Anti-virus question - is AVG still the best?

[weemadando]

In terms of free, no strings attached anti-virus programs, AVG has been at the top of the heap for a while, but is it still there?

Or are there others that people would recommend?

Also, who is trustworthy/reliable in the anti-spy/malware game nowadays?

[Mr Bean]

AVG is still great and hassle free, and free
Malwarebytes followed by Spybot Search and destroy lead the malware hunting efforts.

[Joviwan]

Any validated copy of windows can download the completely free Microsoft Security Essentials, which is completely free. It's also very light weight on system resources and very good at it's job. Better than most any pay service I've seen, and isn't in your face about it.

[Stark]

That's what people always say, it blows me away people still ask.

Well, beyond 'MS doesn't aggressively offer it'.

Ando since you're not a pirate where do you even get malware FROM?

[Mr Bean]

Ando since you're not a pirate where do you even get malware FROM?

Same places you get viruses, using the internet, using unknown free WIFI. From using direct p2p sharing software. You know anything that does not involve locking your computer in a box and chucking it down a mine-shaft.

Quick what's the difference between a Trojan keylogger and a malware activity sniffer. Well one wants to steal your personal information and credit card number and passwords, the other one wants to steal your personal information, credit card number and buying history.

[Stark]

I do those things and don't get any, yet guys on here are checkers and in constant fear. It's a curious thing; back in the edonkey days I saw a lot of it, but fuck all for years.

Maybe you should just stop clicking the ok I want to install that stuff button. :v

[Mr Bean]

I do those things and don't get any, yet guys on here are checkers and in constant fear. It's a curious thing; back in the edonkey days I saw a lot of it, but fuck all for years.

Here here, that's why I don't bother with car, heath or home-owners insurance, after all if something has not happened to me yet it never can.

Unless you don't use your computer, if you use it on a network sooner or later you will get something malicious on your computer, if you can be bothered to spend the ten minutes to download and set up any of the good and free anti-virus programs out and ignore it after setting it to auto-update that is as far as it will get and you can continue on life protected for the most part.

Hell there was a time on this forum when Google was not great about pre-checking all their webpage adds so surfing this forum could result in a 1 in 25 chance of getting a malicious banner ad (It was not unique to this forum but a problem that happened to everyone who used Google's adbot on their webpages for a little extra cash)

Maybe you should just stop clicking the ok I want to install that stuff button.

Great advice Stark except it takes all of.. no extra lines of code to set the "exit" and "no don't install" buttons to also install it. Install windows are not obligated to be truthful and with any one of a half a dozen tricks a well put together Trojan program can do the simple thing of not offering you the chance to opt out before it installs a little program on your computer to track down any and all personal information, pack it up and send it back to be sold off.

[weemadando]

I haven't had a case trigger in years so I can probably let it slide and let other stuff catch it.

Anti-virus however pops a bit because of idiot relatives who don't understand email.

[Stark]

I love statements like that. YOU WILL GET A VIRUS!!!! Obviously NOT, unfortunately for you. :v. And yeah it's totally like fire insurance protecting assets because the once a decade virus will cause you to lose ... Your most recent skyrim save, if anything. There's a risk of all kinda of shit happening, but beyond you guys and old people I just don't see it as worth worrying about.

Ando, is that your main risk? Nobody forwards me crap so I don't have that exposure. All the p2p and Dodgey foreign websites get me no joy, sadly. I wish for the heady days of 2005 where a virus was on every USB and starting up explorer was doom. It was a licence to print money.

[weemadando]

There's not a great deal to worry about but about once a month I get a hit of some sort and it's almost always from a relative who sends some embedded bullshit in a forward.

[Stark]

Yeah, that's where most of the old people exposure I see comes from (that and agreeing to popups which install shit). To be honest I wish it happened more to me because who knows if my setup would even pick it up if nothing ever tries? Years ago I'd open obviously trojaned exes just to see nod blow it up.

[weemadando]

Mang, it makes me laugh reinstalling all this software after a Windows install.

