Re: What anti virus you guys use?

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 23:05:10 -0000, amandaF <amandaf37@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I have been buying Norton Internet Security; it's free free after the
rebates. I recently bought the 2007 one. Comes with Partititon magic
and Ghosts which I never used. I think I'll use this one for my main
desktop which currently has 2006 version.

This year, I also got Noton Anti-virus that has 3 user license. It's
free after the rebate. I haven't used it yet.

Today, I got Panda. It anti virus and anti spyware, also has 3 user
license and so I am thinking to use it for my laptop , and for my
brother's laptop and my 2nd desktop. But should I use Norton instead?
But the one I have with 3 user license doesn't have anti spyware.

Is Panda any good?

How many people use Norton?

What other anti virus and anti-spyware is good? I did see one product
at Fry's that's for anti spyware only.I think it's ca or something
like that. I used to download spybot, etc. but haven't bothered woth
it for a while ever sicne I started using Norton Internet security.

"The best Antivirus Solution" depends on what magazines you read and
sometimes on the specific date of the test - the results may vary
quite some, and occasionally the grades for the products change
noticeably from month to month...

Personally I use Avira AntiVir - because it's free...
....it seems to do the job reasonably well and the only points of
critique I'd have is that it tends to slow down the disk-access,
depending on the content, and that the updates, though incremental,
can be quite big - not much of a problem with DSL and flat rates, but
a pain in the *** if you have to use dial-up...

Norton doesn't have a particular good reputation - in fact I know
quite many people who are annoyed that their OEM-Windows install sets
automatically install a free trial version of Norton, because it's the
first program they deinstall and sometimes difficult to get rid off...

Kaspersky's anti virus solution was a leader in the field for quite
some years, but even they have their rare weak moments, not detecting
new virii that others already have in their detection database...

Some software is even known for "cheating" - the detection rate seems
exceedingly high, simply because it produces a lot "false positives",
I.e. identifies a lot of virii that aren't... AVG is such a candidate
if I remember correctly...

Many people recommend dedicated trojan-/ spyware scanners in addition
to an antivirus solution - some free programs available are:
- Lavasoft ad-aware
- Spybot - Search & Destroy
- SpywareBlaster
....all of the above mentioned have to be manually started for a scan
(except SpywareBlaster that doesn't scan at all but changes certain
configurations of IE/ Firefox) and must be updated manually too in
their "free" versions - no automated "background task", with the
exception of certain optional ActiveX- and Registry protections in
SpyBot S&D...

Not to forget: if you have doubts about a file, and you have a fairly
good Internet connection, you can always get "a different opinion" -
nearly every Antivirus company provides "online scans", so you can
have them take a look at whatever you want checked, using a different
search engine and virus-database than the one you have residing on
your computer...

T.C.
.