# Recommended antivirus programs?



## AlexInsane (Mar 23, 2009)

I'm thinking about getting a new one, seeing as how I'm still using AVG 7.5, and that won't be getting updates after the second week of April. The reason I can't use AVG 8 is because my college's internet doesn't support it. 

So I'm going to try to get the best one I can for now. I've heard people mention software called Avast! before, is that any good?

Can anyone recommend me any other antivirus software?

First one to say "Norton" gets my foot in their testicles.


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## Irreverent (Mar 23, 2009)

Avast...its free, its the best and it rocks.

www.avast.com.  Get the home edition, renew the free license annually.


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## AlexInsane (Mar 23, 2009)

Will there be a conflict if I have both AVG and Avast! on my computer at the same time? If so, I'd like to know how I can avert it.

I need AVG 7.5 to access my college internet, and since I don't know if it supports Avast!, I need to keep it for now.


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## pheonix (Mar 23, 2009)

Avira is good, it works well for me.


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## Carenath (Mar 23, 2009)

AlexInsane said:


> Will there be a conflict if I have both AVG and Avast! on my computer at the same time? If so, I'd like to know how I can avert it.
> 
> I need AVG 7.5 to access my college internet, and since I don't know if it supports Avast!, I need to keep it for now.


Probably yes. It's generally a very bad idea to run more than one antivirus programme on your computer.

I take it your college is using Cisco CleanAccess...


pheonix said:


> Avira is good, it works well for me.


Avira was one of the first decent antivirus programmes I used, and I got to use the professional version for free, just for being friends with my school's sysadmin. Back then it was H+BEDV AntiVir 

I'd strongly recommend Avira AntiVir myself, its not as resource hungry as AVG8, which seemed to really hate my PC. If you choose to pay for an antivirus programme, then I recommend Eset Smart Security 4.


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## AlexInsane (Mar 23, 2009)

Yes, my college is using Cisco CleanAccess.

Isn't there a list of supported antivirus software for this kind of thing?


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## Runefox (Mar 24, 2009)

Wait. What? Your school "supports" AVG 7.5, and yet doesn't support AVG 8.0? That's... Interesting. As far as I know, there is no particular list of anti-virus products that Cisco CleanAccess will check for; I was under the assumption that the network administrators handled that. That said, I'd be surprised if Avira or Avast are included on their "nice" list.

If (purchasing) anti-virus software is such a concern for you, then I personally recommend buying Kaspersky. Otherwise... Norton 2009. Yes, yes, I _*know*_, but it actually happens to be one of the lightest anti-virus products on the market, bizarrely enough. Their new "zero-impact" policy seems to be working out for them, and their scanning success rates, at least on paper, are head and shoulders above the competition. As strange as it sounds, it might be worth looking into. Having had to install it on a computer at a client's office, I was very pleasantly surprised at how well-behaved it was. It didn't slow the system down any more than any other anti-virus product I'd seen, including AVG, and this system was a "lowly" Athlon X2 4000+ with a gig of RAM running XP (the likes of which Norton 2006 brought to its knees). It remained responsive, and its interface was snappy. As much as it pains me to say it, and as unpopular as this is going to make me, it's... Good.

Also: Read the results of those benchmarks in the first link with a grain of salt - They're seeded slightly by Symantec. Still, it isn't too far off the mark in my experience and in the experience of quite a few others who have seen it, both online and off.


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## ArielMT (Mar 24, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Wait. What? Your school "supports" AVG 7.5, and yet doesn't support AVG 8.0? That's... Interesting. As far as I know, there is no particular list of anti-virus products that Cisco CleanAccess will check for; I was under the assumption that the network administrators handled that. That said, I'd be surprised if Avira or Avast are included on their "nice" list.



I'd like to know how his school "supports" it as well, when not even the vendor themselves support it anymore.  They're up to Version 8.5 now.



Runefox said:


> If (purchasing) anti-virus software is such a concern for you, then I personally recommend buying Kaspersky. Otherwise... Norton 2009. Yes, yes, I _*know*_, but it actually happens to be one of the lightest anti-virus products on the market, bizarrely enough. Their new "zero-impact" policy seems to be working out for them, and their scanning success rates, at least on paper, are head and shoulders above the competition. As strange as it sounds, it might be worth looking into. Having had to install it on a computer at a client's office, I was very pleasantly surprised at how well-behaved it was. It didn't slow the system down any more than any other anti-virus product I'd seen, including AVG, and this system was a "lowly" Athlon X2 4000+ with a gig of RAM running XP. It remained responsive, and its interface was snappy. As much as it pains me to say it, and as unpopular as this is going to make me, it's... Good.



