Anti virus software

[Griselda]

I am looking for some anti virus software for my husband's computer. We have used one of the free antivirus programs for a while, but I think that we'd like to get something that's a little bit tougher, since I've heard that "you get what you pay for" regarding actual anti-virus capability.

I once used a free trial version of some mainstream av software (Norton? McAfee? I don't remember) and was not impressed. I didn't like the generic, doomsday warnings about "OMG HACKERS ARE GOING TO GET YOU!" all the time, particularly when coupled with the lack of specific information. It seemed like it was designed to keep a computer novice scared and in the dark, while providing minimal actual protection (or, at least it was unclear about what actual protection was provided).

I'm looking for something that's got good detection and removal ability, plus enough specific information to aid in a manual removal, should that be necessary.

Does anybody use something that they're particularly happy with?

[Roland]

I am looking for some anti virus software for my husband's computer. We have used one of the free antivirus programs for a while, but I think that we'd like to get something that's a little bit tougher, since I've heard that "you get what you pay for" regarding actual anti-virus capability.

I once used a free trial version of some mainstream av software (Norton? McAfee? I don't remember) and was not impressed. I didn't like the generic, doomsday warnings about "OMG HACKERS ARE GOING TO GET YOU!" all the time, particularly when coupled with the lack of specific information. It seemed like it was designed to keep a computer novice scared and in the dark, while providing minimal actual protection (or, at least it was unclear about what actual protection was provided).

I'm looking for something that's got good detection and removal ability, plus enough specific information to aid in a manual removal, should that be necessary.

Does anybody use something that they're particularly happy with?

AVG Antivirus is a good program, from what I hear. I use the free version on many of my family members. It seems to work just great. And be leery of anyone who says "You get what you pay for" when it comes to anything software-related these days, especially Open Source. Those people are either stuck in the past (the 80's), or were stupid enough to download something advertised on a pop-up that said "You've got spyware! Download our program or die!" No offense, but software just doesn't work like most things in the world these days, mostly due to the Open Source movement. I'd take a small-time programmer or company over a major one any day for most software things. Big corporations charge big money for very little value. Sometimes what you can get for free is vastly superior to what you can buy.

Avoid Norton like the plague. Once on your computer, it takes an Exorcism by the Pope himself to get rid of it. I'm not joking. And it can kill your computer.:PI've seen it. Just avoid ANYTHING that says Norton, period. As for Macafee, I've seen it used by some people who were happy with it. Never impressed me much.

Give AVG a shot, especially the free one to check it out. The company that makes it is Grisoft, IIRC. I believe it's also pretty inexpensive to buy, around $20 or $30 for the full version. Also, make sure you have some good spyware removal tool. I personally use Lavasoft's Ad-aware and Spybot - Search & Destroy. These two combined should take care of anything that could possibly pop up on your computer. I've been using them both for years and never had a problem.

[DeeBye]

We have used one of the free antivirus programs for a while, but I think that we'd like to get something that's a little bit tougher, since I've heard that "you get what you pay for" regarding actual anti-virus capability.

AVG is one of those free ones, but it's pretty slick. It's by far the least obtrusive antivirus software I have used.
http://free.grisoft.com

Does your ISP offer anything in the way of antivirus software? Mine offers Norton AntiVirus and Norton Personal Firewall free for customers. I've never used them, but I hear they work fairly well. *edit: Roland disagrees and he probably knows more about Norton than I do

To be quite honest, I don't even have an antiviral software package installed on my computer anymore. I just don't see the need. In all the years I've had a computer connected to the internet, I've never had a virus. I get the odd malware from time to time, but those are easy to clean up. If I ever get nervous about viruses, I just download multiple free or trial versions of antiviral software and visit Trend Micro's Housecall for an online scan.

