Anti-virus software rant

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Rich Stern

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For the third time in six months, I got an emergency call for help on a virus-infected PC. In each of the three cases, either Norton or McAfee anti-virus products were installed, with up-to-date virus definitions. Neither program detected the viruses causing the problem.



AVG or AVG Free were used in all three cases, and the PCs were immediatley cleaned and restored to good working order.



I know some folks will get defensive about this, because they paid good money for an anti-virus subscription. I'm relaying what I have experienced in the field. Norton and McAfee are relying on marketing, rather than quality products, to hold their dominant positions in the marketplace. Resting on their laurels, IMHO. Norton branded products, in particular, have caused numerous problems on my clients' PCs. The first thing I do when troubleshooting a problematic PC is check to see if Norton products are installed. Clients are amazed when I remove the Norton suite. Suddenly their slow, balky PC works again.



I have no personal axe to grind here. I was in the computing biz back in the 1980s, when Norton products were a quality way to solve many PC problems. I used McAfee products for a number of years, too. These ain't those days.



Don't be lulled into thinking that using these products protect you. They are not what they should be.



[/rant off]
 
Yep Rish i couldnt agree with you more.



I have not been happy with a Norton product in a long time. Thier consumer stuff is garbage IMO. They are trying way to hard to protect people from themselves which in some cases is great but they gobble up pretty much every available system resource and constantly get in the way of normal operation along the way. Thier corporate stuff isnt much better. We had a massive outbreak that Symantec missed that i spend days cleaning up at my company not too long ago.



Im not a big fan of this internet suite trend either that norton and mcafee put out.



If i had my way my company would either be running Trend micro of sophos. both of them are so much better then symantec.



 
I have to also agree... with Rich.



I am however becoming somewhat disillusioned with Trend. NOD32 is being tested by us. We will probably change most of our customers over from Trend. First, 2008 Internet Security has caused lots of problems... The enterprise stuff is also no longer "perfect"... Lot's of licensing confusion has crept into their business model as well. And, FINALLY, their support has become dismal or worse. Weeks to get an actual answer after five, six...ten emails... That is unacceptable.



AVG is working well, but has not been getting as high oif %%%% marks as others for enterprise products, particularly in their definitions and detection.



Hence, our testing of NOD32 and Kaspersky.



Oddly enough, we just picked up a new small business client who has Norton's. A "brother" who is in IT reccommended it. I can't get them to switch. Goes to show that marketing is more effcetive than performance.



Norton's and McAfee are such resource hogs on an individual machine that it is very noticeable. Then try removing either of them... You need a crowbar, tongs and a torch!



 
I couldn't agree more about the NAV stressing the PC's resources. I would like to start out by saying that My 26 year old son writes alot of Norton's software. He has worked for them in Santa Monica Ca. for the last 6 years. He just got back from India slapping around the "Tech support". I had a few Norton related problems with last years Norton Security but the new Norton 360 really sucks bad. With it installed XP Pro freezes up any time Live Update runs and it requires a restart. Upon restart all the Scandisc errors are symantec related. My son has done some logging on my PC the last couple of days to submit to the team. Hopefully they will figure out whats up. I have since went back to NAV 2006 with with the lattest yirus def's. So far - So good. If it wasn't free I probably would use something else.
 
I'm still going commando on my Mac and still no cooties.:p
 
You need a crowbar, tongs and a torch!
Click to expand...



Sounds like my morning sit down!!:lol::lol:



I use the free Adaware and related virus/firewall stuff through Earthlink. Yeah I know, I'm not protected like Fort Knox but it has been fine for me. Had the Cleg worm get through a long time ago and with the help of Tech Support (China) I went into safe mode deep in the directories and rooted it out.



TOXIC
 
Great information. But for the IT challenged, what do you recommend we run to protect our individual systems or business networks?

Doug
 
My McAfee subscription is about ready to expire. I have not been to happy with their product either, updates and scans seem to take forever. I am like Dougs above, I am not a whiz on computers I seem to know just enough to get myself into trouble.

