Antivirus Downloads - Sites/Advice

[Guest]

Hey guys, just wondering what the best site to go too is for this.
I've already checked out downloads(dot)com - search 'free anti-virus.
However, I do have some questions.
How do I know which one is the best, is it by star ratings. 5 star?
Also, why do some charge money and some are free?

 

[Nick]

The ones that charge money are typically better, like Bitdefender, Norton and McAfee. They can do a lot more than simple virus protection, too. Check out their websites. IMO it's worth paying the money if you're on a windows machine.

 

[Nick]

Oh and I would buy/download it directly from the company, if possible.

 

[Vaccine]

I agree with Nick, paid is better. I have norton on one comp, and MSE for free on another. I figured microsoft security essentials it would be the most compatible free one and they already have some of my money. I've used AVG for free too.
I also block sites with my host file.
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

 

[Brother Mike]

I take Edwards stance. Most paid for anti-virus suites just slow down your machine and can cause window issue down the road. It's all bloat ware. I don't use anti-virus protection and not had one for a couple years. I mean if you see a video that claims you need to update flash player to view it, you know not to click it. I use Malwarebytes the free version to scan once in a great while, but I don't like something reading everything that goes in or out. It just slows things down a bit. Your best protection is to pay attention to what your clicking on.

If you must, Microsoft has a free antivirus package that works very well and not to intrusive or computer intensive.

Mike.

 

[faeriecat]

I'm rather fond of AVG, I also use an ad blocker and that malwarebytes.

 

[Vaccine]

Not trying to alarm anyone, but rootkits seem to be the new virus. They can run undetected. I know they make rootkit revealers for XP and win 7 32bit. I don't know about 64 bit OS.
I wouldn't worry about it too much for personal use. I think most virus and rootkits target big businesses and banks. I sure don't envy anyone in charge of network.security these days.

 

[Brother Mike]

Rootkits are being used for Game copy protection. They run constantly and can be exploited by hackers to run other things that are harmful. UBISOFT Uplay is a rootkit and dangerous according to a hacking group. Effected titles are.

Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Creed Revelations, Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic, and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction.

Rootkits are best battled with Browser upgrades and window upgrades who are aware of them. Firefox is taking measures against the UPlay root kits.

Mike.

 

[tim-from-pa]

Antivirus download? What's that? No program like that on my machine here. :toofunny

 

[Guest]

Norton came w/laptop but recently expired, so I got AVG the other day. So far so good.

 

[Knotical]

I just bought a laptop that came with a free trial of Norton. Removed it right away and installed bitdefender. I have used AVG in the past, but bitdefender has always gotten much better ratings.

Incidentally, Norton might be ok, as long as you know what it is doing. The Deacon of our church asked me to take a look at his laptop that he has had for about 3 years now, because he was running out of space on the hard drive. I looked around and moved some stuff onto an external drive but nothing I was doing was making a dent. Then I started checking the size of the folders. The Norton folder was taking up over 90% of the drive! Apparently, it had been doing backups ever day for over two years without anything being removed, or purged.

Just a bit of caution when installing any kind of security software, if it is going to start doing automatic backups just be sure you are aware of how often this is happening, and go back in and get rid of the old ones. Usually going back a month and starting from there is good, unless you have been experiencing issues.