*edit: Roland posted his reply as I was typing mine up. Curses

[Alram]

Norton stinks. It slows down the computer, and I have seen a few computers running Norton that were virus infested. I used McAfee for a couple of years and stopped when it kept me from being able to connect to the internet when I switched to cable a couple of years ago. I like AVG.

[Griselda]

Perhaps I should provide some more information. My husband is, um, not as meticulous about how he cares for his computer or what sites he visits from his computer. That's one reason that we don't share computers, and I don't have any sharing enabled on the internal network.

For me, I'm happy with my AVG free, along with Adaware and Spybot. For him, I'm not sure it's enough. We just spent the better part of yesterday cleaning his brand new computer, which was *just assembled on Friday*. :o It seems that something icky came in on an old hard drive.

He was running AntiVir on his old computer, and on his new one. I'm not sure how often he updated it or scanned it, or what he usually did when he had an infection (usually and infection are words that make me cringe when used together, I know). He wasn't able to clean out the most recent infection without my help.

I don't think that I can get him to change his surfing habits. I probably come across as preachy even when I try not to. However, I think I have his ear for the short term as far as installing and configuring some quality software that will help avoid this problem in the future. I want to take advantage of this opportunity and get something good set up.

Looking at some guides, I'd like to get either Kasperski or NOD32. I am concerned about the interface with NOD32. Does anybody have experience with this? Can it do auto-updates and auto-scans?

[Artega]

I use AVG Free myself, and haven't had any problems with it. I cut it off while gaming to minimize resource consumption, of course, but otherwise I leave it humming away in the background and it's never been particularly noticeable. Works pretty well for something that doesn't cost me a dime:)

I'd also think Ad-aware, Spybot, and ZoneAlarm would be valuable if your husband is as bad about internet security as he seems to be (for my money, I wouldn't touch the internet without ZoneAlarm; Windows Firewall just doesn't offer enough feedback about what it allows and disallows and lacks many useful options that ZoneAlarm has.)

EDIT: To support what Roland and others have said: Stay away from Norton. It consumes an unholy amount of system resources and it will not leave, ever. My sister runs it on her system and it brings everything to a crawl. I'm not fond of McAfee, either, as my stepfather uses it on his notebook and it's constantly complaining about nothing and eats a fair amount of resources as well.

[Taem]

Perhaps I should provide some more information. My husband is, um, not as meticulous about how he cares for his computer or what sites he visits from his computer. That's one reason that we don't share computers, and I don't have any sharing enabled on the internal network.

For me, I'm happy with my AVG free, along with Adaware and Spybot. For him, I'm not sure it's enough. We just spent the better part of yesterday cleaning his brand new computer, which was *just assembled on Friday*. :o It seems that something icky came in on an old hard drive.

He was running AntiVir on his old computer, and on his new one. I'm not sure how often he updated it or scanned it, or what he usually did when he had an infection (usually and infection are words that make me cringe when used together, I know). He wasn't able to clean out the most recent infection without my help.

I don't think that I can get him to change his surfing habits. I probably come across as preachy even when I try not to. However, I think I have his ear for the short term as far as installing and configuring some quality software that will help avoid this problem in the future. I want to take advantage of this opportunity and get something good set up.

Looking at some guides, I'd like to get either Kasperski or NOD32. I am concerned about the interface with NOD32. Does anybody have experience with this? Can it do auto-updates and auto-scans?

Sounds more like a browser problem to me. Get Firefox (ditch IE - there are IE plugins for Firefox so you can run Windows Update and such from Firefox) and DON'T DOWNLOAD ANYTHING unless you know what it is and trust where it is comming from. This alone should protect the computer from most viruses. While Norton will slow your computer down by about 15-20% (yes, you will notice a difference), it has a better firewall that what comes in Windows, a spam blocker if you use Outlook Express, pop-up blocker, and all sorts of nifty things without much need for customization. Norton is kinda like a no-brainer program; just install it and let it do its job - to protect your computer.

