

[The Duck]

I use AV's when I can (I prefer avast!) but you don't need them. Like brokencrow said, just takes a little common sense. On my gaming computer all I have is Spybot, Adaware, and Firefox and it's connected behind my router and it runs as smooth and clean as the day I built it. And it's the computer I mostly use. No need for a resource hogging AV on my gaming computer...

BTW, did you guys actually think you could get rid of me?

[-Chris-]

Ofcourse, if you do not like AVs then a proxy server for all your online stuff is often a good idea. Out of curiosity, who uses a proxy?

[morganlefay]

Ofcourse, if you do not like AVs then a proxy server for all your online stuff is often a good idea. Out of curiosity, who uses a proxy?

I dont understand this statement...if you use a proxy...you dont get viruses???

wow....even if I click on everything.....open attachments...download warez

My understanding of a proxy....is masking your IP...and\or using the cache of the proxy for faster browsing....specially with dialup.

I never knew they protected you from malware infections????

Can you explain?

MLF