Antivirus, antispyware

[Stan Brown]

I fear this will touch off a religious war, so maybe people might
want to email answers rather than posting, and I can post a summary.
Up to you, of course.

My laptop came with a six-month subscription to Webroot, which will
be expiring in a few days. On my XP machine I had Avast and was
quite happy with it, plus occasional scans with Malwarebytes. I
can't see any reason to pay for Webroot when good free alternatives
are available.

Anyone want to share what antimalware software you use, and why you
chose it?

 

[Andy]

I used webroot internet Essentials and i love it but i also use CA internet
Security Suite that my ISP provieds as part of my subscription
that works well to i have malwarebytes as well

 

[Bob Henson]

I fear this will touch off a religious war, so maybe people might
want to email answers rather than posting, and I can post a summary.
Up to you, of course.

You could well be correct

My laptop came with a six-month subscription to Webroot, which will
be expiring in a few days. On my XP machine I had Avast and was
quite happy with it, plus occasional scans with Malwarebytes. I
can't see any reason to pay for Webroot when good free alternatives
are available.

Anyone want to share what antimalware software you use, and why you
chose it?

Avast! the same as your XP machine. It is rated well by most authorities,
and doesn't have the problems that many others have, as you already know. I
then use SpyWareblaster ( to try to prevent problems before they start) and
Spybot S&D occasionally. The latter is frequently updated, can be run in
the background (I don't - I've got to many thing running already) and has a
lot of useful tools as well as it's prime function - like easily editing
the startup files and giving a lot of information as to what they do and if
they are needed.

Last, but not least - they're all free.

 

[XS11E]

My laptop came with a six-month subscription to Webroot, which will
be expiring in a few days. On my XP machine I had Avast and was
quite happy with it, plus occasional scans with Malwarebytes.

The above should be fine, I prefer Microsoft Security Essentials for AV
protection, it's well rated and may have the smallest footprint and be
the lesat intrusive of any of them....

 

[Thip]

I fear this will touch off a religious war, so maybe people might
want to email answers rather than posting, and I can post a summary.
Up to you, of course.

My laptop came with a six-month subscription to Webroot, which will
be expiring in a few days. On my XP machine I had Avast and was
quite happy with it, plus occasional scans with Malwarebytes. I
can't see any reason to pay for Webroot when good free alternatives
are available.

Anyone want to share what antimalware software you use, and why you
chose it?

Avira and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. I also use PC Tools Firewall Plus.

 

[Alex K.]

The above should be fine, I prefer Microsoft Security Essentials for AV
protection, it's well rated and may have the smallest footprint and be
the lesat intrusive of any of them....

I myself switched to using Microsoft Security Essentials sometime ago.
It's fast, lightweight, and updates frequently. I tend not to wander to
the "seedier" sections of the net but I've had no issues with MSE vs.
some of the other bloated free and premium AV solutions on the market
these days.

Alex K.

 

[Alex Clayton]

I fear this will touch off a religious war, so maybe people might
want to email answers rather than posting, and I can post a summary.
Up to you, of course.

My laptop came with a six-month subscription to Webroot, which will
be expiring in a few days. On my XP machine I had Avast and was
quite happy with it, plus occasional scans with Malwarebytes. I
can't see any reason to pay for Webroot when good free alternatives
are available.

Anyone want to share what antimalware software you use, and why you
chose it?

Used AVG for years until SP3 came along and it was having trouble. Then went
to Avast free for a long time. Quite a while back I went to the one MS
offers free. I figured they would be less likely to have trouble with
updates. I use their Malicious software scan now and then and all seems to
be fine. I never seem to have trouble with this. Wife OTOH who likes on line
games has a couple times and the MS free version has so far caught them.
YMMV

 

[Jeff]

?"Stan Brown" wrote in message

I fear this will touch off a religious war, so maybe people might
want to email answers rather than posting, and I can post a summary.
Up to you, of course.

My laptop came with a six-month subscription to Webroot, which will
be expiring in a few days. On my XP machine I had Avast and was
quite happy with it, plus occasional scans with Malwarebytes. I
can't see any reason to pay for Webroot when good free alternatives
are available.

Anyone want to share what antimalware software you use, and why you
chose it?

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

I use ComodoIS internet suite along with Malwarebytes. I find that the
integrated Sandbox, firewall, and antivirus works perfectly together and has
kept many nasties off my PC in the past. I can't believe they give it all
away for free.

 

[ray]

I fear this will touch off a religious war, so maybe people might want
to email answers rather than posting, and I can post a summary. Up to
you, of course.

My laptop came with a six-month subscription to Webroot, which will be
expiring in a few days. On my XP machine I had Avast and was quite
happy with it, plus occasional scans with Malwarebytes. I can't see any
reason to pay for Webroot when good free alternatives are available.

Anyone want to share what antimalware software you use, and why you
chose it?

I don't use any - but then I don't need to - I use Linux.

 

[Slap]

I don't use any - but then I don't need to - I use Linux.

How unfortunate.
--

 

[ray]

How unfortunate.

Not at all - it does everything I can possibly want at greatly reduced
expense and hassle.

 

[relic]

I fear this will touch off a religious war, so maybe people might
want to email answers rather than posting, and I can post a summary.
Up to you, of course.

My laptop came with a six-month subscription to Webroot, which will
be expiring in a few days. On my XP machine I had Avast and was
quite happy with it, plus occasional scans with Malwarebytes. I
can't see any reason to pay for Webroot when good free alternatives
are available.

