Best Virus/spyware Programs

[brownsfan019 17]

Going to finish up a reformat here soon and wanted to see what virus/spyware removal programs everyone here likes.

 

List your favorites (w/ links if you have them).

 

Thanks!

[timokrates 10]

I use a software called AntiVir.

It's free and does the job very well I believe.

 

Only the daily auto update is a bit annoying

 

http://free-av.com/

 

This software should be more common in german speaking countries, don't know if this is very popular elsewhere.

[Head2k 10]

http://www.avast.cz/index.html

 

Home edition is for free.

[james_gsx 16]

http://www.avast.cz/index.html

 

Home edition is for free.

 

This is probably a stupid question but...

 

What makes a product like this different than say, Norton?

[Kiwi 16]

Two things.

1. its free

2. the old standard for a virus writer is to test against mcafee and norton before release.

 

The last time I looked it was on a par with norton in comparative tests. Nothing is better than Kapersky and Nod32 but they are not free.

 

FWIW I run Avast but I turn it off during trading. Like a gamer I use Enditall to also shut down any background processes etc that are irrelevant to trading as well. I want all of my c2d's mighty power focussed on trading (and browsing ) And to be sure I'm safe I don't visit any sites except elite, t2w, tl and sierrachart during the trading day. A right click turns it back on again at the end of the day.

[Trader333 10]

This is probably a stupid question but...

 

What makes a product like this different than say, Norton?

 

In my view Norton is quite simply awful. It uses tons of pc resource and whenever I get a new pc the first thing I do is remove Norton completely and install the likes of Antivir etc.

 

If you want your pc to run faster then dump Norton.

 

 

Paul

[Bearbull 10]

Both AVG anti-virus and anti-spyware are free:

 

http://free.avg.com/ww.download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition

 

can be upgraded to the pro. version with a small subscription.

 

Also Comodo Firewall is free.

 

http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/download_firewall.html

[firewalker 10]

In my view Norton is quite simply awful. It uses tons of pc resource and whenever I get a new pc the first thing I do is remove Norton completely and install the likes of Antivir etc.

 

If you want your pc to run faster then dump Norton.

 

 

Paul

 

Absolutely.

 

I agree with Kiwi, Kaspersky and NOD32 are best, but not free.

To be honest, I rarely run into viruses anymore these days because almost nothing gets past my browser...

 

Btw, anyone tried Clamwin, the open source scanner, yet?

[Head2k 10]

Both AVG anti-virus and anti-spyware are free:

 

http://free.avg.com/ww.download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition

Both Avast and AVG are originaly Czech companies and thus they are very common in my country. I use Avast merely because it was the first one to offer a free product for home use, so I got used to it. AVG followed a few years later.

[BlowFish 10]

I think in all probability other types of malware are more of a threat than plain old viruses. For that reason you might want to consider spybot search and destroy.

 

http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html

 

I managed to get a 'virus' some while back and nothing would get rid of it completely.....until I used the above.

[brownsfan019 17]

This thread on ET has some good info too. The writer there recommends Avira.

 

Good recommendations here, thanks everyone! Keep them coming if you got other suggestions.

[Kiwi 16]

I've used clamwin on windows server 2008 (most others wont run on it) ... to be avoided as its cludgy and slow.

 

Avira is good too. I run it on my daughters machines.

 

I've been using spybot search and destroy also but am currently using the outpost firewall and it seems to overlap with ss&d so I havent installed it currently.

[brownsfan019 17]

Going to install Avast per Kiwi's reco.

[Patrycja 10]

Going to install Avast per Kiwi's reco.

 

Try NOD 32, I think it is much better than Nortons and all the other ones.

 

http://www.nod32.com

 

Patrycja

[cw30000 10]

If you going to use NOD32 and use XP, I recommend you stick with 2.70 instead of the new version 3.

[WHY? 16]

Panda...can be bought at Office Depot or online at Panda site.

[daedalus 10]

I personally use the AVG suite and have been very impressed with it. Not a resource hog, never had any issues with it. Runs completely in the background, updates automatically, built in firewall, rootkit scans, spyware protection, internet link protection, etc...

 

Great program.

 

If I wasn't using this I would be using NOD32...

[bennie 10]

Avast as virus scanner, Comodo as firewall. Why pay if you don't have to. You suspect something is up then get spybot and adaware to clean.

Norton and McAffee, whenever I repair or setup a new computer, they have to go. McAffee was good in the old days then they followed Norton and intruded on every file they could find. They really know how to bring a computer to a crawl.

Happy hunting

[brownsfan019 17]

One update here - Avast seems to be a nice program but I had to disable the part of it that scans every webpage you click. My web browsing is pretty limited and it was drastically slowing my browsing down. So if you use Avast, I would suggest turning that part of the software off b/c it brought my browsing to a standstill.

[Shamal 11]

BF, how do you do that in Avast.

 

presume it is both anti-virus and anti-spy, correct me if I am wrong

[bennie 10]

Interesting point about avast I never have that problem on any normal site. Only occasionally on sites that are known "problem" sites avast warns that the site has malicious code and wants to close the page. Otherwise no problem.

I also have a catalog program that avast warned me that the exe file was malicious since I use this one for many years I know it is a false positive so I just tell avast not to scan that 1 file. You can pretty much set anything in avast but sometimes it is not obvious how to get there. I guess it is on purpose that way so less possibility to defeat the actual purpose of the program.

It's better then AVG for my opinion and I used AVG for many years too.

Happy stock hunting all