Had I not unchecked 90% of the options during every install my browser windows would be about 2cm at the bottom of the screen because of all the toolbars.

What a pile of bullshit software is.

[Vendetta]

AVG is the most used, but it's far from the best, and never really has been.

Avast will currently give you better protection for lower resource usage, and also has a free offering.

[Stark]

Do these guys release stats around what the most common usage is? I'm curious how many of their users simply never get any activity at all and what the breakdown is on different sorts of problem. I guess you'd need to be a shareholder though.

[Collossus]

I love statements like that. YOU WILL GET A VIRUS!!!! Obviously NOT, unfortunately for you. :v. And yeah it's totally like fire insurance protecting assets because the once a decade virus will cause you to lose ... Your most recent skyrim save, if anything. There's a risk of all kinda of shit happening, but beyond you guys and old people I just don't see it as worth worrying about.
Ando, is that your main risk? Nobody forwards me crap so I don't have that exposure. All the p2p and Dodgey foreign websites get me no joy, sadly. I wish for the heady days of 2005 where a virus was on every USB and starting up explorer was doom. It was a licence to print money.

That reminds me of a friend I had that Proclaimed he was converting over to Mac's because "They never get viruses" never mind that I told him I had been using a computer since the 90s without EVER getting a single virus.

The top reason people get the virus is….the people themselves.

BTW I use security essentials and have preferred it over AVG but in all honestly like Stark Its been years since its popped up with anything…. I think the last thing it detected was just some adware or Trojan on some freebee software…

[AniThyng]

I love statements like that. YOU WILL GET A VIRUS!!!! Obviously NOT, unfortunately for you. :v. And yeah it's totally like fire insurance protecting assets because the once a decade virus will cause you to lose ... Your most recent skyrim save, if anything. There's a risk of all kinda of shit happening, but beyond you guys and old people I just don't see it as worth worrying about.
Ando, is that your main risk? Nobody forwards me crap so I don't have that exposure. All the p2p and Dodgey foreign websites get me no joy, sadly. I wish for the heady days of 2005 where a virus was on every USB and starting up explorer was doom. It was a licence to print money.

That reminds me of a friend I had that Proclaimed he was converting over to Mac's because "They never get viruses" never mind that I told him I had been using a computer since the 90s without EVER getting a single virus.

The top reason people get the virus is….the people themselves.

BTW I use security essentials and have preferred it over AVG but in all honestly like Stark Its been years since its popped up with anything…. I think the last thing it detected was just some adware or Trojan on some freebee software…

There are always exploits and drive by downloads, and as the Mac flashback Trojan shows, you can indeed get malware onto a Mac. In this case through Java. Similar caveats apply to windows through java, JavaScript, PDFs and docs. It does even have to be from surfing obviously dodgy sites, many otherwise clean sites are not immune to being compromised and hosting browser exploits.

[Guardsman Bass]

I've heard that Avast's free offering is better than AVG's, but I don't know how user-friendly it is compared to AVG. AVG's latest free offering for Windows 7 is pretty convenient to use, combined with the Windows Firewall (and the free Malwarebytes scanner).

[Collossus]

There are always exploits and drive by downloads, and as the Mac flashback Trojan shows, you can indeed get malware onto a Mac. In this case through Java. Similar caveats apply to windows through java, JavaScript, PDFs and docs. It does even have to be from surfing obviously dodgy sites, many otherwise clean sites are not immune to being compromised and hosting browser exploits.

This of course is what I tried to explain to Him and additionally about why more windows machines are infected but he was insistent this was of course a few years ago before macs had any recent issues....

I have owned both PC's and Mac's (BTW I hate the way they have categorized computers like this -.-) and I have never had a virus on either even with the new onset of viruses that have been going around to the Mac’s I knew it would happened once their user base was larger. Look at the population as a whole, the vast majority are indeed Windows computers (I’m not sure the percentage but I’m pretty sure it’s around 60-75%). So If I was to develop a virus my first course of action would be to look at how many people it could potentially affect. Straight out of the gate you can see Mac's aren’t as likely to be infected just by virtue of not being a majority but hise asinine translation of this was "ZOMG THEY NEVER GET VIRUSES!!!"