By switching to Firefox browser, not downloading anything unknown (and if he does insist on bad downloads, don't open/click on the file without scanning it first), and getting a good Firewall/Antivirus, he should be good to go. Honestly though, I've heard a lot of good things about AVG from just about everyone. I don't really like Zone Alarm however for firewalls... I prefer Norton or even Windows.

[Alram]

Definitely put IE away where it can't be found, and donot give it blanket permission with the firewall. You could also give him a non-admin account so that he is unable to download software.
firewall: Sygate is available for download from cnet.com--easy to use, but no longer updated.

Also consider some new free security stuff:
SiteAdvisor-- tells you whether any given site is safe with regard to links, downloads, spam, etc. It runs as an addon to the browser. I use this one.

DropMyRights--allows you to drop the admin rights (you need XP) to any program, such as your browser, even if you are running as the admin. This walls off the browser from doing any harm to your system if it does pick up a virus. I like the concept, but do find the instructions a bit too hard to follow.

VMWare Player andBrowser appliance--installs a separate browser into a virtual system which makes your browsing extremely safe. It is highly demanding of system resources--consumes tons of memory--so you need a high level system.

[[vL]Kp]

To go along with Alram's comments, stripping your husband of administrator rights for his daily browsing will do wonders to curb the severity of infections. However, it's definitely not a cure-all. In particular, be wary of using DropMyRights or similar if you expect to run into any serious malware. Assuming it works like Sysinternals tool PsExec (sorry, Microsoft link since MS bought out Sysinternals to silence them), DropMyRights drops your administrator rights (loosely speaking, the privileges of the group Administrators) from the targeted application, but still leaves it running with your rights (as GRIS\Husband, or whatever his account name is). That is, his processes can still write to his profile folders, so a rogue process could schedule a fully privileged job to run later. PsExec is pretty easy to use (run: psexec -d -l "C:\Program Files\Firefox\Firefox.exe" -- quotes mandatory due to the embedded spaces), but at least the last version I tried flickered a console window into existence as it started stripped processes. This could be confusing for a novice user if it is not mentioned in advance.

Note that, at least with a default install, non-administrative users can still download software and execute anything they download. They just won't be able to write it into a system directory without some privilege escalation exploit. You can curb this "execute any" with careful usage of NTFS permissions, such as by minimizing the set of directories where he has both write and execute permission. In particular, try to add a "Deny Execute" to GRIS\Husband for "C:\Documents and Settings\Husband" for all files and subdirectories. You can ignore that it would seem to deny folder traversal, since Microsoft ships Windows configured to grant Everyone the ability to bypass traversal checking (and trying to remove this right causes massive breakage). Providing that the browser saves with default permissions, he will need to manually reenable execution permission on anything saved there before it can be run. To check if the browser is honoring the default permissions, save something (preferably an executable) into the restricted directory, then bring up its properties in Windows Explorer. Look to see if there is a checkmark in the "Execute" permission for the entries which apply to his account. Caution: incorrect modification of NTFS permissions can create a real mess, so please back up any important data in the targeted areas before application. That said, I routinely do these types of modifications and haven't broken a system yet. NTFS permissions can be manipulated using Windows Explorer or the Microsoft-supplied command-line tool cacls. Be very careful with cacls, as it can do stupid/dangerous things without an "Are you sure you want to break this system?" confirmation. Its most egregious failing is that it defaults to replacing permissions instead of updating them.

Alternately, if your installation supports it, look into using a Software Restriction Policy to enforce the non-executability of the areas he can write. This feature was introduced in Windows XP, but I do not know if it exists in Windows XP Home Edition. From my limited experience playing with it, SRP provides a stronger alternative to the NTFS permissions, in addition to being easier to add/remove as needed. If your system supports this, post back and I will go into detail on how to use it. Software Restriction Policies are configured through some relatively obscure dialog. I think it is under Administrative Tools->Local Security Policy, but I have not configured it recently (and am presently away from Windows XP systems).

