AVG Free is being discontinued as of 01.15.07 ... I was hoping I could get some suggestions for some other free AV software. I have tried a few, but I was wondering what AO would recommend. Thanks in advance.
westin
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AVG Free is being discontinued as of 01.15.07 ... I was hoping I could get some suggestions for some other free AV software. I have tried a few, but I was wondering what AO would recommend. Thanks in advance.
westin
My subscription to NAV ran out last month and I was never a fan of Norton, it really seemed to slow things down.
I read a few reviews and found Avast which is free for the personal, non commercial user. I haven't got infected yet, it seems to the job.
Hi Guys,
The message from AVG was a little "economical":D
AVG 7.1 is going into honourable retirement..................... but, if you go to the site, you can get AVG 7.5 FREE EDITION :D
Please post back if you have any problems:)
It's just a new release that cannot be handled in an update..................
Yep, already got it 7.5.428
;)
Thanks Nihil, I appreciate the info... I had just assumed that they were doing away with the free edition altogether.
Yeah I wondered about that for a moment .... I got the new release of AVG and am still enjoying a free version.
Well you could always switch to Antivir go to www.freeav.com
You could try CA E-Trust Antivir free for a year
http://home3.ca.com/Microsoft/Default.aspx?lang=en-US
Working fine for me for the last few months.
I've been using avast for a while now. (about 6 months)
I've had no problems with it so far.
Avast is good - I have it installed on Vista and it's worked from even the earlier beta releases.
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 :D
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.
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:D
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.
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?:D
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.
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.
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? :p
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?
Quote:
Originally Posted by -Chris-
I dont understand this statement...if you use a proxy...you dont get viruses??? :rolleyes:
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
I don't understand that statement either. -Chris-, tell me how using a proxy to browse the web protects you from virus threats?? In fact, if anything the reverse would be true, ie the quest for working proxies would more likely lead you to the world of malicious software and viruses.
-Chris-,
I think that you are getting confused. Sure the proxy hides your true IP address, but if you are communicating with a website, you have made contact and packets are passing to and fro.
I think that you might be getting confused with the concept of running your internet browser in a "sandbox application"?..............."SandboxIE" and "Fortres Grand Virtual Sandbox" are two of these that spring to mind. Here your browser and its activities are isolated from the main guts of your system.
When you close your session the contents of the sandbox are dumped, along with anything nasty that might be in there;)
You also have to bear in mind that you connect to your ISP first, and then to a proxy. If you set up a machine with a free copy of the Zone Alarm Firewall on it and just connect to your ISP then leave it for an hour or so you will be amazed at the number of probes that have come from your ISP's address block. Worms, Trojans, Hackers, Viruses.............God knows what because the firewall stopped them.
:)
I once set up a proxy which was actually an external server, and my computer connected to that external server, the external server connected to what I wanted e.g. a download site, the download went through the server was scanned and then went to my computer, so even if virus etc was downloaded it wouldn't even come close to infecting my computer.
I would grab Avast. It's awesome and it goes easy on your system resources. IMHO, it's the best out. It's free too!
DISLEX I also use Avast! (me hearties......and don't bogart that bottle of grog:D) and find it very good............. very low on resource demands?
-Chris- I don't think that you quite understand the issue? a "proxy" is generally just a "postman" for a variety of users; all it really does is handle traffic for multiple users.
Now, on a network, you will find "hubs", "switches" and "routers". Once again, they are directing traffic, and are not security per se.
You described a situation where you used an external server, and there were security measures in effect there.............that is not the effect of a proxy......that is simply an external server.............. like quite a few hardware routers (decent ones) will have firewall and spam filtering capabilities?
:)
I agree with DISLEX - Avast is very good, it's free and it works with Vista!
Well, I mean it doesn't bog the computer down like I have seen others do. Norton can slow computers down to a crawl. I have never had a problem with Avast causing any type of lag. Even during an update, things run very smooth. As far as I can tell, it doesn't throw files all over your computer either. Avast is very clean, easy to use, and they seem to always be doing a great job on keeping up with all the virus updates and what not.Quote:
Originally Posted by nihil
Dislex..... sorry mate, I put the "?" to ask for agreement :D
It is very low in resource requirements IMO..... Norton, McAfee and some of the others are pretty demanding.
:)