[Zaune]

I've heard that Avast's free offering is better than AVG's, but I don't know how user-friendly it is compared to AVG. AVG's latest free offering for Windows 7 is pretty convenient to use, combined with the Windows Firewall (and the free Malwarebytes scanner).

I haven't used AVG in a few years (Version 7.5 massively dropped the ball and caused a much younger, stupider me to lose a shitload of data) so I can't easily compare the two, but I never had trouble with Avast's UI.

[TheHammer]

Yeah, that's where most of the old people exposure I see comes from (that and agreeing to popups which install shit). To be honest I wish it happened more to me because who knows if my setup would even pick it up if nothing ever tries? Years ago I'd open obviously trojaned exes just to see nod blow it up.

Well there was those issues a few years ago when one could be infected simply be visiting a web page thanks to a microsoft internet explorer security vulnerability. No pop up to click on neccessary.

[MKSheppard]

Install windows are not obligated to be truthful and with any one of a half a dozen tricks a well put together Trojan program can do the simple thing of not offering you the chance to opt out before it installs a little program on your computer to track down any and all personal information, pack it up and send it back to be sold off.

What I do when I encounter those; is to just CTRL ALT DEL and force close my browser program. Sure, I'll lose anything I was reading; but that beats a nuke and pave; since they can be very tricky in scripting those windows; like making all the buttons install the program.

[MKSheppard]

Maybe you should just stop clicking the ok I want to install that stuff button. :v

Also, remember to disable:
Hide Extensions For Known File Types

And never ever run a .EXE file from an unknown source. Even if it's just a RAR .exe

[Executor32]

I can't speak for avast! on Windows, but the Android version is a joy to use. It's easily the best free security app available, especially if you're rooted since you can then block calls and SMS and deny access to the Internet on an app-by-app basis. Being rooted also allows the anti-theft portion to remain installed and working even after a factory data reset. On my old phone I used Lookout, but while reinstalling it and the few other apps that didn't get pushed to my new phone, I read a bunch of the reviews for it (especially from other Galaxy Nexus owners) and it slowed their phones down terribly, so I decided to use something else. I think it may have been why my Droid 2 was increasingly sluggish over the past year or so. avast! hasn't affected my performance at all, though.

As far as PC goes, I used to use AVG, but I got tired of all the false positives I kept getting from things I knew to be OK, even after whitelisting them. Around that time, MSE came out and I switched to that, and I've been using it ever since. It's a lot more lightweight than AVG was, and installing it takes less than half the time.

[Edi]

On Windows, I would avoid AVG like the fucking plague. It's free yes, and it's better than many alternatives, but nowhere near as good as some other alternatives.

- Microsoft Security Essentials
- Avast
- Avira

All of these are better than AVG and all of them are free. As far as I know, all of them also work well in tandem with Spybot S&D, Malwarebytes and Spywareblaster.


Problems I have encountered with AVG professionally, and with the added benefit of having all of that come from a much smaller user base than e.g. White Haven works with:

- blocked internet connections
- general system slowdown
- sabotaged software

The third one can cause the first two when it occurs, if you don't get them on their own. Especially if you use a USB mobile broadband modem (depending on the software used), AVG can seriously fuck up your system, necessitating a tedious forced uninstalling and cleanup procedure to get the affected software up and running again. In terms of finesse it's like doing brain surgery with a machete, though the final results are less tragic.

Then there's the past shenanigans when a new version release from AVG has been so fucking bug-ridden that it necessitated a complete system reinstall for thousands of people because it wrecked their Windows that badly. This was just a few years ago.

The free alternatives to AVG do not suffer from this kind of shit and if they do develop problems, they are also easier to fix.

[Isil`Zha]

I've also seen a lot of issues where when you don't upgrade AVG to the new version, it suddenly start making your system run like absolute shit for some reason.

I've switched to Avast. Malwarebytes is good for eliminating problems, but I don't think the free version offers any real-time protection.