Finally, the bad news: securing a system in the face of a willfully reckless user is very hard. These modifications (and associated firewall / virus scanner comments from others) are worth doing, but the rewards of teaching him to be more careful may well outweigh the gains of imposing security through technical measures.

[Roland]

Sounds more like a browser problem to me. Get Firefox (ditch IE - there are IE plugins for Firefox so you can run Windows Update and such from Firefox) and DON'T DOWNLOAD ANYTHING unless you know what it is and trust where it is comming from. This alone should protect the computer from most viruses. While Norton will slow your computer down by about 15-20% (yes, you will notice a difference), it has a better firewall that what comes in Windows, a spam blocker if you use Outlook Express, pop-up blocker, and all sorts of nifty things without much need for customization. Norton is kinda like a no-brainer program; just install it and let it do its job - to protect your computer.

By switching to Firefox browser, not downloading anything unknown (and if he does insist on bad downloads, don't open/click on the file without scanning it first), and getting a good Firewall/Antivirus, he should be good to go. Honestly though, I've heard a lot of good things about AVG from just about everyone. I don't really like Zone Alarm however for firewalls... I prefer Norton or even Windows.

If memory serves she has a hardware firewall, so running a software firewall would be 1) redundant, and 2) conflicting, at least potentially, not to mention more overhead for HER to deal with, since her husband obviously isn't the savvy one when it comes to computers.

I had to spend the better part of a night, and some of a morning cleaning out my parents computer. They had somehow gotten ahold of a trial for Norton, along with one of those spyware "anti-spyware" programs. It took me well into the 3 AM stages to even BEGIN to unhook the claws of Norton from the computer, and by 3:30 I gave up for the night to let it do the rest of its thing. I came back in the morning, and finished it up in about 2 more hours. Then I set them up with Ad-aware, Spybot, and AVG Free, and set them all to run between 2 AM and 3 AM (the computer is always running, just like mine).

I'd recommend going this route, Gris, if you can (or will) let the computer run all the time. If not, it might be wise to just set up the anti-virus software to run a scan upon startup of Windows. I'm 90% certain AVG Free can do this, although I'm sure there are others, as well. Kasperski is a name I recognize, but I am not familiar with it (least, not since the last... 5 years? And even before that, I only knew it in vague passing. I never took a real close look at it). The other one I have never heard of, although that shouldn't be too significant.;)I keep my ear to the ground as best I can when it comes to computers, but I mostly stick to hardware. Software, I find what works well, and stick with it until something better comes along, or it starts to nosedive.

I, like so many others, never used to run any anti-virus, and never had a problem (until my ex-g/f... I still don't know what she did). I still don't, after I managed to unhook Norton from MY computer. I bought it out of desperation, used it until it expired, then shot it.:PI don't even know where the CD is, and I'm fine with that.

ZoneAlarm is an iffy thing. It USED to be great, long ago. Then it started to suffer Norton-like issues: comaptibility problems, resource issues, etc. Not nearly as bad as Norton, but I've heard stories, and it became a common rule of thumb that if you were having trouble with a game, disable ZoneAlarm, and you'd be fine, so I've been leery of them ever since. Personally, I stick with my hardware firewall. The bottom line to security is: you are never secure. Ever. There is ALWAYS a way to get at your data. It's just a matter of how far YOU are willing to go to protect your data, and how far someone else is willing to try to get it. Your average hardware or software firewall, combined with an up-to-date antivirus program are really all you need to keep out 99% of intruders. The rest... well, even your average technically savvy person doesn't possess the knowledge, skill, and resources to truly give them a hard time, so it's not even worth losing sleep over.

If you still have your old hardware firewall, that should be more than sufficient for your needs. Like others have said, use Firefox, Ad-aware, Spybot, and whatever antivirus you choose, and you'll be fine. You can only do so much without your husband contributing, so you may just want to get into the habit of cleaning his computer once a month.

