antivirus...

just wondering what thoughts people have here regarding good antivirus software. im unprotected since my last rebuild. thought it wasnt so important since i dont do much surfing or downloading on this machine. just the same ole gaming software and a few tools like vent and xfire. just about all the sites i visit are the few gaming forums and pc shops. i also use firefox with javascript blocker ext.

so am i crazy to be booting this thing up without protection? and if so... what be some good antivirus progs for this type of machine (gaming, music recording)? i like to keep my resources as available as possible.

I use Avast! as do some of the other people here. It seems to use relatively low overhead and has very small updates in the virus database every few days. It's free as well so that doesn't hurt. I've been using it for over a year now without any problems. We use it at work as well.

http://www.avast.com

If your looking for FREE check out AVG

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

Always had good luck with them.

Had to step up to Norton System works because I needed the protection and Ghost (My game PC is my work PC...) so have to protect it more.

I am TOTALLY and TRUELY happy with spy sweeper. Although it's $29.00 it actually prevents me from going to bad sites before I get there.
It will pop up and tell me the site is know as a bad/Trojan/spy ware harmful site do you want to continue.... which is what I needed.

http://www.webroot.com/

Norton/AVG/McAfee et all are retro active where as spysweeper is pro-active.


Another good one (free!) is McAfee Siteadvisor
http://www.siteadvisor.com/

It gives you a colored graphic representation in your search window of known bad sites

Green OK or Green Bar your good to go. Red X or Red bar the site is known to have virus/phishing/Trojan so you know not to click on the link.

I like that one too, and it's free.

Free=AVG. I like AVG. Stay away from Mcafee.

Norton Anti Virus (NAV) is not too bad with the latest version, 10. That and Ghost are really the ONLY Norton products I like/use.
Duck you should remove Norton System works for all options except NAV and Ghost. I use stand alone copies of Ghost 9/10. 10 is just 9 with encryption which I recommend you NEVER use on a backup BTW! NSW really is a drudge on your system, I really hate it!

We get NAV free since the University has a site license for it. So all faculty/staff and students get it free. Same with the pro version of Adaware. If you guys want it just ask. They give to everyone so I do not care! 😉

At work I have a server just for pushing virus patterns etc.. We use Trend Office Scan. They also make a stand alone program called PCCillian. It is very good but not free.

If you want my professional opinion, the utilities people should have on their system are:

AVG for anti-virus, enough said. http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5
Or any good AV software of course 😉

Zone Alarm for a really good firewall, do NOT use/buy the pro version it is cludgeware. Use the Freeware version.
You MUST use a firewall that also blocks outgoing requests!!! ZA does this, the built in windows firewall does not.
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/comp...e_freedownloads

Winpatrol is free and GREAT! Use this as it runs in the background and will prevent any program from installing itself in the startup list as well as monitoring any changes to the registry. It does other things as well like spyware/trojan monitoring etc... http://www.winpatrol.com/

Ad-aware and/or Spybot Search & destroy for spyware. http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/comp...e_freedownloads and http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Duck you should remove Norton System works for all options except NAV and Ghost.

NO

Duck wrote:
NO

I am sorry man. I owe you an apology, I was just trying to help, not tell you what to do.

It won't happen again man. Again sorry to have bother you..

Duck wrote:
NO

You do know, don't you. . .you're coming across like a dick.

Paladin wrote:
I am sorry man. I owe you an apology, I was just trying to help, not tell you what to do.

It won't happen again man. Again sorry to have bother you..

Lmao, here we go again. Hope I don't see feathers floating around here anytime soon 😉

Paladin wrote:

Zone Alarm for a really good firewall, do NOT use/buy the pro version it is cludgeware. Use the Freeware version.
You MUST use a firewall that also blocks outgoing requests!!! ZA does this, the built in windows firewall does not.
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/comp...e_freedownloads

While I agree with alot of your stuff, last time I used zone alarm, which was a long time ago it had an issue where if you uninstalled it, it would stay installed and completely firewall your computer off. Also it would break the windows winsock. So in the end nothing in or out of the machine. It was a major pain and I had many students bring in their machines ruined by zone alarm

Bubbaspanky wrote:
While I agree with alot of your stuff, last time I used zone alarm, which was a long time ago it had an issue where if you uninstalled it, it would stay installed and completely firewall your computer off. Also it would break the windows winsock. So in the end nothing in or out of the machine. It was a major pain and I had many students bring in their machines ruined by zone alarm

Wow really? Was that the free version? I have heard of problems with the pro version but never the free one. I have used it for years and never seen that, weird..

I have installed and un-installed that various times and it never did any of that. things that make you go hmmmmmm 😉

I have a free firewall if anyone wants it, called Sygate. The company was bought up by Symantic so you can no longer get it normally but I got it before it was taken down. We also purchased the pro version but the free one of this is really good.

DocJon wrote:
You do know, don't you. . .you're coming across like a dick.

YES

^^^^ hahahaha


In any case, Yeah it was rather common then this was maybe 99-2000ish. It didn't happen all the time, but well I had a large amount of machines so we saw it many times. Kicker was until we figured it out the only answer was a format reinstall. Then we found they all had Zone Alarm and had uninstalled it. The hardest part was figuring out where in the registry to hack to fix it.

Duck wrote:
YES

I hate miscommunication. It's good to know we're on the same page.

Bubbaspanky wrote:
^^^^ hahahaha
In any case, Yeah it was rather common then this was maybe 99-2000ish. It didn't happen all the time, but well I had a large amount of machines so we saw it many times. Kicker was until we figured it out the only answer was a format reinstall. Then we found they all had Zone Alarm and had uninstalled it. The hardest part was figuring out where in the registry to hack to fix it.

That is interesting. Maybe certain versions at the time. I would still recommend it though. It really is one of the better firewalls out there IMHO.

I am of the camp that as long as I am behind my hardware based router/firewall, I don't need anything on my PC to mess up the TCP/IP stack. So far, so good.....

Atomm wrote:
I am of the camp that as long as I am behind my hardware based router/firewall, I don't need anything on my PC to mess up the TCP/IP stack. So far, so good.....

Here is a good test for you then man. Install ZA or any good firewall and let the blocked notices come through. You will be surprised at how much still gets through. A router does not prevent that as much as you would think. Especially anything outgoing, it will not stop that at all. But it is cool man. I was just trying to help. Not telling anyone what to do. If you are cool with it that is fine by me 😉