Kaspersky seconded.  I know some of my ISP's clients use it, but the only trouble call I ever took involving it was a paid request to install it.

I was just as shocked meself about Norton 2009 when I read about it.  I'm still in disbelief that Symantec could've possibly made anything as good as reports say Norton 2009 is.


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## AlexInsane (Mar 24, 2009)

ArielMT said:


> I'd like to know how his school "supports" it as well, when not even the vendor themselves support it anymore.  They're up to Version 8.5 now.



I've asked and asked, but nobody knows what's going on or understands it.

Not long ago, I had AVG 8.0 in addition to Sophos Antivirus (which doesn't do shit, but which is supported by Cisco CleanAccess), but for some reason CleanAccess Agent said that my antivirus software wasn't up to date, which meant I was denied access. 

So, what it was saying...was that I was denied access because my up to date software wasn't up to date. Yeah. That's pretty fucking strange. Retrograde and fucking retarded.

Apparently, the only fix for it was to downgrade to an older, obsolete version, which is what I have now. 

I'm going to go to the Tech building on campus tomorrow to find out what I should do, since 7.5 is going to be discontinued soon.

EDIT: I don't care what you say about Norton, I'd sooner cut off my own hand than put anything of theirs on my computer. If their next software releases are as good as the one you say, I might be willing to try it, but for now, I don't trust Norton at all.


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## ToeClaws (Mar 24, 2009)

Speaking as a university Network Admin - tell your NOC department they best look into updating the support for their "Clean access" system.  AVG 7.5 is obsolete, and 8.0 just became old news too.  They should be able to update the firmware of the various devices enforcing this standard unless they've let the box go past EOL or didn't keep a support contract on it, in which case they're insane (allowing only obsolete anti-virus scanners on a network is as good as just letting the viruses run rampant).

At any rate, you should at least be able to ask and get the story from them as to the status of their enforcement hardware.  Second thing is - does this enforcement hardware only "enforce" the anti-virus standard when using Wireless or is this done no matter how you connect to the network?  At my campus, it's only done on wireless and when using the IVE/VPN, so wired network access doesn't care.

There may also be another work around, and that is to use an alternate OS.  I know with our inspection systems, they count on seeing "Windows" as the OS.  If they don't, then they don't bother checking for anti-virus software.  That's mostly because it's much, much harder to get a virus on the other OS's since they're better hardened, but more importantly, not mainstream.  If you boot up on a Ubuntu or Mint Linux LiveCD, see if you can access the network.


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## AlexInsane (Mar 24, 2009)

I went into the Microcomputer Services office today, and they said that they are *only now* just getting around to making a version of CleanAccess that supports AVG 8.0.

I was like "Why are you guys using outdated antivirus software? It doesn't do anything. You need to make it so that the latest versions of the antivirus software is allowed."

They just shrugged and said that it wasn't their fault, that it was CleanAccess, which I don't buy for a minute. Anyway, I'll be bringing my laptop down there so they can download this latest version, which apparently hasn't even been released yet to the main campus systems.

In short, I don't know what the fuck they're doing down there. 

*ToeClaws*: On our campus, you have to have CleanAccess on your computer before you can access the internet, even if you have an alternate OS. It's a requirement of the college; if you don't have it on your comp, you don't get the internet.

You can always use the library or computer lab comps, but I prefer my laptop.


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## lilEmber (Mar 24, 2009)

I don't see the issue, just use AVG 7.5 and don't download human porn.


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## Irreverent (Mar 24, 2009)

AlexInsane said:


> I went into the Microcomputer Services office today, and they said that they are *only now* just getting around to making a version of CleanAccess that supports AVG 8.0.



Bullshit!  Tell them that a senior director of operations for Canada's largest wireless/ISP company says they are full of shit!   That'll scare'em.  