Let us know how it goes.

[Chaerophon]

Hi Gris,

I guess I'm a bit of a square, but my combo of Norton AV and Webroot Spysweeper has prevented any intrusions for over a year now. It's been rock solid, and considering the problems that I've run into in the past despite the use of AVG Free, Spybot and Adaware, I'll take a little slowdown for the added security.

I REALLY like spysweeper.

[Selby]

The generic version of Norton Anti-Virus you can buy at most stores is terrible compared to what it used to be 10 years ago. Norton Anti-Virus CORPORATE edition is the bees knees though. VERY good program that is NOT a resource hog nor is it one of those giant leeches that attaches and never lets go. Unfortunately I don't know how to get a copy of it besides ordering it online from the manufacturer or a software vendor (not Alliteration Electronics), and my copy is 8.1 so I can't speak for what the latest and greatest has changed (hopefully nothing).

I used to be a systems administrator, ran a NAV server and managed updates and client rollouts from our one main AV server. Let's just say that Norton can make a good product when they want to, but the generic programs they sell to the average user are quite poor quality compared to how they used to be 10-15 years ago and what the VERY expensive higher end packages are.

[Flymo]

The generic version of Norton Anti-Virus you can buy at most stores is terrible compared to what it used to be 10 years ago. Norton Anti-Virus CORPORATE edition is the bees knees though. VERY good program that is NOT a resource hog nor is it one of those giant leeches that attaches and never lets go. Unfortunately I don't know how to get a copy of it besides ordering it online from the manufacturer or a software vendor (not Alliteration Electronics), and my copy is 8.1 so I can't speak for what the latest and greatest has changed (hopefully nothing).

I used to be a systems administrator, ran a NAV server and managed updates and client rollouts from our one main AV server. Let's just say that Norton can make a good product when they want to, but the generic programs they sell to the average user are quite poor quality compared to how they used to be 10-15 years ago and what the VERY expensive higher end packages are.

Surprised to see so many people slagging off Norton Antivirus. I've been using it for years and haven't had any problem with it at all (or infection). Of course Live Update takes a little resource when it updates your signature files (and annoyingly grabs the focus to tell you it's finished), but that only happens about once a week. I use the corporate editition too at work and there is little to choose between them.

[kandrathe]

Perhaps I should provide some more information. My husband is, um, not as meticulous about how he cares for his computer or what sites he visits from his computer. That's one reason that we don't share computers, and I don't have any sharing enabled on the internal network.

For me, I'm happy with my AVG free, along with Adaware and Spybot. For him, I'm not sure it's enough. We just spent the better part of yesterday cleaning his brand new computer, which was *just assembled on Friday*. :o It seems that something icky came in on an old hard drive.

He was running AntiVir on his old computer, and on his new one. I'm not sure how often he updated it or scanned it, or what he usually did when he had an infection (usually and infection are words that make me cringe when used together, I know). He wasn't able to clean out the most recent infection without my help.

I don't think that I can get him to change his surfing habits. I probably come across as preachy even when I try not to. However, I think I have his ear for the short term as far as installing and configuring some quality software that will help avoid this problem in the future. I want to take advantage of this opportunity and get something good set up.

Looking at some guides, I'd like to get either Kasperski or NOD32. I am concerned about the interface with NOD32. Does anybody have experience with this? Can it do auto-updates and auto-scans?

I would recommed one more thing; to add WinPatrol by BillP Studios. It watches the important areas of your system (Registry, Hosts, Startup, IE addins, etc) and has a little watch dog icon in the system tray. If anything is installed it barks and allows you to stop it if it is something you do not desire. You just have to teach your users to not accept the installs. It also allows you to look at what is running on the system, as services, in the background and unhook it as well. My standard is AVG, WinPatrol, and Ad-Aware.

