need Geek advice

tuaz · Post by **tuaz** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:12 pm

My Windows XP PC's Norton Internet Security 2006 subscription has almost expired. So I've got to decide if I want to renew the subs if I want updates to the anti-virus definitions and other stuff, or to go for another similar product.

I've heard various comments floating around that Norton isn't the best product for a home computer, that there are so many better such products around, bla bla.

So, what are all your recommendations? Price-wise, if it's around the price of the Norton package, I have no objections. These other companies that make similar products, are they for home use or more corporate high-end stuff?

I already use Zone Alarm as my firewall, and once in a while I run Ad-aware to clean the PC of ad- or spyware (there's usually not a lot, and pretty minor stuff like cookies, etc). We use Firefox and not IE as our browser, so we don't really have Active-X problems. Our home PC use is pretty uncomplicated and we've not had many problems.

I certainly don't need my computer security product to tell me there's something wrong with my Windows Automatic Updates setting just because I set it to "Notify only but don't download updates".

Thanks for your help.

MarcusR · Post by **MarcusR** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:59 pm

I have been using Avira AntiVir for a few years with great success, good, reliable and easy to use, also gives a good protection against trojans.

We use AntiVir and Sophos at work, but as AntiVir is free for personal use I don't think you can find a better option, my opinion.

BTW, I don't like to have any anti-virus program running continously in the background, steals to much power. I just ran disk scans on a regular schedule or scan files that I download.

You can download it here:
http://www.free-av.com

/MarcusR

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 3:08 am

I had Norton for a year after someone hacked my ebay account somehow. It ran out last November and I haven't noticed any difference, really. I think there is enough free stuff out there now that you don't need to buy a package unless if you want someone else to do all the programme collecting, downloading, updating, monitoring, etc.

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 4:36 am

I use Symantec, both at home and at work.

One of the problems my wife dealt with recently was a computer that was rendered unusable because the operator (a teenager whose omniscience was somehow faulty) downloaded every free anti-virus program he could find. It took her a few days to remove everything and rebuild the software.

Norton is okay-ish as an anti-virus agent. My wife has vigorous objections to it. Firstly that its automatic updates are weekly. They aren't driven by the vendor when updates are available or required. They are just weekly. You can update more often than that, but you have to do it manually. So if some new hellspawn virus appears, Norton may calmly wait up to a week until passing you the fix you need. By that time it could be too late.
Secondly, Norton takes up residence in your OS in ways that other anti-viral agents do not. As a consequence, Anti-viral software is liable to detect NORTON as a virus. Of course each anti-viral software will interpret other anti-viral software as a virus, but mostly they are easy to remove. Norton is not.

If you are getting rid of Norton you MUST uninstall it completely before installing any other anti-virus software. MUST, MUST MUST! Unless you want to scramble your machine. Seriously.

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 4:44 am

avanutria wrote:I had Norton for a year after someone hacked my ebay account somehow. It ran out last November and I haven't noticed any difference, really. I think there is enough free stuff out there now that you don't need to buy a package unless if you want someone else to do all the programme collecting, downloading, updating, monitoring, etc.

My wife deals with a lot of neigbourhood computers whose owners say pretty much what Beth just said. And they got a virus, and a trojan, and sixteen different varieties of spyware. And it takes a week to clean up your computer. They don't even notice anything is wrong until one day they watch someone elses computer and realise that theirs is really slow.
I advise you to run anti-virus software on a regular basis. And I recommend buying a proprietary one, that will get kept up to date.

The free anti-virus programs are not bad. But I can't help wondering about their commitment to upgrade when some new nasty thing appears.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 5:19 am

I haven't used anti-virus software since..hmm..around 1998 or so.

I've gotten a virus twice in my life...Once when I was reinstalling a system from scratch and I got hit in the half-an-hour between installing and patching..(now I use a CD with the patches pre-installed). It was easy enough to take care of and added about 5 minutes to my reinstall time.

Once, I got one when I let my 4 year old son play flash games on my computer, and some ad popped up that said "You are vulnerable! click here!" and sure enough he got my machine infected. Since then I've gotten him his own computer (he's 6 now), and taught him what's safe to click on and what's not.

I don't click on any weird emails, I don't download anything with .exe, .com, .vbs or .scr off of the internet unless it's from a reputable company. I use firefox + adblocker to block out the majority of ads (close to 99%).

