OT: Done with Norton - anti virus advice?

MH_Stevens wrote on 3/15/2006, 6:06 PM

Norton sucks. Get SystemMechanic6pro, it is a full feature maintenance suite that come with anti-virus. I have it-about $60 i think.

johnmeyer wrote on 3/15/2006, 6:14 PM

Don't worry about being "unprotected" for awhile. I have a subscription to an anti-virus program that came with my latest computer, but have completely disabled it. I use it once in awhile just to assure myself that nothing has happened. Nine computers here, and not one has anti-virus running. Never had a virus.

Now Adware, that's another story, although once I figured out how things were getting in, I haven't had anything in the last six months, even with a teenage son using various computers.

If you must get virus protection, the least intrusive of the lot, and one that gets high marks (although only for the anti-virus protection) is TrendMicro's PCcillan. That's the one I got on my last Dell laptop, which required that I specify an anti-virus program. I did quite a bit of research before I chose that, and have been very happy with the way it works for manual scanning. Before I disabled all the background automatic stuff -- something it doesn't sound like you're going to do -- I tried to get a feel of how much is slowed things down. Compared to Norton/Symantec, which I've had to disable on clients computers in order to get anything done, the impact was quite low. You will never regret ditching Norton -- it is a pig.

Coursedesign wrote on 3/15/2006, 6:41 PM

Amen to that.

I switched to Trend Micro on all my machines two years ago, it has been 100% reliable in every way, and it updates virus signatures all on its own without asking you like Norton tends to want to do.

It also updates as often as needed instead of Norton's "as infrequent as we can get away with without getting sued."

TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/15/2006, 6:44 PM

I'm happy with Avast! antivirus. you can turn on/off any automatic processes & bearly sucks up any resources.

jrazz wrote on 3/15/2006, 7:13 PM

I use avgfree from grisoft.com. It is free, updates regularly and is not a system hog by any means. On my editor, sometimes I will hook it up to the internet and do updates when I don't want to burn discs and copy updates over. Then I will run trendmicro's free over the internet service.

j razz

Yoyodyne wrote on 3/15/2006, 8:27 PM

Norton is pure evil! When I finally purged myself of that bloated succubus and went with AVG it was like I got a new computer!

jaydeeee wrote on 3/15/2006, 8:36 PM

>>I use avgfree from grisoft.com. It is free, updates regularly and is not a system hog by any means<<<

Yes, I agree on AVGfree.
Leave Norton with a quickness.

biggles wrote on 3/15/2006, 9:16 PM

AVG here too - never had a problem and it's free!

dhill wrote on 3/15/2006, 9:22 PM

Wow Ralph I'd be a bit "disenchanted" too if that happened to me (losing your final 4 months). I agree, Norton really sucks up you resources. It's interesting to me what John said though. I remember my girlfriend bringing home a laptop from work and telling me that it was running REALLY slow and could I look at it. It had PCcillan installed on it. I installed Norton and updated it and ran a scan only to find over 140 trojan viruses on it! Needless to say it was much quicker after that, even with the pig installed. haha Oh and the spyware counts were nearly as high.

I think what I'm going to do is use my old computer with the pig for internet/business and uninstall everything from my new machine that I don't need for audio/video editing and just never connect it to the internet.

Does anyone know if Zone Alarm is a massive resource hog too? I've heard good things about it. Derek

Coursedesign wrote on 3/15/2006, 9:51 PM

ZoneAlarm used to be good.

Today it is a leading source of big trouble.

johnmeyer wrote on 3/15/2006, 9:59 PM

PC Magazine did a series of articles last month about security software. Spy Sweeper was their editor's choice overall, and definitely their top pick for preventing and removing adware:

PC Magazine Spy Sweeper

biggles wrote on 3/15/2006, 10:42 PM

Quote:
Today it is a leading source of big trouble.

I'm running ZoneAlarm and haven't noticed anything untoward - can you elaborate?

farss wrote on 3/15/2006, 11:23 PM

Get yourself a hardware firewall. Having a PC directly connected to the net is inviting trouble. Most routers come with a basic firewall as part of doing NAT. With one of these between you and the net all your PCs are protected.
Will not stop viruses YOU decide to install by opening email attachments.
Bob.

TeetimeNC wrote on 3/16/2006, 4:32 AM

I run both ZoneAlarm and LinkSys hdw firewall. I believe most consumer hdw firewalls don't provide outgoing protection like ZA does.

craftech wrote on 3/16/2006, 5:39 AM

Last good version of Zone Alarm was 5.5.094
After that it went the way of Norton, Real, Quicktime, and other "make arbitrary decisions for the user" software. You can still download it.

Ditto on AVGfree. Don't install the virus "monitor." Just update it manually and run it when you feel like it. That way it won't intrude and won't eat up resources. Disabling Active X controls in Internet Explorer and enabling them in Firefox will give you security AND flexibility. Firefox also has it's own Ad blocker.

John

Jay Gladwell wrote on 3/16/2006, 5:47 AM

Here's another vote for AVG. It's free from grisoft.com I have it on two computers.

Former user wrote on 3/16/2006, 6:22 AM

AVG from Grisoft.

AlanC wrote on 3/16/2006, 6:28 AM

AVG from Grisoft.

Used the Free Edition for couple of years then upgraded to Pro about 2 years ago and run it on all the network.

RichMacDonald wrote on 3/16/2006, 8:24 AM

In case it wasn't clear by now, AVGfree.

Used to use ZoneAlarm until it interfered with some other apps.
Never a single problem with AVG.
Used it for yrs.
Great app.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/16/2006, 8:35 AM

hehe... i'm still running ZA 5.5.062.

I don't feel like updating. :D

When AVG "updated" ~2 years ago I stopped using it. It made the computers I had it installed on slow & laggy compared to Avast. Plus the UI really annoyed me (could they make it any more stupid?)

johnmeyer wrote on 3/16/2006, 8:50 AM

Get yourself a hardware firewall. Having a PC directly connected to the net is inviting trouble. Most routers come with a basic firewall as part of doing NAT. With one of these between you and the net all your PCs are protected.

I want to second this post from Bob (it is quite a ways up on this thread). Unless you like to open strange attachments or download EXE files that you know nothing about, you are not going to get a virus, as long as you have a relatively recent version of XP and as long as you have the NAT router between your computer and the net. In addition, I always recommend setting up a Security Zone (use the Internet icon in Control Panel) that has EVERY SINGLE feature turned off (i.e., totally secure) and then configure your email program to use this zone. This completely eliminates ActiveX and other hidden exploits from activating when you open an email to read it.

Lili wrote on 3/16/2006, 1:47 PM

I had the same type of request from Norton to mail in my original disk, proof of purchase, etc. etc., for something that should not have happened in the first place, so I downloaded the free AVG. it is hassel free and simple. I know several people who use free version of AVG and love it.

Cliff Etzel wrote on 3/16/2006, 4:12 PM

AVG Free works better than anything else - get it at http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5 - great thing is it is also available for Linux....

RalphM wrote on 3/16/2006, 4:41 PM

Thanks to all for the responses. I sense a lot of hostility toward Symantec :-)

I do run a hardware firewall as part of my router, and I'm careful of what I open. My editing machines are shared with other members of my household who are not as careful, therefore anti-virus is a must. Looks like I will be trying AVG Free (price looks good too)

Thanks,
RalphM