Anti Virus advice?

[Inhuman Bot]

My computer is beyond saving from the number of viruses on it, for various reasons. (IT's technically the family computer, and 3/5 people here are actually somewhat computer literate.. :smalltongue:)

Anyways, so I'm restoring it to the factory settings. One question, though? Any suggestions on what Anti Virus to use? Like.. Norton? AVG? Preferably Windows 7 compatable.

Thanks.

[alchemyprime]

Avast. Avast Avast Avast Avast.

I like Avast over AVG myself. Free, easy and quick, and I haven't had a virus infect me yet since I got it and started using Chrome and Firefox for browsing.

So, Avast matey!

[HunterOfJello]

Avast for viruses

then

Spybot for spyware

[Yarram]

Well... Linux is pretty windows 7 compatible.

[hap_hazard]

Avast. And use ZoneAlarm as firewall.

[Rawhide]

Not Norton. The answer is NEVER Norton. Unless the question is "What antivirus should I NOT use?".

[Ostien]

Avast for viruses

then

Spybot for spyware

+1, great advice.

[fknm]

A bit of a controversial tip, but one that I fully believe in:

Forget the anti virus, and focus more on "preventative" security (that is, run adblock/flashblock/noscript and every similar plug-in that you can find, and do it behind Privoxy to scrub the everliving crap out of everything).

Here's why- there are two ways that anti virus packages work. One is the signature based method. Nowadays, the signature based method is totally worthless- every virus you'll get hit by comes from a rootkit dropper, and most of them are smart enough to disguise their signature. The other is the heuristic method, but this causes so many false alarms on legitimate programs that you'll soon find yourself turning it off anyways.

[lesser_minion]

McAfee and Norton are famously terrible. McAfee merely distributes malware to its users and is inexplicably popular despite being useless. Norton... goes beyond the impossible as far as badness is concerned.

AVG isn't bad, but the free version is crippled to hell and back.

Personally, I use Avast. It has decent performance, a decent reputation, doesn't nag, and isn't crippled. Just... switch off the voice announcements.

Regarding the signatures thing, bear in mind that within two hours of a virus being discovered, a good antivirus product will have an update ready for it.

Antivirus software is helpful, and a half-decent piece of AV software will not slow down your computer appreciably.

Finally, in response to the Linux comment: no. Linux doesn't solve security and privacy issues. The biggest security hole for any computer is complacency, which is, if anything, exagerrated by using Linux.

[Asta Kask]

Use a condom next time.

[Lioness]

Use a condom next time.

On that track, I wish they had condoms for USBs...Every single school computer has the autorun.exe on it, and sometimes you just need to use your USB at school. Can't count the number of times I've had to remove it from my home computer. School IT guys are useless.

[chiasaur11]

I find Webroot works okay, from all I've seen. Not perfect, but generally good enough.

[Rawhide]

On that track, I wish they had condoms for USBs...Every single school computer has the autorun.exe on it, and sometimes you just need to use your USB at school. Can't count the number of times I've had to remove it from my home computer. School IT guys are useless.

Get a USB memory stick with a write protect switch. Or you can use a write blocker, but those things aren't cheap. Or you could edit the registry to disable writing to USB devices, but that requires administrative privileges and is far from simple.

[raitalin]

Finally, in response to the Linux comment: no. Linux doesn't solve security and privacy issues. The biggest security hole for any computer is complacency, which is, if anything, exagerrated by using Linux.

Ya know,people keep saying this but I'm not so sure about it. I've run linux for almost 2 years, almost never run virus checks and I'm not really careful about where I go on the internet and...nothing. Not being able to run .exe files helps a lot, as does not having a windows registry. Ubuntu not running at root pretty much closes the rest of the holes (even though its irritating sometimes).

I recently started booting Windows to watch netflix and I find myself constantly assailed. Virus scans, spyware scans, disk defragmentation, registry cleaning. Maintenance is the reason I switched.

[lesser_minion]

Ya know,people keep saying this but I'm not so sure about it. I've run linux for almost 2 years, almost never run virus checks and I'm not really careful about where I go on the internet and...nothing.

Knowing that you shouldn't ever type the commands "chmod a+x malware.sh" and "su -c malware.sh" unless you know exactly what malware.sh does does not make you "really careful".


Not being able to run .exe files helps a lot, as does not having a windows registry. Ubuntu not running at root pretty much closes the rest of the holes (even though its irritating sometimes).

Firstly, Linux has an equivalent to the Windows registry, it's just a lot less formalised (there are about a bajillion shell scripts that run when you boot, and the same kind of settings are stored in files within /etc). In neither case is it actually a security hole in and of itself.

Secondly, Windows doesn't give out superuser privileges by default (not even to administrators). They did a few years ago, when Microsoft used FreeBSD for everything and didn't notice that they'd forgotten crucial features like file permissions.

Also, you should not be constantly assailed by maintenance work. You need to run an antivirus scan every so often as a precaution (you should also do this if running Linux or OS X). You should defrag your hard disk from time to time, unless it's a solid state. Occasionally, you might want to clean your registry out. None of this is particularly onerous (or any more so than it would be under Linux).

Oh, and for future reference, most Linux distros include a utility for running random bits of code off the internet (although usually not in the default install).