Saturday, October 5, 2013

Antivirus programs


I have used Norton and Kaspersky, which costs money. Currently I use Avast, which is free. If you look around, and decide to go for a free brand, make sure and completely remove the previous antivirus program. You may find removal tools on the internet or you may have to email the company, and they will email you the removal tool, which you will download and run on your computer. What antivirus program do you use?

35 comments:

ndspinelli said...

Are you a hacker? Why do you want to know? You are creeping me out? Are you stalking me?

deborah said...

Moi?

ndspinelli said...

Oui, vous!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I've tried a few. Verdict is still out on the one that works.

deborah said...

You should be practicing your Italian.

Palladian said...

What antivirus program do you use?

Macintosh OS.

Mumpsimus said...

MalwareBytes is free, and very good.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I use Apple. On this, I, Palladian and even Shouting Thomas can all agree. My conversion came with a blue screen last year on a PC I'd only used for four years. Not worth it and enough to never go back.

Windows is coming up with some cool things on phone devices and I love how they revived Nokia (less sure about how they'll now seek to control it), but for computing I think the best thing any consumer could do for himself and to keep the market vibrant is to tell Steve Ballmer to take a flying fuck. At the least, it might help him improve his jumping skills.

deborah said...

I've used Malwarebytes in a virus situation...directed by the IT people online.

Ritmo, did you get the blue screen fixed?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I didn't think blue screens can often get fixed. The computer nerds add the term "of death", to the first part. In either event, it's often bad news. I found a way to retrieve files, but that was that. The thing had just passed a tune-up inspection, too.

deborah said...

Yes, I've heard 'blue screen of death.' Yeah, I've totally messed up a computer, then. Luckily, there weren't that many pictures on it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I don't think it's coincidence that MS and Google are encouraging use of a cloud back-up. Apple already stores your iTunes slections in their cloud. With phones becoming as powerful as computers, this only further encourages the trend.

deborah said...

Barring satellites being put out of commission, it seems logical. Except for super important things you need access to?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I'd trust the cloud more than one computer. Things in the cloud are backed up on multiple servers, each of which are in huge temperature-controlled state-of-the-art rooms with more technology invested into keeping them functional than you could imagine. Servers invest a hella lot of moolah and infrastructure into that. There will always be a way to access the web, eventually, unless your ISP's completely incompetent, still. But with phone access becoming the norm, that's less tolerable. It would be like telling consumers to be satisfied accepting intermittent phone service.

deborah said...

Thanks, Ritmo, that's nice to know. I love my Kindle.

'Night, all, I'm on eastern time :)

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Some of these shots are at more than one site, as there are typically back-up sites to build some redundancy into the system and save it from the sensitivity of lacking back-up. You can check for news on just about any major software firm to see how these designs replicate - specifically GOOGLE's, where they'll talk up how much renewable energy they'll use. And to them it matters - their energy uses (and those of company's with similar reach) are astronomical.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Good night.

bagoh20 said...

eset nod 32

It's what all the cool kids use.

Known Unknown said...

Yeah, I'm an Apple guy and don't need to worry too much about Norton, etc.

My father has a Dell and he can't ever get away from the constant anti-virus nonsense.

bagoh20 said...

Anti-virus is pretty invisible now days in the PC world. I haven't seen a virus in years, nor even think about it. It's all automatic, and behind the scenes now.

edutcher said...

I've used just about all of them - Norton, McAfee, AVG, TrendMicro...

Right now, Kaspersky seems to do the job.

AllenS said...

Be very careful of AVG. When I bought my used computer, the business put in AVG. They said it was free, but after one year AVG wanted money. Then before, way before the year was up, they wanted more. Lots of forums on how AVG will fuck your shit up to get more money. I had a virus and told AVG about it. They wanted $240 to remove the virus.

ndspinelli said...

Also going to France.

Paco Wové said...

I'm kinda like Palladian and Ritmo, except even more effete and snooty, because I use Linux.

deborah said...

Paco, I knew you were brilliant :)

Thanks for the tip, Allen. That is criminal. I'm satisfied with Avast. With the update, they try to get you to upgrade to the $20/yr option, but I hit the free button.

Ed, I didn't care for Kaspersky...it didn't seem to want to cooperate.

Zut alors, tu es bon chance, mon ami!

Paddy O said...

"I didn't think blue screens can often get fixed"

Blue screens of death can almost always be fixed. I'm nothing near a computer expert, but have never run into a Blue screen that wasn't recoverable. Some take just a restart, some take a bit of fancy wrangling using the recovery software that comes with the computer.

Computer techs don't like to 1) admit they don't know the exact problem 2) spend a lot of time on something when they want to sell you a new computer.