Anyone want to share what antimalware software you use, and why you
chose it?

Webroot's SpySweeper is well worth the money. The freebies are fair at
removing, but not very good at all at the job of prevention. SpySweeper is
the only one I have tested that stops the AntiVirus virus from installing
itself.

Same thing with the free Anti-Virus programs; they handle old viruses fairly
well, but miss new threats. Use something with a heuristic engine like NOD32
if you really want to be protected.

 

[Char Jackson]

I tend to use a combination of AVG and Comodo - not on the same machine
though! The reason for using Comodo is simply that I can use it on more than
one PC whereas AVG is only free for one PC (for personal use).

I no longer use AVG but many of my customers do. Can you provide a
link to the language that restricts free AVG to one PC? I know about
the "free for personal use" restriction, but the other part is new to
me.

 

[ray]

Slap doesn't know what he or she is missing.

Amazing how folk will belittle what they've never tried.

 

[Char Jackson]

Webroot's SpySweeper is well worth the money. The freebies are fair at
removing, but not very good at all at the job of prevention. SpySweeper is
the only one I have tested that stops the AntiVirus virus from installing
itself.

Same thing with the free Anti-Virus programs; they handle old viruses fairly
well, but miss new threats. Use something with a heuristic engine like NOD32
if you really want to be protected.

Everything I've seen and read over the last 12-24 months shows the
best freebies being on par with the best paid products at prevention,
detection, and removal. There are mediocre products in both
categories.

 

[Ed Cryer]

I no longer use AVG but many of my customers do. Can you provide a
link to the language that restricts free AVG to one PC? I know about
the "free for personal use" restriction, but the other part is new to
me.

Me too. I have three desktop PCs in the house all using AVG free; one on
Win7, two on XP.

Ed

 

[relic]

Everything I've seen and read over the last 12-24 months shows the
best freebies being on par with the best paid products at prevention,
detection, and removal. There are mediocre products in both
categories.

The free AV's have greatly improved over the last year, but their history
was pretty abysmal.

*VB100 Results Overview:
AVG
36 Success / 22 Failure / 15 No Entry
....their last "Fail" was June 2007.
Avast!
40 Success / 23 Failure / 10 No Entry
....their last "Fail" was December 2008.
Avira
26 Success / 5 Failure / 42 No Entry
....their last "Fail" was October 2009.

Too new to have a real record:
Microsoft Security Essentials
3 Success / 1 Failure / 69 No Entry
....their last "Fail" was April 2010

The freebies still almost always miss brand new viruses. (They can still
"Pass" VB100's tests when a virus is brand new. I don't know of any
heuristic engine AV that missed them.)


I've always used ESET's NOD32:
Eset
66 Success / 3 Failure / 4 No Entry
....their last "Fail" was April 2002.

Generally rated as 2nd place:
Kaspersky
55 Success / 18 Failure / 0 No Entry
....but their last "Fail" was just April 2010.

*VB100's testing has been recognized as the best for many years, but
recently some AV vendors have stopped having their product tested because of
frequent "Fail" ratings. Trend Micro is one of the latest companies to quit
submitting products instead of improving their product.


As the OP implied, it's almost cult-like. I have never gotten infected with
a virus or trojan using NOD32, and Malware hasn't gotten past SpySweeper for
over three years on my system. That makes be believe I'll stick with them.

 

[relic]

All anti virus programs have to play catch up to the new viruses as do the
anti malware programs. With Linux, that isn't a problem with which one
needs to concern oneself.

The heuristic engine design _does_ catch a lot of new ones.

 

[Stan Brown]

I tend to use a combination of AVG and Comodo - not on the same machine
though! The reason for using Comodo is simply that I can use it on more than
one PC whereas AVG is only free for one PC (for personal use).

I know Avast is a popular choice. I didn't get on with it when I tried it a
number of years ago,

I used to use AVG, but it seemed to drag my XP machine down more and
more with every update; that's when I switched to Avast. I hope you
did not get nailed by the recent problem with AVG update breaking
Windows!

I do agree that with free anti-virus software out there that it's
not worth paying for your anti-virus. (The exception is if its not
for home/personal use, which is the condition under which most free
anti-virus is made available.)

A good point. Yes, this is my home computer.

 

[Stan Brown]

I myself switched to using Microsoft Security Essentials sometime ago.
It's fast, lightweight, and updates frequently. I tend not to wander to
the "seedier" sections of the net but I've had no issues with MSE vs.
some of the other bloated free and premium AV solutions on the market
these days.

Hmm. They use MSE at work, but I have not riced that it never seems
quite sure whether it's working or not. Sometimes the icon changes to
red or blue or brown for no apparent reason. It will tell me it
needs to update, and I'll update it, and the icon is *still* red.

(And to be honest, I have kind of a knee-jerk suspicion of anything
Microsoft, because so much of it comes with Windows Genuine
Disadvantage or whatever they're calling it now. I have a legal Win
7 system, but I've heard too many horror stories of Windows suddenly
deciding it's not legitimate.)

Also on the Web I've read a number of people claiming MSE is a
resource pig, though based on what you say they may not be correct.

From the MS Web site it looks like MSE is supposed to be an all-in-
one solution for viruses and spyware. Do you agree, or do you use an
additional program for one of those?