ToeClaws said:


> unless they've let the box go past EOL or didn't keep a support contract on it, in which case they're insane (allowing only obsolete anti-virus scanners on a network is as good as just letting the viruses run rampant).



Cisco Clean Access is policy based, is supports _what ever_ the network admin scripts it to support.  I'm with Toeclaws on this one, they have either lost the ability to make changes to their CA server, or (CA as its been discontinued and replaced by CA NAC) their Cisco support contract has lapsed and they are scared to touch it.  Or both.  Likely both.  Gawd what a frigging hot-zone a campus of under protected devices could be.  *shudder*

Meantime, sounds like you are stuck playing by their rules so get them to download the freshest policy compliant muck they have.



NewfDraggie said:


> I don't see the issue, just use AVG 7.5 and don't download human porn.



Except that code updates and virus pattern updates has (or will end) soon. So 7.5 wont catch the latest bugs (although in heuristic mode it might make a best guess)


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## ToeClaws (Mar 24, 2009)

AlexInsane said:


> I went into the Microcomputer Services office today, and they said that they are *only now* just getting around to making a version of CleanAccess that supports AVG 8.0.
> 
> I was like "Why are you guys using outdated antivirus software? It doesn't do anything. You need to make it so that the latest versions of the antivirus software is allowed."
> 
> ...



If they've updated to the latest code Release 4.5(1)â€” 4.510.0 series, then it should actually be okay with AVG 8.5 as well (the release notes specify that AVG 8.X is supported).

In my opinion though, this is a pretty nasty solution to try and police the network, and would only work on small networks or ones with a pretty badly bottle-necked design.  Forcing the end user to HAVE to run software means also forcing them to use certain OS's.  I think at my campus that would actually be considered a rights violation, heh.



			
				NewfDraggie said:
			
		

> I don't see the issue, just use AVG 7.5 and don't download human porn.



Ewww... furry porn is SO much better.   But ah... probably also not a good idea to download at work/school.


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## net-cat (Mar 24, 2009)

*googles CleanAccess*

That's... utterly horrible. That's one of those things I'd try to find a way around on principle.


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## ToeClaws (Mar 24, 2009)

net-cat said:


> *googles CleanAccess*
> 
> That's... utterly horrible. That's one of those things I'd try to find a way around on principle.



*laughs* Good boy.


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## Runefox (Mar 24, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> ... a senior director of operations for Canada's largest wireless/ISP company ...



Does "I hope you die in a fire you monopolistic scum, now go make my internet faster instead of sitting on your profits and buying DPI equipment to keep me from using my connection as I want to" qualify as an adequate response to this?

EDIT: For the hell of it, I downloaded the trial version of Norton Antivrus 2009 Gaming Edition. It installed in approximately 30 seconds, and is currently taking up between 10MB and 16MB of RAM. So far, no noticeable performance impact since the install finished. Access times seem normal, application startup times seem normal. Gonna try a game now.

EDIT2: Game didn't flinch.


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## Irreverent (Mar 24, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Does "I hope you die in a fire you monopolistic scum, now go make my internet faster instead of sitting on your profits and buying DPI equipment to keep me from using my connection as I want to" qualify as an adequate response to this?



Yep.  No, wat, wait, hey now....Director of network ops <=> fucktard-VP in Marketing/Finance. :evil:   Besides, you're in Aliant territory! *ducks down the back stairs*

Seriously, I'm just as pissed about that as you.  Saddly, the boys in TechDev don't care, as long as the budet money keeps pouring in.    Worse, you pour a trillion dollars into a network that could bury Rogers and sell it for a loonie, and the competition whines to the CRTC and calls you anti-competitive.  Friggin socialist country.

[ontopic]



net-cat said:


> *googles CleanAccess*
> 
> That's... utterly horrible. That's one of those things I'd try to find a way around on principle.


and


ToeClaws said:


> *laughs* Good boy.



NAC's can be spoofed with a client that lets your device emlulate a clean windows PC with all the the latest patches and AV.  Scriptkiddies need not apply. [that means YOU, Alex :razz:]


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## Runefox (Mar 24, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Yep.  No, wat, wait, hey now....Director of network ops <=> fucktard-VP in Marketing/Finance. :evil:   Besides, you're in Aliant territory! *ducks down the back stairs*



Heh, I owe Aliant money. And their network sucks more than Rogers does. Or, at least, their modem does. Damned Siemens Speedstream piece of crap. At least I'm getting a 10mbps/1mbps connection with Rogers, I guess. Still, lousy bandwidth caps.


