AVG 7.1 Free is going away...

[Elumia]

Danny,
I've installed it on 3 computers with a router. They ask you for your comcast mail address and password in order to install.

Also, I use ccleaner to help clean up the harddrive. It does wonders for your performance.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

I also notice file hippo has the other freeware anti virus being bandied about in this thread.

Mark

[SkipperSue]

I've been using Kim Kamando's advice for a few years now. She's where I found out about AVG in the first place. Go to the downloads and her favorite picks are there.

http://www.komando.com/

She comes on the radio on Sundays around here and if I'm not in town I can't get her, I live out in the sticks too far.

[repete]

What Adware and spyware programs does everyone prefer/recommend??

Free download if available.

I presently have Ad-aware SE and Spybot S&D.

Does anyone use SpywareBlaster 3.5.1? Good? Bad?

It sounds interesting:
SpywareBlaster doesn't scan for and clean spyware--it prevents it from being installed in the first place. SpywareBlaster prevents the installation of ActiveX-based spyware, adware, dialers, browser hijackers, and other potentially unwanted programs. It can also block spyware/tracking cookies in IE and Mozilla/Firefox, and restrict the actions of spyware/ad/tracking sites. With the built-in Check for Updates feature, you can help ensure your protection is up-to-date. SpywareBlaster also includes a System Snapshot feature, which lets you take a snapshot of your computer in its clean state and later revert, undoing many changes made by spyware and browser hijackers.

I am currently using Adaware SE, Spywareblaster, and Windows Defender.

Nothing but good to say about all three. I like the way Spywareblaster works, it blocks 'em before they get in!! I was using Spybot before, it worked ok as well, but why let it in if you don't have to!?

Pete

[halfdome, Danny]

Danny,
I've installed it on 3 computers with a router. They ask you for your comcast mail address and password in order to install.

Also, I use ccleaner to help clean up the harddrive. It does wonders for your performance.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

I also notice file hippo has the other freeware anti virus being bandied about in this thread.

Mark

Mark, That's amusing. I use to do all that in DOS without any program to download, don't recall how to do it since Windows 98 went bye-bye. Thanks for the info on McAfee & Comcast. Danny

[Nitetimes]

Sorry if the Avast gave some of you any trouble, that was not my intention. I guess my system is fast enough it doesn't notice the difference. Like I said, there is really nothing wrong with AVG I just prefer Avast now. By all means use what works best for you. Just avoid Norton and MacCaffee, they suck.





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[madjack]

Sorry if the Avast gave some of you any trouble, that was not my intention. I guess my system is fast enough it doesn't notice the difference. Like I said, there is really nothing wrong with AVG I just prefer Avast now. By all means use what works best for you. Just avoid Norton and MacCaffee, they suck.





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Rich, I used AVG for a long time....after doing some investigating I switched to AVAST...I believe that difference in speed may be due to the fact that AVAST scans deeper and more thouroughly than AVG...this was proved to me when I installed AVAST and it found a number of bugs hidden deep in some backups that AVG had never found...Vb Tests have shown that AVAST is superior to anything on the market...free or paid....
madjack

[Nitetimes]

Jack, I agree, but I think it's that thoroughness (?) that is slowing down some folks system. If you don't travel a whole lot it may be overkill, but it works for me. Even my laptop doesn't have any trouble with it.
I'll use it regardless, I like it.

[mikeschn]

MJ,

I know someone said I could use both... could I manually start Avast manually once every few days or so, and still use AVG for the daily stuff?

Mike...

[Nitetimes]

I don't see why not. Keep in mind the first thing it'll do when you start it is update itself.
I've used them both together for quite a while, they seem to play well together.
I'm not sure how much good it'll do to run it every few days tho, unless you do a full scan when you run it.

[Arne]

Partial Quote: (do a search on avg vs avast and you will get tons of information)

--------------------

Over a period of time it's possible to tabulate how often individual AV products receive the VB100 award. Here are the results for some major AV products:

Nod32 10/10 100%
Norton 9/9 100%
F-Secure 9/9 100%
Trend 8/8 100%
Kaspersky 9/11 82%
McAfee 8/10 80%
AVG 6/8 75%
Norman 7/10 70%
F-Prot 6/9 67%
Avast 6/9 67%

At first take this is not comforting news for users of the free Avast and AVG products nor indeed for any user of the lower ranked products. More so when you consider that we are talking about the ability of these products to detect viruses and worms that were in mass circulation at the time of the tests.

However the results are deceptive.

First a product "fails" the monthly VB100 test if doesn't detect every single trojan in the test set of 100 trojans. A product that gets 99 right out of 100 is flunked. That's tough.

It's not only tough, it's misleading. It suggests that products are capable of detecting 100% of viruses. This is simply not true; no product can detect all malware.

Secondly, I strongly suspect that the major vendors put a highly targeted effort into ensuring that their products pass the VB100 test. That's because they have come to realize the marketing significance of these tests.

Now there's nothing wrong with that. However the effort they put into their products to pass the VB100 tests may not reflect the effort they put into detecting other viruses outside of those in the VB100 test set.

Put another way, it's quite possible for an AV product to pass all the VB100 tests yet have mediocre virus detection for malware products other than those in the VB100 tests

[Elumia]

Site that compares Antivirus

http://www.av-comparatives.org/

Can get a free scan at trend micro, they have a Java based scanned or Active x version. I have Mcaffe, sybots, yahoo norton anti-spy and I still found some adware with the trend micro scan. (takes a while)

http://housecall65.trendmicro.com/

Mark

[Classic Finn]

What Program do you find good for fighting spam ..That stuff drives us nuts ?

Classic Finn

[mikeschn]

The delete key. It's the only thing that really works.

But it helps to use Outlook or Outlook Express or something similar, where the delete key works fast.

Web based mail is painful when dealing with spam.

Mike...