POTENTIALLY UNWANTED PROGRAM DETECTED

[matt674]

McAfee and Norton suck TBH
Personally I would uninstall str8 away!

I had Norton before, I think, but Chili, who know's what he's talking about, insisted McAfeee was the dogs & installed it for me.

They do both suck, any techy will tell you so. AVG is the way to go.

Bit harsh on Chili dont you think?

[snoopy1239]

Yep, I agree, they're both terrible. I'd go for AVG or NOD32 (which I believe now might be ESET).

[kinboshi]

I use AVG, but there are plenty who'll slate me for that as well.

[Laxie]

Are you all on about the pay version of AVG?  I have the free one, but reckon it might not be doing the job properly.

[dik9]

Free one does the job if it is accompanied properly

[Laxie]

What would you recommend to accompany it?

[kinboshi]

What would you recommend to accompany it?

An Italian salad and a fresh-baked crusty loaf.


I guess he means a decent firewall (set up correctly), possibly a spyware program, and lots of common sense.

[Laxie]

What would you recommend to accompany it?

An Italian salad and a fresh-baked crusty loaf.


I guess he means a decent firewall (set up correctly), possibly a spyware program, and lots of common sense.

I have a few bits on my computer, but was told they don't work well together.  The repair guy wanted to remove my AVG and Zone Alarm to be replaced by Panda Internet, but I told him I'd like to think about it.

[kinboshi]

I've heard good things about Panda, and also bad things.  My Dad used to have it on his computer, but it was causing problems and he removed it.

It's the same as ISPs.  Some people get along fine with one, whilst others have problem after problem.

I think it'd be good if someone with a good bit of knowledge in this area could post some advice on this subject.  I think there was a thread a while ago where people were posting their opinions on this subject. 

[dik9]

I use Spybot, -Aware and CCleaner to assist, but some may prefer others

[Grier78]

I have never had a problem with viruses after installing AVG and ZoneAlarm works ok enough for me. I would never pay for antivirus or firewall as they are always stuipd subscription services and are also the first ones that the virus writers develop work arounds for.

[suzanne]

I have had a problem with AVG recently, I keep getting a warning saying my AVG needs updating but when I tried to update it said no updates can be found. My PC was playing up so I am trying the 30 day free trial at the moment but this runs out next week. I tried deleting and reinstalling but still it wont update, I havent installed anything new so im a bit baffled by this..any advice?

[portfolio]

I have had a problem with AVG recently, I keep getting a warning saying my AVG needs updating but when I tried to update it said no updates can be found. My PC was playing up so I am trying the 30 day free trial at the moment but this runs out next week. I tried deleting and reinstalling but still it wont update, I havent installed anything new so im a bit baffled by this..any advice?

ditto.

and soooo v slow , its morev painfull than a tk train story.................

[Bongo]

I have never had a problem with viruses after installing AVG and ZoneAlarm works ok enough for me. I would never pay for antivirus or firewall as they are always stuipd subscription services and are also the first ones that the virus writers develop work arounds for.

Why would virus writers have any (additional) motivation to work around AV just because it's paid for?

I'd say the biggest factor they would use is how many people use the product, as that would mean their viruses would have more effect...

It's a bit moot as they have tools that can systematically test their wares against all of the major products (like their own version of VirusTotal - which they used to use until the VT people wised up and distributed all files scanned to the AV companies).

Given that the whole AV industry is essentially about playing catch up with the bad guys, who do you think is going to be able to respond the quickest?

The people you pay money to, or the people you don't?

Another thought... how do you tell if you AV is working?

Finally - how secure is your router. There was an attack recently, in Mexico, that used vulnerabilities in routers to poison people's DNS (which says which server to connect to for a domain name) so that when they visited www.theirbank.com they were actually visiting a phishing site. Most routers ship in an insecure state... I'm told a certain major ISP is shipping a router that has huge vulnerabilities in it (which they deny), so I guess it's only a matter of time until a similar happens in the UK.

A friend of mine recently suffered a similar attack - they couldn't access Pay Pal, but their flatmate could. It turned out some Malware had attacked their hosts file and was redirecting all traffic for pay pal to a 3rd party server. Luckily for them the site had been shut down and there were only mildly inconvenienced.

[suzanne]

I have never had a problem with viruses after installing AVG and ZoneAlarm works ok enough for me. I would never pay for antivirus or firewall as they are always stuipd subscription services and are also the first ones that the virus writers develop work arounds for.

Why would virus writers have any (additional) motivation to work around AV just because it's paid for?

I'd say the biggest factor they would use is how many people use the product, as that would mean their viruses would have more effect...

It's a bit moot as they have tools that can systematically test their wares against all of the major products (like their own version of VirusTotal - which they used to use until the VT people wised up and distributed all files scanned to the AV companies).

Given that the whole AV industry is essentially about playing catch up with the bad guys, who do you think is going to be able to respond the quickest?

The people you pay money to, or the people you don't?

Another thought... how do you tell if you AV is working?

Finally - how secure is your router. There was an attack recently, in Mexico, that used vulnerabilities in routers to poison people's DNS (which says which server to connect to for a domain name) so that when they visited www.theirbank.com they were actually visiting a phishing site. Most routers ship in an insecure state... I'm told a certain major ISP is shipping a router that has huge vulnerabilities in it (which they deny), so I guess it's only a matter of time until a similar happens in the UK.

A friend of mine recently suffered a similar attack - they couldn't access Pay Pal, but their flatmate could. It turned out some Malware had attacked their hosts file and was redirecting all traffic for pay pal to a 3rd party server. Luckily for them the site had been shut down and there were only mildly inconvenienced.

Obviously it would make sense that if you are paying for an AV you should expect better protection than a freeby such as AVG but being a PC numpty its not easy to fathom out which ones are good and which ones are a waste of money. I originally had Norton which I downloaded via the net on a yearly subscription, I had so many problems I ended up deleting it a month later. AVG had worked fine up till now but it looks like I need to find something new, like Porty my PC is running soooo slow and playing poker is a nightmare. Is NOD32 the best one? I had this in the past and it seemed to work fine.