ali_j

gonna do a clean format of my main hdd in time for my new amd 64 4000 cpu and motherboard and also to clean out all the virues i have, using avast and bulldog did not help. any recommendations?? and a firewall if possible.

thanks

Iain Young

No such thing as a good free antivirus.

mike1210

Not a free one but id recommend Nod32, been using it for a while and seems tidy. Other ones.....Mcafee and Panda....Again not free

swaussie

I am surprised avast didnt work well? but it might be worth checking out www.grisoft.com for their AVG antivirus. Also free for home or personal use.

Firewalls, Zonealarm at www.zonelabs.com or check out sygates free firewall here http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm

Iain Young

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

swaussie

guess thats a no on that suggestion then Iain never used it myself, any reason you are so against it?

And besides Ali_J, if you are doing a complete format, you shouldnt have any problems with virus unless they are embedded somewhere in your data. might want to do a free online scan at www.trendmicro.com.

Stueyb

Personnaly one of the things I wouldnt cheap out on is AV. I mean £30 buys you McAfee for a year, with support. That works out to £2.50 a month. Thats damn cheap. This is one definate area with the old adage you get what you pay for !

Iain Young

Because it's woefully bad. It doesn't recognise all viruses, does a bad job of removing them, and I've seen it let through some pretty nasty stuff. It's also a nightmare to uninstall etc...

As already mentioned, McAfee or Panda are pretty cheap really, and it's not worth taking the risk IMO.

ali_j

i had mcafee for a while i didnt like it although it was good, it missed out on somethings. i just want to keep it clean this time, i think i might be the norton secutriy suite, it is the only one i have ever liked thanks for you're suggestions guys.

AndyMoody

iTrader: (2)

AVG free

www.free.grisoft.com

Iain Young

I repeat...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

rgv_stu

i used avast and blackice on my win2k machine with no problems

i have recently formatted and started using xp , avast seems to work fine but blackice seems suspect, is this because of the xp sp2 firewall still switched on ?

Alan C

I agree with Iain... AVG is poor. I had a few problems getting rid of it amongst other stuff under test..

Nuff said..

swaussie

Some good knowledge sharing. Nice to have a bit of advice from people with experience.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Blackice is crap! its not a proper firewall, n lets through loads of 'attacks'. Earlier versions also caused XP to bsod randomly.

D16GER

Currently using Norton AV + PF 2005 and have no problems, although I do use a Linksys router with firewall too.

I would personally give Kaspersky a look. Its not free, but performs very well IMO. Try the online scanner, and download the demo.

Daz34

PC World are currently selling McAfee AV 2006 for £18.

Don't be a tight wad

Dracoro

I use AVG and have never had a virus.

You name me an anti-virus and I'll give you numerous people who think it's crap.

Kaplinsky appears to be the best on the market at the mo.

I backup my data regularly. Once a year I might rebuild my machine to give it a performance boost but out of want rather than necessity.

Iain Young

How do you know you've never had a virus if all you have used is AVG?

I've had to try and recover numerous machines which have been infested with viruses that AVG had let through. Even in the independent lab tests (there was one linked on here a couple of weeks ago), AVG always comes out really poorly compared to McAffee, norton, panda etc.

Personally I think having a naff antivirus program installed is worse than having none. It lures you into a false sense of security. Given that you can apparently get McAfee for £18 from pc world, it hardly makes sense to got the free route really. I bet most people spend more that that down the pub in an evening...

chump

I use Avast Home Edition. Its FREE and has the smallest system overheads of any AV. I used to use Mcafee but chose this after a recommendation. I get up to 2 virus updates a day...more than Mcafee

Dracoro

Well, I haven't had my PC go **** up or anything. Aren't viruses meant to do norty things to your pooter?

I understand the sentiment though, however this is the same for all AV. Most them are only as good as the latest virus definition files.

I wouldn't totally rely on ANY av. That's why I do backups.

JackClark

>I get up to 2 virus updates a day...more than Mcafee

Our - McAfee - Quality Assurance is so strict computers aren't fast enough for us to relase any more updates. <a bit tounge in cheek>

Iain Young

Yes, but they are also doing stuff like running unobtrusively in the background waiting for you to enter personal information (bank details etc), and then transmitting them off into web land somewhere. I read an article about this the other day, and it appears that they are getting more targetted in their approach these days. More focussed on getting information rather than screwing up your computer. Of course there are still viruses that do that as well..

JackClark

It's all about the money! Why write a virus that calls someone a ****** when you can just as easily steal his wallet and sell pictures of his nekid wife.

Alan C

From a business perspective we have a belt, braces & bicycle clip outlook that also has stabilisers, extra knee and elbow pads and soft cushion to fall onto ic case all that fails...

That means we have two seperate AV packages running as well as an 'event sink' at the eMail Exchange. To suppoprt this we also have a well screwed down firewall, HIDS, NIDS, event logging and various other protective meaures... Did I mention that the cyclist above was wearing a condom?

We don't trust any one defensve layer.. I don't really trust all of these to 100%.. So I'd agree with Dracoro.. If you value your data, Identity and bandwidth, take up a solid 'defense in depth' approach..

Which means Firewall(s) (I have a hardware gateway & software package), decent AV, 2x Spyware either running or which can be run.. Having a decent internet facing layer means that your AV and Spyware should be relatively quiet, unless you visit some dodgy sites...