I have a very useable laptop I got in Jan 2007, and my moms laptop still functions fine and it's from early 2005.

If the computer turns on, it's almost always fixable. Blue screen usually means a problem with Windows, in my experience, which means the hardware is just waiting for a kind and patient soul to help it see light again.

Paddy O said...

Antivirus programs are a tricky bunch. I have one I have to use for my school job. But other than that I don't keep one running regularly.

I do occasional scans and such, but the key is really preventative. The reason why AV software is tricky is that more often than not they'll make your computer run slower or cause other problems, unless you have a huge amount of memory.

A good firewall is definitely worthwhile. But I agree about Malwarebytes. There's a lot of free scans online too. I used House Call by Trend Micro for a long while.

deborah said...

Paddy, I don't see how you can get away with using one full time...will your luck run out?

Palladian and the rest of you Mac users...hmmm. I wonder :)

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Well I knew it wasn't 2) because he's fixed tons of my stuff and there was nothing for him to sell me. It was a second opinion, too. Must be a reason they're seen as bad, because the non-recoverable scenario isn't fun enough to be assuaged with stats. It's like saying that a side of your house falls away, but you can put it back together - usually. I won't go through it again, and yes, there's something about the prelude that was a non-starter for a hypothetical "next time". I even went through all the steps that it recommended but still had a bad enough feeling to know before it was confirmed. You guys can chance the computer coroners all you want, but I'm with the Cupertino and Scandinavian penguin folks (not from a consumer standpoint on the latter, but in terms of solidarity) from now on.

Paddy O said...

Rhythm, it's a bit like buying a car. If you don't have any money and really need a car, you do what you need to in order to keep a car running, and often find that once you do a burst of repairs the car runs great for another 100,000.

If you have funds and don't want to deal with the bother, it's always easiest to just get a new one. So, no judgment from me. Just my experiences. What's funny, though, is I have a number of friends who have gone through a few macs in the time I've had my old Dell. Hard drive, other issues. Wherever our lemons land, we go to the other tree.

Paddy O said...

Deborah, I think I'm fine. I have fairly conservative browsing habits, use Firefox, and mostly work from home. The reason I dare to do so is because I've had so much trouble with antivirus programs messing up my computer or people I know, including being a root cause of those Blue Screens. Taking them out brings some risk, but a much healthier computer overall.

Aridog said...

I'm late to this show, and I am NO computer expert, however I use Vipre A/V and Malwarebytes Pro. Vipre has multiple very user friendly operator controls, is compatible with Malwarebytes, and it can be turned off/on easily if something gets by it and you need to run ComboFix. Malwarebytes doesn't interfere with ComboFix.

I tried several A/V and malware packages before settling on what I use. My favorite of all time A/V was the Symantec Corporate Edition version furnished by the US Army to its computer users to take home...however, this summer Symantec ceased to support it....So I went shopping.

I do NOT have a choice in using A/V and other protective packages, firewalls, etc., because even now, I occasionally consult with my old office and cannot be liable to transmitting any malware to those servers....nor do I want any form those servers...something known to happen.

Furhter, up to now I have no choice but to stay in the Windows PC world, way too much expensive software to try to change now to Apple OS...and then just have to clone Windows on a Mac. That, and between my better half and and me, we run three computers, all with similar requirements for Windows compatibility.

My other security steps are redundant external back up hard disk drives, 2 each, with the PC running both Acronis True Image and Retrospect back up software (Retrospect provides actual duplicates...which allows me to modify an old file without re-loading it on to my main HDD). I use Acronis for total back up of everything, and Retrospect for double back up of duplicates of everything under the "User" folder of Win 7 Pro.

Better half's main PC has RAID 1 and a back up HDD run by Acronis True Image.

Leland said...

I don't install Sun's Java. That solves most problems.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I had a Dell last me at least a good eight years and only got a new PC because the bugs/outdated compatibility left me needing a new one simply so that I could properly use iTunes. True story. As far as Macs being replaced, I'll bet that's more due to their hardware going outdated. It's true, Apple's not too keen on allowing you to upgrade hardware on your own - they don't even allow replaceable batteries and use a dead battery as an excuse for replacing the device (however small) that it powered. But I'm happy with what I'm currently using and don't see a need to replace it for at least as long as I had the Dell. Sometimes you get an appliance at the cusp/zenith of a lot of innovation and have a good feeling that the market's not going to make your current model obsolete any time soon. I'm usually good at guestimating those sorts of things and the fact that we'd still been in the thick of a long-extended economic recovery didn't "hurt" either. ;-)

Unknown said...

Nice Info! But for the antivirus software to work appropriately, it should be ensured that they are installed correctly and configured properly. For the ones who find it hard to do it on their own, the Norton tech support specialist come in to assist.

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