Call to Change PC Security

Makes one wonder if the AV companies aren't surreptitiously sponsoring some of the malware creation, while humbly offering their free scanning software to locate and eradicate that which they may have had an indirect hand in developing in the first place.

The "feature" of real-time protection always comes with a price tag for mostly all detection programs. Quite a nice bait and switch advertising campaign: "Here's our free software to scan for crap that is already on your system. If you want it to be stopped before it gets on your system, you have to pay for protection."

From what I have been reading lately, most of the newer malware is concealed within some allegedly useful freeware program, so it bypasses AV and spyware/malware detection, even from most paid programs, since you agreed to download and run the executable.

I just don't know about these AV companies, it's been said before that some of them plants a couple of fake viruses onto your system, when you do a "free" scan. Then they want you to pay to remove it.

The same with the "registry cleaning" business.

It all seems to be a money racket. That's why I use MSE, and MBAM (free version), and SAS (free version). That, and using proper computing habits, goes a long way. The No Script addon in Firefox is one of the best defensive components of any browser, and Adblock Plus helps too.

That's about all that we can do, is to take charge of our own security with a combo of a few good free AV & Malware solutions. Plus don't open unwanted emails, or click onto ads that seems too good to be true. Computing habits plays a large part into your computer staying clean. I know of one who doesn't even run a AV, and he manages to stay clean. But I wouldn't dare run w/o an AV for protection.

Cat

The odd thing is, I've heard that this behaviour may come from some of the paid-for most popular and supposedly respected antivirus programs but not from the free, trusted AV suppliers.

My faith in Microsoft Security Essentials is wavering, to say the least. My machine was infected with malware which kept opening IE to launch porn sites and what-have-you. This virus entered worldwide circulation as early as January, but on my PC MSE was completely oblivious to its existence. Not even a full scan detected it.

Malwarebytes was able to detect it on the hard drive when I scanned it, but it did not recognize it when it was running in memory. Furthermore, it was unable to remove it automatically.

Norton 360 detected it both resident in memory, and a copy of it on the hard drive during a scan, and was able to successfully remove it.

This is not to say that Norton 360 is better than MSE; many reviews and tests have found MSE to be quite a strong challenger in the industry, with great detection rates. But it did let me down in the only category which matters when it comes to an anti-malware product: detecting malware.

I'll probably switch to a Symantec corporate scanner once the 360 trial expires, because the corporate line scanners are not resource hogs the way the Norton consumer products tend to be... But I am not likely to trust MSE from now on.

Core's post is one of the main reasons I switched to G DATA Internet Security. One of the top three rated AV/IS applications and has been in business for 25 years.

I seriously doubt that the reputable companies create viruses and malware just to sell their products. Naturally there are the ones that show up saying "Your system is infected and you need to buy this now and run the scan." Then when a gullible individual does that they truly are infected.

There are thousands of "losers" and cyber-criminals out there which write this stuff to just foul up someone's system or to get their personal info. Regardless of what the big software developers do or software that is written these punks will always exist, it's part of human nature that society will always have a certain percentage of humanity that don't deserve to be part of the mainstream or contribute to the world's gene pool.

What I find really baffling is the fact that some people will blow money on computer gizmos, gadgets, extra hardware and high-speed internet but WILL NOT spend $30 per year for a really good AV or IS software program! This makes no sense whatsoever to me.

Yes MSE is a "decent" security software but it's not all it's cracked up to be, witness CORE's post regarding his infection! It certainly is not the "universal panacea" touted by some on this forum and other forums.

Also the fact that some people seem to ascribe the plethora of BSOD to AV software is disingenuous and specious to say the least. Yes, there may be a small number of AV programs causing a few issues, but not all them that is for certain. If it was the case then a HELL OF LOT MORE computers would be having BSOD issues.

Some people get a computer for the first time or have been using one for a few months or so and then they "believe" they've become uber-geeks and then decide to install new OS's or tweak and jack around with the system. Then when everything doesn't work out they get all upset and whine about how bad the software or operating system is, when to begin with they shouldn't have been screwing around in the first place. Unless one is willing to REALLY LEARN about their computer and respective operating systems, they should just leave well enough alone and go with what the computer manufacturer or system builder setup to begin with.

My notebook was running MSE a few months ago when I was hit by a major infection, one that's well documented on this forum.

True, I was trying out a different browser (Safari) for the first time, true, that I was viewing porn sites, and true, I expected MSE to "cover my back". While that was the only major infection that I've had with MSE, there were a couple of smaller ones, both on my notebook. MSE missed them on a full scan, but MBAM caught them before any damage was done.

There hasn't been any problems lately, when I go to questionable sites, I do so with Mint 9. When I was running wireless, I made my purchases using Mint as well.

At any rate, sooner or later, I expect to be "hit" again, it's not a matter of "if", but "when". That's the chance you take using any computer, regardless of what OS is installed on it. Certain attacks can be launched at Linux & Mac too, the only 100% way not to get "hit" by a virus or malware is simply don't power your computer on. And that's a fact. There's always that small chance, regardless of the AV used, that at some point, you'll get infected.

Cat

No Anti-virus is perfect and the truth is, the more popular a particular AV is the more it is used by the virus makers to verify they slip past. There are also so many variations of a particular virus that even though one AV program may consider it a version of XYZ Jan 2010, it may actually not match the heuristics in another companies AV software.

Viruses suck and the writers even more so. How about you bad people find an honest living and stop hurting innocent people.

That may very well be the reason for the attacks towards MSE, it's gaining in popularity faster than Windows 7 is. Many XP users have it, too. From out of nowhere, into the top 20 of AV's that AV Comparatives does independent tests on.

That's not an easy feat to accomplish, MSE is the youngest of the group, and there are other known contenders, such as Vipre, that's not on that list, at least not in the top 20.

And there's other freebies on the list, too. I run Avast 5.0 on one install of Win 2K, and BitDefender on another. Avast served me well for a long time, but was beginning to give me too many false alarms. Probably due to me having all controls set to the max, but still too many. BitDefender is still in the process of proving itself to me, I'm only evaluating it at this time.

But it would be unreasonable to expect any AV to keep you 100% safe. As I've already stated, part of the reason for infections is between the chair & keyboard.

You could take the very best AV on that list, go to the seediest, dirtiest corners of the net, hang around for a while, and sooner or later get burned. Or inadvertently click onto a bad link and get bit. Or, if you have a Yahoo email account that you've had a while, you probably get tons of spam, mostly very bad links. I learned the hard way to stay away from them.

It's time to catch the ones behind this, and lock them away forever, and while they're there, give them daily beatings, and force them to wear a dress. Anyone who knows anything about prison knows what happens to those kind (the ones in dresses).

Cat

Bad_Pool_Header