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## CaptainCool (Mar 24, 2009)

we are using norton internet security. its bundeled with our internet connection and im pretty happy with it.
we can change it to norton 360 now, i will probably do that tomorrow


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## Carenath (Mar 24, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> In my opinion though, this is a pretty nasty solution to try and police the network, and would only work on small networks or ones with a pretty badly bottle-necked design.  Forcing the end user to HAVE to run software means also forcing them to use certain OS's.  I think at my campus that would actually be considered a rights violation, heh.


I ran into that bullshit when I my college brought their wireless LAN into beta testing using CCA. They choose *only* to support Windows PCs so my Macbook wasnt allowed onto the wireless network, and I just worked around it by keeping a patched copy of XP running in a VM, I would start it, just to authenticate and get me on the network, then close it again and work away, in spite of them.


net-cat said:


> *googles CleanAccess*
> That's... utterly horrible. That's one of those things I'd try to find a way around on principle.


Done that, but at my college they only use it to protect the wireless network, access is restricted to students with a valid student ID and password, but if you plug into a free wired port you're left alone.

And Im gonna hug my 20/1.5 unrestricted and unlimited cable connection over here. Canada's phone services, and the internet services that I used royally suck.


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## Mogu (Mar 25, 2009)

Anything but Norton and McAffee.  Can't go far wrong if you avoid them.


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## Runefox (Mar 25, 2009)

Mogu said:


> Anything but Norton and McAffee.  Can't go far wrong if you avoid them.



Yes, you can. You could pick up Antivirus 2009.


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## Carenath (Mar 25, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Yes, you can. You could pick up Antivirus 2009.


Dont start me on that crap... my sister got it on her laptop... thing was so badly gummed up all I could do was install a second copy of XP on the C drive, then move all her documents over to a backup drive and restore from a protected partition... the next bit of fun was uninstalling McAfee and trying to download a proper antivirus programme over Bell Sympaticos network... and christ do those guys suck...

As for antivirus recommendations.... Eset NOD32 or Eset Smart Security are both great choices... I use the latter myself.


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## Runefox (Mar 25, 2009)

Carenath said:


> horror story



Just so you know for the future, Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware can take care of Antivirus 2009 (which, if you haven't guessed by now, is NOT an anti-virus product, but is instead spyware and a scam).

NOD32 is pretty good, but I've found it to be rather heavy on system resources. Great for standard desktops/office PC's, but it _will_ slow things down a little. Its scanner is quite accurate, though.


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## Xaerun (Mar 25, 2009)

I use Avira, which is just fine, but it bitches at me for not forking out any dough. That gets a little annoying.


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## AlexInsane (Mar 25, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> If they've updated to the latest code Release 4.5(1)â€” 4.510.0 series, then it should actually be okay with AVG 8.5 as well (the release notes specify that AVG 8.X is supported).



How do I check if they've updated to the latest code release?

Can I check it on my computer? I have the latest version they have now downloaded on my computer, so maybe I can check it myself?

All I know is that the version number is 4.1.3.2


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## Carenath (Mar 26, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Just so you know for the future, Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware can take care of Antivirus 2009 (which, if you haven't guessed by now, is NOT an anti-virus product, but is instead spyware and a scam).
> 
> NOD32 is pretty good, but I've found it to be rather heavy on system resources. Great for standard desktops/office PC's, but it _will_ slow things down a little. Its scanner is quite accurate, though.


Oh I know... but my sister's laptop was so badly messed up... you couldnt use it.. it ran like frozen tar, so bad I couldnt run any apps after about 2-3 minutes it would lock up like superglue.


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## Marticus (Mar 26, 2009)

Always had AVG, but the latest update gave me a nice bluescreen. Since then it hasnt loaded on startup.

Note: I'm using Windows7, i'ts sposed to support anything Vista does.. but I guess random things like that are expected in beta OS's.


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## Shino (Mar 27, 2009)

I reccommend AVG if you don't want to pay anything, OneCare if you want set-and-forget, and BKAV if you're fluent in Vietnamese.
Or just go get Trend Micro's latest offering.