What is a good Anti-virus for the at home user? Chris F.:unsure:

 
Greg

If your "testing" enterprise type av products take a look at sophos too. They make a pretty good one.



The only saving grace for me with symantec is they have the best most flexible management console in the enterprise arena. I have the most control over the clients then any of the others i have worked with in the past. Although i would rather not run thier stuff period. Given that i have no choice( our CIO likes Symantec stuff) i can make due with it.
 
Chris,

I run the AGVfree software on my own personal pc's For the most part it works pretty good for my needs and its free. Historically i have not have infected machines at home. Im pretty carefull about where i go and what i install on my pc's and its never been a problem for me.



If your looking for sometghing that has support AVG makes a paid for product that is a full internet suite. Kaspersky Labs also makes a very good home computer product.
 
I have a seperate computer for the net use only. That way if it gets messed, I'm not worried about loosing some important stuff on it. I have the AVG on it with no problems.
 
i always felt noron 360 was slowing my notebook down! would you reccomend i uninstall it and go with the free software link you posted?
 
I haven't had a problem with McAfee and I've used it for a long time. I paid for it until a couple of years ago but now I get it free with my Comcast Internet Service. If it isn't very good it's fooling me. Of course I don't play around with things I shouldn't either. I don't open attachments sent to me unless I really know the person and I don't open hyper-links in e-mails, at all! I don't care where or who they come from. Maybe that's what has kept me fairly safe? I've had way too many people argue with me that opening attachments or links from your received e-mails is way ok!! It's not!

My brother uses AVG and loves it but then again he changed from Norton so he was bound to be happy.:p:rolleyes:



Uncle Billy

 
Billy,

To answer your question, Yet being cautious as you are is the main reason you are virus free. Most people that get viruses get them by thier own making by being careless. Sure there are times where one get them via hacking(like what happened to this site a few days ago) but most are by clicking bad links or opening bad attachments. I have spent a good bit ot time stomping out viruses on my corporate LAN because of othere stupidity.



As far as one scanner vs another. Reality is none of them are perfect. They all have flaws and they all have ther strong points. My opinion the best thing to do is have a scanner, keep it up to date, keep your operating system patches up to date and be careful with where you go/what you open on the internet.
 
Been running the F-Secure Charter Client for a year or so on several home machines with good success. It's a memory hog wide open, but several features don't apply to many OS and can be turned off. So far, so good.
 
I uninstalled Norton on all three of my home computers and downloaded AVG free about a year and a half ago. No viruses, no spyware and my computer is much faster without Norton. When anyone ask, I always say download AVG.
 
Jim, and I dare say, me (ahem) are right in that one of the very best anti-virus programs

is yourself! I know it takes time to be careful but not as much time as it would to clean a virus if you can clean it at all. I will NOT open an attachment at all! I have friends send me jokes, political crap etc., all the time via attachment and when they ask what I thought of it and I tell them I deleted it, they get angry at me. They always tell me they ran it through their Virus-Scanner before sending it but I don't believe them. I have opened too many that I found that my friends just forwarded from someone else and there was 100 people who have played with it. I know how they are with their computers because they have asked my help in fixing them when they get a virus. I also have to amend my statement that I NEVER open an attachment because that isn't true. I have friends whom I KNOW take great pains to keep their computers clean and whatever they send to me too so I will open those. I use Outlook Express as my mail client but I don't use the preview window because I read more than a few egghead articles about that being dangerous also?. And I never open or click on any hyper links! What you can safely do is cut-and-paste that url into the address window of your browser and you'll be safe. I have done all of this before and still got a severe virus. I cussed and yelled at McAfee and what they told was right..Even they can't catch a well planned and executed virus attack, from an A-plus computer egghead, when nobody has ever seen anything like the code for that virus before.

I don't know if I'm right or not about a lot of this but it's worked for me for quite a while (UhOh, that's the kiss of death)..



Uncle Billy
 
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