I've finally convinced my family after the umpteenth rebuild (I've started to keep a Ghost image) of their computers that they should be more intentional about installs, make sure its reputable, and that they've put it in the proper place. And then, when in doubt, call in the experts. The other stuff I do standard on every build is to not allow anyone to set preview mode on e-mails (which could accidentally open a virus), and set up the auto install feature for upgrades to important software, like the OS, and the protections. Another idea I've been toying with is to set up MS Virtual Machine (currently free) with XP as a sandbox for those higher risk activities when research takes you into dangerous territory.

[Merlinios]

Aside from essentially agreeing with the popular sentiment so far, there are a couple of tidbits I can offer. My dad is currently running an antivirus called "Avast!" which was recommended to him by the tech support guy at his work (who is intelligent, though I have no idea how competent he is). I've never heard of the program meself, but it's something to look into.

I also had a nifty little program called HijackThis, which does basically nothing on its own, but shows running processes (the hidden variety as well), BHOs, toolbars, and whatever else may be going on, which is useful if you know what you're looking for. If not, it won't help ya much.

--me

[Chaerophon]

Aside from essentially agreeing with the popular sentiment so far, there are a couple of tidbits I can offer. My dad is currently running an antivirus called "Avast!" which was recommended to him by the tech support guy at his work (who is intelligent, though I have no idea how competent he is). I've never heard of the program meself, but it's something to look into.

I also had a nifty little program called HijackThis, which does basically nothing on its own, but shows running processes (the hidden variety as well), BHOs, toolbars, and whatever else may be going on, which is useful if you know what you're looking for. If not, it won't help ya much.

--me

My parents are using the free version of Avast! and from what I can tell, it is a ridiculous resource hog. YMMV. I've been trying to convince them to convert to something that costs money for years. As far as I'm concerned, this is one area where it's worth the investment.

[HowGozit]

Hmm - good suggestions by others.. To add my 2GP worth. I use Trend Corporate edition, and it is fine. I believe that Trend PC-Cillin is OK too - but I'd avoid anything that sets up as a "Internet Security Suite" (including the Trend one) as they seem to be afflicted with bloat.

NAV used to be fine - but I agree with those that say that it is now a resource hog and a pain to uninstall. It seemed to become painful around the end of 2003, and that is when I converted to Trend (simple for me, as my company uses it wth a site license). I have installed AVG on a few computers for close family, and it seems to work well and clear stuff off fine (and I have had to use it in anger - so I have some confidence there). For those PC's I also use MS Windows Defender for spyware and the Windows Firewall. Not perfect, but usually good enough. There is no problem with using a hardware firewall and an OS firewall together. It works fine and gives few problems if the OS firewall is configured to open ports for games or sharing on the local LAN. I restrict holes to specific addresses on the local network (all my PC's use static addresses on a private class C network).


I have heard fairly nice things about NOD32 and Avast. But no experience there (I used NOD32 about 4 years ago - it worked fine then - but I haven't used it since).


There seems to be a big problem with a lot of AV suites with bloat. NAV and McAffee are 2 examples.

I agree with the use of Firefox. Our PC's use that as default and only use IE for updates. IE 7 shows some potential - but you will find that some software breaks (mainly LAN admin stuff.) I even stick to Firefox 2 on the Mac and Linux laptops.

Hope this helps,

HowGozit (relurking).

[Flymo]

Well, I withdraw my endorsement of Norton (Symantec) Antivirus. Today it errored and gave me a link to a support page which told me I must uninstall and then reinstall it following instructions which were revealed step by step. When I got to the reinstall part, it told me that if I'd bought it less than a year ago I could download it again from the online shop, otherwise I'd have to buy it again. I bought it three years ago and have paid an annual renewal and upgrade fee twice, most recently 6 months ago

I'm now using AVG.

[Zippyy]

Linux. :whistling:

[roguebanshee]

Linux. :whistling:

Taking the time needed to learn about your computer and how to move around the internet can do it too...

Computer illiteracy is a fairly large factor in virus outbreaks.