And for the love of god, avoid Symantec/Norton and McAfee like your life depened on it.


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## Irreverent (Mar 27, 2009)

Carenath said:


> and trying to download a proper antivirus programme over Bell Sympaticos network... and christ do those guys suck...



If you're really having trouble with residential Sympatico, its usually a CO-distance issue, or an outside cable plant issue; neither of which can be easily fixed.  Inukshuk (or whatever the hell the marketing-tards are calling our fixed base wireless ethernet these days) might be an option.

PM me some details if you want, I have a _little_ bit of pull with those guys.


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## Carenath (Mar 27, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> If you're really having trouble with residential Sympatico, its usually a CO-distance issue, or an outside cable plant issue; neither of which can be easily fixed.  Inukshuk (or whatever the hell the marketing-tards are calling our fixed base wireless ethernet these days) might be an option.
> 
> PM me some details if you want, I have a _little_ bit of pull with those guys.


Actually, its a non-issue as I dont live in Canada.. yet. I am considering moving there, but I need to get some things in order first. As for Bell... I was visiting someone for a few days, and using their internet, the wireless network was incredibly bad.. I was sitting in the same room as the modem, and the signal strength was terrible, it would go from 2-4 bars and drop out completely if I walked out of the room.. but that was the least of the problems I had.. if I move to Canada, god willing, I'll actually miss the phone service that I get here right now... Canada's mobile phone services are pure crap... and there are only a handful of decent internet providers at all.


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## Sulfide (Mar 27, 2009)

you guys all *FAIL*, they all make your system lag. Assuming your still using Win 95 or a computer with very low specs.

Zone Alarm is best, just got to know what your downloading, yet Zone Alarm is a Firewall, not a antivirus, but still keeps douche out of your sytem bett then any other


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## Irreverent (Mar 27, 2009)

Carenath said:


> As for Bell... I was visiting someone for a few days, and using their internet, the wireless network was incredibly bad.. I was sitting in the same room as the modem, and the signal strength was terrible, it would go from 2-4 bars and drop out completely if I walked out of the room



It wasn't the DSL, it was the POS single antenna "wireless 802.11b" (well just barely) router they deployed.  Worse than Netgear or Dlink.  Ug.



> if I move to Canada, god willing, I'll actually miss the phone service that I get here right now... Canada's mobile phone services are pure crap... and there are only a handful of decent internet providers at all.



There are regulatory issues and issues related to geography.  There's only 35 million of us, in a country larger then the size of the USA.  Hard to provision for that population density and keep the costs down.  No economy of scale.


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## Runefox (Mar 27, 2009)

JuggaloTheRolla said:


> you guys all *FAIL*, they all make your system lag. Assuming your still using Win 95 or a computer with very low specs.


Any antivirus makes your system lag; Myself, I don't use one. I did test AVG 8.0, Avast!, and Norton 2009 for a while, and I do find that Norton 2009 takes less resources and slows the system down less than pretty much anything else out there.



> Zone Alarm


You were saying something about failure?

OK. Here's what's wrong with that:


Zone Alarm is a firewall. Windows Firewall provides this service just as well for incoming attacks and fairly decently for outgoing (but why, exactly, would you need outgoing filters if you're supposed to be preventing incoming attacks? Useful, I suppose, on a network with multiple PC's)
Zone Alarm is extremely heavy on system resources nowadays. It used to be OK back when it was just a firewall, but now even the personal edition comes with a lot of stuff you simply don't need. The paid-for version's anti-virus is pretty shitty, in addition.
Zone Alarm is a firewall. Assuming you don't need outgoing protection, and assuming you don't have/want Windows Firewall, if you have a _router_, then it already prevents incoming attacks.
Zone Alarm sucks.



> is best, just got to know what your downloading, yet Zone Alarm is a Firewall, not a antivirus, but still keeps douche out of your sytem bett then any other


... Facepalm.


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## Runefox (Mar 27, 2009)

Doublepost


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## CaptainCool (Mar 29, 2009)

alright, im using norton 360 2.0 now and together with service pack 3 (i didnt update for some time now, dont know why >.>) my PC is running like a charm now^^


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## Toaster (Mar 29, 2009)

Panda Anti-Virus or AVG.

I use Linux so I only use a firewall.


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