Posted on 12/07/2014 9:30:05 AM PST by TurboZamboni
I'm not renewing my paid subscription to AVG as it gets more worthless every year.
(Windows based PC)
I do this stuff for a living.
I haven’t had any real problems with AVG free version. The tray notifications can be a pain, but you can turn those off (which I usually do).
At work, we use an enterprise version of Vipre, which is OK I guess, but it won’t stop a lot of stuff, especially when the users click on e-mailed links they’re not supposed to.
Everybody should have 3 types of virus protection on their Windows PCs (all of which can be found for free on http://www.download.com):
1. A constantly running virus blocker. The free versions of AVG or Avast should work great there, though you can pay for Trend Micro or Norton or McAfee is you really want to (I wouldn’t).
2. An on-demand virus scanner. The best all around scanner is Malwarebytes; I use it extensively at work. It’s a free product, and they have a pay version too.
3. A registry cleaner. The one I use practically everyday at work is Ccleaner, mainly the first two lefthand tabs in the program (”Cleaner” and “Registry”). You can speed up your computer quite a bit with a couple of passes of the Registry portion of Ccleaner.
ABOUT PC-MATIC:
I would never, EVER recommend using any PC speed-up product in a TV commercial. If they have to advertise on TV, they’re not worth installation. Their target audience is senior citizens who don’t know anything about computers.
These products, if they work at all, take up huge amounts of resources on start up, and sometimes go out to servers on the Internet to store settings, making them that much slower.
Installing PC-Matic or similar product IN ADDITION TO a constantly running virus blocker like Norton will bog down your computer until it’s practically impossible to run anything.
thanks, for the clarity/info. d:^)
Thanks! I’ll give it a go, put the portable edition on a USB—love portable apps... Where were they back in 1996? ;)
Going on 26 years with various Macs - Trouble free.
I don't know about Windows 8 or 8.1 -- that could be a completely different situation.
No extra “protection” needed, either.
I think it is enabling proxy for you. For Internet Explorer go to Internet Options connections tab LAN settings and see if it has proxy server checked. Set to Automatically Detect.
Avast, MalwareBytes, CCleaner
Switched from AVG to Avast a few years ago when I encountered a virus that turned off AVG and masked itself. MalwareBytes picked it up immediately. AVG was getting bloated anyways if I remember correctly.
You also have to be sure you have gotten all the security updates for Windows, Adobe, etc. Avast does a good job of notifying you that you need to get security updates. However, malicious software can still sneak through and even turn off your antivirus. You have to be aware of what you have and check that it is running. I have often helped my sister in law get her laptop cleaned up, but she still gets malware and viruses because she is clueless about checking that things are running right and doing the manual scans. Internet Explorer seems very vulnerable to attack and using Firefox with security add ons stops a lot of junk from getting through.
Thanks. Next time it happens I will check on that before I do the restore. I will also check the items that WinZip wants to clean.
It has constant pop-ups saying something in DLL is infected, but then that it cannot be removed.
Thank you for your #21!
Last weekend I uninstalled my Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2014 and tried AVG. My pc started to have blue screen errors after that during a anti virus scan.
I use to have AVG for many years before both paid and free versions. After that experience I search on the issue and found many people with similar problems with the latest AVG. I reinstall Kaspersky and I will renew in the next 16 days for 3 pc’s as my paid subscription is about over.
I also have “Windows Defender” set to scan my computer for spyware. Go to Control Panel> All Control Panel Items and look for “Windows Defender”
Download Microsoft Security Essentials for free.
http://blogs.microsoft.com/cybertrust/2013/11/14/windows-defender-and-microsoft-security-essentials-which-one-do-i-need/
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2015 - $40 for 1 or 3 pcs (special)
Backup Disc an add’ll 9.95 ($53.65 for 3 pc protection)
http://usa.kaspersky.com/?domain=kaspersky.com
Review of Kaspersky vs Microsoft Security Essentials
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2089469/kaspersky-internet-security-2014-review-an-all-around-performer.html
Kaspersky looks to be the better of the two.
Just for looking at these works of art:
The biggest, baddest, most utterly ridonkulous PC coolers of all time
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2023752/the-biggest-baddest-most-utterly-ridonkulous-pc-coolers-of-all-time.html
After I immediately uninstalled GOOGLE, my computer crashed...When I got it back I uninstalled AVAST as well. I have 12 computers I play with that are now AVAST free.
BTW, I got a bad virus with a paid subscription to AVAST too...And the virus was from JAVA
A friend using Avast got a killer worm that ruined 2 motherboards and ran up his data bill $1000.
The old saying ain’t lying when it says “you get what you pay for”.
My IT gal suggested the paid version of malwarebytes so I did that and it covers 3 computers for like $50/yr.
Pcmatic is probably similar but not sure its as good of a product or not.
avast + malwarebytes
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