A few words on two antivirus programs...

As of late there has been a couple of threads on anti virus programs and it seem unanimous that most don't like Norton's and most like AVG. I already run Norton's with out any problems so I thought I'd try AVG also on my machines. I've had Norton's on my machines for years and AVG for about a month now. So tonight it was crunch time. I know of a few sites where it's a sure bet that you'll pick up numerous viruses, so off I went. Sure enough no less than 30 seconds and Norton's flashing it's red alert window; AVG does nothing. To date AVG has picked up nothing wrong and it leaves me to wonder if it does anything at all. Norton's has picked up 3 virus attacks (I'm actually sitting at my laptop in safe mode due to the last attack that was replicating on my machine at an unbelievable rate, Norton's immediately picked it up but couldn't stop the replications). Both missed, what I think is a new variant, on an old Trojan (drwatson). All I can say is I'll be renewing my subscription to Norton's when it expires.

Oh ya... and I'll be rebuilding my laptop from scratch tomorrow - it's something I've been planning for a while anyways so tonights test was worth the risk.:D

While I'm on this for those that don't know. It seems that more viruses get onto peoples systems from surfing the net than through emails. A good thing to do is empty your "temporary internet files folder" when you close the browser. You can set your IE browser to automatically empty it by going to: Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced -> Close to the bottom of the list is a check box for "Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed". Make sure that is checked. Those on modems will find pages will load much slower because this folder is empty so you'll have to decide if the slower speed on the net is worth it or not. I'm on DSL and find any slow down to be un-noticeable

Couple of thoughts..
Norton told you you had a virus, but couldn't fix it.
Well thats better than not detecting I guess, but it's still not effective protection.
None of the virus scanners are 100% secure, zero day exploits will still get you most times.

Files found in the temp internet directory may or may not be harmfull. They may be downloaded as part of an exploit that has now been fixed by windows updates, the files are there, but thay cant be run unless you are running an old version of IE.
If you have a sufficienty powerfull PC you dont notice how much overhead Norton system works loads onto the machine. Yes it works OK, but on an older PC it just cripples the machine. AVG+Zonealarm+Windows updates+ common sense is just as effective... and free. I could run that setup on my old 333mhz/ XP machine and still surf the net OK. Load Norton or Mcafee = death.
If it works for you thats cool, I just dont like the way they bog a system down, and empty your wallet :o

Ian

Same here Matt.
Ive had Norton for many years and to date have had no problem, those who hate Norton think having no problem, is a problem (do a search on norton) :confused: :confused: :confused:
Norton seems to pick up everything at my end.....:cool:

I subscribe to new updates, I feel that those who get infected while useing Norton have not got the updated virus files, and hence Norton is crap to them.

Al :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ianab

Couple of thoughts..
Norton told you you had a virus, but couldn't fix it.
Well thats better than not detecting I guess, but it's still not effective protection.
None of the virus scanners are 100% secure, zero day exploits will still get you most times.

Files found in the temp internet directory may or may not be harmfull. They may be downloaded as part of an exploit that has now been fixed by windows updates, the files are there, but thay cant be run unless you are running an old version of IE.
If you have a sufficienty powerfull PC you dont notice how much overhead Norton system works loads onto the machine. Yes it works OK, but on an older PC it just cripples the machine. AVG+Zonealarm+Windows updates+ common sense is just as effective... and free. I could run that setup on my old 333mhz/ XP machine and still surf the net OK. Load Norton or Mcafee = death.
If it works for you thats cool, I just dont like the way they bog a system down, and empty your wallet :o

Ian

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I can see what you're saying but when program that is my main defence against serious attacks and I never here a peep out of it, it gets me wondering what it's doing.

I know my machine has all the MS updates but that didn't stop the exploits being loaded into my temp folder and running.

I've checked the logs in Nortons and it appears that it actually did stop the full attack. It had quarantined the exe file and that was where it was replicating itself. So the most it could do was clog up my HDD and over tax the system until I deleted it from the quarantine folder and then restart my machine; other than that it was rendered useless by Nortons. The logs also show that Nortons actually stopped 8 viruses where as AVG didn't register a hit on any of them. The more obvious virus that was on my system was the very old downloader.trojan. It came out in 2002 and AVG didn't pick it up. Doesn't do much for my confidence that's for sure.

I'm using Nortons 2003 Pro edition. I don't use any of their other "home security" programs either - maybe that's the difference cause I've never found it to be a resource hog.

I junked nortons years ago as it was such a total pain to update on a slow dialup service. If the service dropped out the update had to restart from scratch. Won't go back to nortons

I used Trend for years, very happy with it. (I pc still using it)
The other pc is using panda with firewall, very happy with it too.
I run webroot spysweeper on both and double check with spybot

I tried AVG but unimpressed.

T had exactly the oposite problem, so now I use AVG + NOD32, in my experence you need to have more than one anti virus prgram

Matt my problem wasn't with norton stopping, or finding viruses it was with compatability with other programs nortons had a dislike for some programs and the final straw came when it decided not to allow some things to open as they may do damage to my computer, when I knew they were perfectly safe. In a couple of instances I could not overide the damm thing one being It would not allow an auto run from the compact flash card from my camera, blocking the pictures which meant I had to view through a second program.

I put the question to the forum knowing that there were a lot of IT people here and the results that came back led me to buy the VET product
The next challange was to completely remove Nortons from my computer and this needed the running of three seperate programs, one from norton itself ( told them I couldn't update to this years nortons) and they gave me a program to remove some features of the old nortons, cause the program realy imbeds itself into your unit
Since I have changed I have had no virus intrusions that I can tell and proberly wouldn't have had any with nortons but I don't have the conflict problems either that I had with Nortons

Rgds

I have been using AV for at least 2yrs, the latest version is heaps better than the original.
It is from a German company, that lets you use it's ex-commercial product as it develops new products for industry instead of just junking it. All you have to do is agree to use it for private use and do not distribute for monetary gain, worth a look in my books. Also you get updates each day and is automatic, so they are small and you do not have to do anything.:)

http://www.free-av.com/

You people are so much more computer savvy than I, so there's more than just an on - off switch.
I used Norton for several years [home pc] and didn't have a problem - untill I upgraded to the U-beaut top of the range, it took over. I have absolutely no idea about these things so had the tech. clean things out and they installed AVG. Since then things have been fine, but, after reading this thread - I don't know. It does it's check but allways comes back "no virus found". So, is it missing things?
I'm with Westnet with all their anti ------ things but is this enough. I realy don't want to go back to Norton because I think it's not a program for the uneducated [like me]
What to do ???????

As I said I put the question to the forum knowing that there were a lot of IT people here and the results that came back led me to buy the VET Anti Virus product :cool:

I worked 2 years for a firm in Canada that looked after about 7000 computers and servers for the Attorney Generals Office. Since I've been here they have been given the contract to look after the rest of the goverments also, bringing the total to over 30,000. Their choice of antivirus is Nortons. In the time I was there I never heard anyone bag on Nortons.


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Same face new name

I used pc-cillin for years and it was very good, however when I bought pc-cillin 2006 it stuffed everything up.
They don't tell you that you need better than my old 433mhz clunker to run it.
I am now running AVG with Zonealarms and am completely satisfied.
I can't get my money back like I would with GMC.

If you really want to see if your anti virus software is up to it, go to any crack site and search their data base and visit a few of their links. If your anti virus software doesn't start going off it's no good, cause I can guarantee you will get many many virus's and trojans from these sorts of sites. Now I don't really suggest you do that unless you're like me and were going to totally rebuild your system right after. Nothing like a good trial by fire though ;)