Best security software

What works without disrupting your computer?

[spharalsia]

I was recently given a computer as a gift, and it came with a Norton antivirum subscription that is about to run out. I've noticed quite a few system problems that I suspect are related to Norton, so I am looking around for something different. So the question: What would you recommend that will be effective, yet gentle on my operating system?

Thanks in advance...I trust the opinions of people here more than anyone else.

[bcolflesh]

AVG Free edition:

[free.grisoft.com...]

[henry0]

A tough question without risking spamming :)

I use on multiple machines since many years PC-Cillin
from Trend Micro

great support, great product

good luck

[Leosghost]

regmon ..and an anti wormhook ..the rest you can live without although bcolflesh's suggestion is the best of the freebies ..if you want to pay ..then NOD 32 ..

But regmon and an anti wormhook and never use IE nor outlook and you'll avoid most of whats out there ..the rest is experience ...and remember a few trashed systems never hurt no one on the way to "curious" ;))

oh yeah and dont use the latest 'doze if you are gonna use any doze ..because that is the target of the day ..

norton is only going to stop ads ..anything else it is worse than laughable ..except in the corporate version which is marginally better ..but still as effective as a photo of a pitbull stuck to your door ..no more ..

[2by4]

Everything leosghost said, plus this:

nod32 is the best av I've seen, it has resisted one of the worst virus magnet windows users I've ever seen, I now only use nod32 for clients, and they aren't getting any viruses. No other AV product I've tested has been able to achieve that. That's normal, clueless, average users, office types. And it's pretty cheap when you get a two year subscription, less than Norton if you are licensing multiple machines. Warning: the eset site sucks, use a reseller if you can.

Leosghost, you're not being fair to norton, it stops other stuff than ads, I remember for example it decided that gallery pages were spam and removed the html for all but a handful of the gallery images. I thought the server had been hacked when I looked at the html, took me a while to figure that out. That was the last straw for me with Norton, garbage, total garbage, everything they do is garbage.

Norton is the worst, MacAfee is close behind. To me a norton cd is about as worth installing on my system as an aol cd, I'd never install either again, both mess your system up permanently.

[Buster42]

NOD32 for my money(and my clients).

In my opinion, NOD32 is Excellent - have seen machines with Norton AV or Trend Micro or McAfee installed & running all with up to date sigs have virus related symptoms. Disable them in the reg and install NOD32, BAM multiple infections detected.

Also NOD32 is very "light" on the machine, so it's good for older slower PCs. Sig updates are usually released daily, so there s a very small window for new infections.

I personally use a combination of NOD32, Webroot Spy Sweeper(anti-spyware), MS Anti-Spyware(anti-browser hijack), MailFrontier(spam Filter) and Sunbelt(formerly Kerio) Personal Firewall as my "suite".

[spharalsia]

Excellent advice. Buster42, you're saying to disable Norton in the registry before installing NOD32...just uninstalling Norton won't do the trick? How would I disable Norton in the registry?

[2by4]

No, he just did that for testing, and running other av stuff. Uninstall norton completely, it takes several reboots usually, it's got several components, uninstall each by itself, reboot, then uninstall the next. Norton's uninstaller is one of the things that really sucks about norton by the way. I almost lost an OS uninstalling norton, it barely worked after that. Norton's a bit better now, seems fairly safe to uninstall it, that was a few years ago.

When you compare it to avg or nod32, it's amazing, no rebooting in most cases, just uninstall, poof, nod32/avg is gone. Norton is never really gone, it leaves traces of itself all over your system after uninstall, I just saw some on a box today that hadn't had norton on it for years.

[Buster42]

spharalsia - Messing with the registry can be dangereous, <insert Microsft standard disclaimer about registry work here>. So be careful. I suggest reseaching it a little before you play and even mess about on a test PC before playing on a PC with important stuff on it.

Read this -> [support.microsoft.com...]

2by4 is correct about Norton, Very hard to get rid of completely. Symantec do have a couple of free utils available to clean things up.

The Liveupdate component hangs around (and loads in memory) after you uninstall NAV or NIS.

I suggest going to symantec support and doing a search for removing / uninstalling your product version. The utils are version specific as well otherwise I would put the link to them here for you. From memory I think the main ones are RNIS.exe(?) and SYMNRT.exe.

Good luck, and remember to backup the important stuff before doing anything.

[spharalsia]

Hmm, pretty good move on Symantec's part, making it so difficult to get rid of.

One of the reasons I'm looking to switch is that I notice my computer's processor seems to be almost always active. I tracked down some of the activity to some Onfolio subscriptions left from the previous owner, but I'm wondering whether Norton's busy in the background too. Either that or it's something nasty Norton didn't get. In any case, time for a switch.

[stapel]

This isn't quite what you were asking for, but...

Ever since I installed MailWasher, I've been able to "see" and delete the viruses before they ever touch my computer, because I can preview and delete mail directly from the mail server. That is, I don't have to download my mail to deal with it, so the viruses never get close enough to my computer to cause any damage.

I still keep my anti-virus software paid up and running, but it hasn't had anything to "do" in ages.

Eliz.

[Leosghost]

Thats OK stapel as far as it goes ..but mailwasher isn't going to protect you from pages with nasty code payloads ..software install with trojans ..contaminated CD's etc ..flash memory cards or sticks with hidden extras ..

email is only one of many vectors used to deliver nasties ..

And not all ISP's allow you to install something on their mail server ..nor have adequate AV or scanning in place at the server level themselves where your pop account may be ..