Quote:
Originally Posted by DanielCox /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Common sense is the best protection - failing that any one of the three free antivirus programs will more than meet your needs. Norton, McAfee, etc. are all rip off programs preying on the fear of the average pleb. They're not worth your money and cause more problems than they solve.
The only AV you should ever consider buying is NOD32 - excellent software if you want slightly more protection.
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Daniel, no offense intended, but this is mostly bad advice. I've done more malware cleanups of client machines (one of my responsibilities at the office is the corporate AV/AM mgmt, 1000-ish users) than I care to remember and have seen the gamut of free and paid antivirus suites.
First of all, whoever posted
this gave you some valuable information. Bravo. There's a reason that many major corporations force their admins to use user-level accounts for normal daily stuff, although UAC in Vista and 7 has made it less dangerous to not do so. I don't agree with his NoScript advice, because you're crippling your browser in the process and making most websites unnavigable. I also don't agree with his last statement about AV/AM not being required, because (again) you're killing many of the useful features of running apps & applets inside the browser...browser-based apps are only going to increase in number as this SAS (software as a service) thing grows even longer legs...and who is going to want to be restricted from downloading some of the niftiest free utilities and/or music & movies out there? The good AV/AM suites have heuristic detection pieces that can sniff out malicious behavior and tell you what's going on when needed.
Second, I have yet to see a free AV/AM suite that gave complete protection except for EEye's Blink product (excellent, excellent, excellent)...which left it's free-for-a-year-then-reinstall status to a 30-day trial model. AVG, Avast, Avira, Panda, etc...they don't give you the total suite for free, just basic protection...and none of these will protect you adequately against rootkit-based malware and the FakeAntivirus bugs which are so freaking nasty. I've seen infected boxes with all the free AV/AM apps at some time or another. Used to love love love AVG for its user-friendliness and low overhead, but it doesn't stop anything these days hardly.
Third, a few recommendations. If you have McAfee's suite on any type of trial, uninstall it. Easily the most overhead-heavy non-functioning junk on the market, in my opinion. I see more infected Dells using the preinstalled McAfee suite than anything else that crosses our lab tables. It'll keep off some pieces of a given bug but not all of it, and once McAfee breaks due to a partial infection, it becomes a non-functional disk-thrashing monster. CA Etrust. Total garbage. Avoid. As Daniel said, the Eset NOD32 suite is very, very good. I know a guy who stopped his company's habitual Facebook/MySpace-sourced infection problem with this product, and I have yet to see an infected machine with it installed. My favorite for lightweight-ness and effectiveness is Norton Internet Security. They've really cleaned up their act from the early 2000s and have a fantastic product that won't slow down your system. We also use its rough corporate equal (Endpoint Protection Mgr) and have done perhaps two cleanups since switching...both of those have preexisting bugs from previously-installed malware. $40 or cheaper if you can find a rebate, and a 3-machine license for a year. Money well spent.
Sorry for the speech folks.