Heck, I even stopped using ad-aware to search for spyware because since switching to Firefox, every time I ran the darn thing it came back with 0 hits. With internet explorer, just surfing the net could get you spywared....but firefox doesn't have the same vulnerabilities.

About every 4 to 6 months, I get a wild hair and download and run the demo version of some anti-virus software, and I have some pretty powerful process-exposing software (that shows every program running on the machine) due to the nature of my work. They just never turn anything up.

I'm firmly convinced that having good habits and the right surfing tools (opera, firefox, or something similar...not IE) will keep you pretty well protected.

tuaz · Post by **tuaz** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 5:56 am

Thanks to those who have replied so far. This PC is being used a lot by my parents. If it were just me, I wouldn't be so concerned about it. But since they are less careful or aware about the dangers (despite me reminding them ever so often), I would prefer to get something that can run as much in the background as possible (I can do the initial setup and configuration - not a problem) and which would require as little brainwork/action on their part as possible.

Any other suggestions?

harpmaker · Post by **harpmaker** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:26 am

I've been running Trend Micro Anti virus and Webroot spy sweeper on my new computer and have been happy so far with how they work. Both were suggested by some of the guys in the local Geek Squad at Best Buy

Both are set up to do a full sweep once a week, and they automatically update a several times a day. Except for a little popup notice about having finished a current update, I rarely notice them

My sister was having a lot of problems with Norton and finally dumped it. It was causing her system to run really slow and finally wouldn't allow her to access the Internet.

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:31 am

I have been using the McAfee suite for a few years. It is expensive and invasive and highly intrusive. It updates its virus definitions once or twice a day automatically. But my system is clean, too, so I take ithat as being the cost.

djm

buddhu · Post by **buddhu** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:33 am

Experiences will vary enormously, so you'll get loads of conflicting responses.

FWIW, I gave up Norton a while back because it seemed to suck on every machine it ran on (my work PC, my mother's PC, my wife's laptop and my laptop.

The firewall was fussy and the anti-virus was unreliable. The whole suite seemed to slow the machines and to conflict with other software.

After experimenting with a few combinations, I have used AVG Free antivirus and the Windows XP firewall for the last year (on Windows machines, my Linux box is different) with no problems at all. No conflicts, regular automatic updates... luxury! As far as I can tell, all infections and attempted attacks have been detected and blocked. Our machines run fine.

I also use Spybot S&D and Adaware to purge other spyware etc.

buddhu · Post by **buddhu** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:48 am

By the way, I recommend Nigel Gatherer's brilliant STM mandolin site.

http://www.nigelgatherer.com/

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 8:15 am

I also use AVG's free anti-virus program...I think I've been using it now for 4-5 years (maybe longer). I used it on my old computer, and when I bought my current computer (3ish years ago) I immediately uninstalled the free trial of Norton that was on the computer and put AVG on it.

Easy to use, doesn't seem to be a memory hog, and it updates daily if you set it to do that...and AVG does update it's stuff quite frequently.
Works great with Windows XP.

Eric

scheky · Post by **scheky** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 8:34 am

I'll second the AVG comments.

Brian Lee · Post by **Brian Lee** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:10 am

I'm actually interested in building a new system (PC) and am thinking I'd like to re-use my old hard drive - 200 gig - with the new system. My question is this however: I've seen adds for software that's supposed to wipe the hard drive completely clean before a fresh install. I was under the impression that a re-format of the disc would do that anyway, and here are discs stating that's not the case and that you need to buy their $30-$50 program to *really* wipe every thing clean. If there is spyware or some other nasty embedded deep in the registry, won't a re-format kill all that anyway?

Bowing to the more experienced...

Bri~

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:20 am

Brian, if the installer reformats the drive for you, it zeros out the
whole drive. This should get rid of all the data. But if the installer
reads the Mater Boot Record of the drive before formatting it, a
virus there could worm its way into the installer code running in
memory. So it is a safe practice to run a wiper off of write-
protected media (like a CD-R) before running the install program.

Wipers are also used when you are throwing away a hard drive,
because a determined theif can read data even though a drive has
been formatted... I think up to 6 times. This is because of the
magnetic properties of drives. So a wiper writes random data to
the same place several times, making it impossible to read old data.

If you want to be safe, there are free wipers available. I use
Darik's Boot and Nuke: http://dban.sourceforge.net/