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Antivirus of Choice?

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Which antivirus do you use?......and why.

  • McAfee

    Votes: 45 5.6%
  • Norton

    Votes: 181 22.4%
  • Other

    Votes: 583 72.1%

  • Total voters
    809
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I use Norton 2003 Pro. I don't know why I chose Norton instead of McAfee. But until my updates run dry, I'll be sticking with this. And then I will probably go with AVG. I only stumble into a virus once every few months. And I always get it from friends who love to forward emails that they got from someone else. I have yet to get a virus from a normal download.

Eliminate the concept of email attachements, and everything will be fine.
 
You all may discard this as a crackpot theory, but I'm convinced the big names behind anti-virus are the ones responsible for releasing new virus code on the internet in the first place. Not all, just some, probably most of it.

Just think about it, what does anyone have to gain by making a virus? Spyware you can make money off of, but the only one who can make money off a virus is Norton or Mcafee or Trend Micro.

Don't buy anti-virus software. Be smart about what you do on you computer instead. You can always use bitfender online, and you don't ever need to worry about updating it.
 
Prevalent virii can be and often are traced back to their geographic origins, and sometimes even to the culprit.

If it were the big names releasing these, it would be an immensely intricate global network of people working on it... And there is enough money involved that this wouldn't go unnoticed by federal agencies for any amount of time.

For many virii releases, it is a challenge, for some its an attack on capitalism. They all have their reasons.
 
Bahf, my girlfriend is a conspiracy theorist also occasionally. Sometimes I make tinfoil hats and leave them in places she will find them.
 
electromagnetic said:
You all may discard this as a crackpot theory, but I'm convinced the big names behind anti-virus are the ones responsible for releasing new virus code on the internet in the first place. Not all, just some, probably most of it.

Just think about it, what does anyone have to gain by making a virus? Spyware you can make money off of, but the only one who can make money off a virus is Norton or Mcafee or Trend Micro.

Don't buy anti-virus software. Be smart about what you do on you computer instead. You can always use bitfender online, and you don't ever need to worry about updating it.

Actually to the contrary . Some virus makers are making 'good' money by creating backdoors for corporate espionage , corporate sabotage , stealing ( and selling) personal info , stealing credit cards and of late partnering with spammers to create spambots and backdoors for spammers for the big $$$ . And of course that is the case with them acting directly , but they also could sell code to programs or exploits to anyone wishing to do any of the above .
 
AVG free version... best I've used so far.. I've used norton and mcafee.. norton wasn't bad.. I used both home and corp versions of both as well.. I still prefer AVG.
 
I don't use an anti-virus client at all. I run housecall.trendmicro.com scans once every three days or if I see anything suspicious on my computer. Bloatware Norton/McAfee have no place in a desktop computer anymore - and I'll tell you this in my near full year of experience as a cable ISP tech support, I have seen the housecall scan find viruses that the two aforementioned softwares do not time and time again. People are absolutely astonished at the fact when I guide them through it - after being enlightened that all the money they spent on subscriptions and software was a fruitless endeavor.
 
I been using norton for many years now and I am pleased with how it has kept my computer clean from viruses. However it doesnt pick up some trojans, which has infected my computer a couple of times.
 
I voted other for AVG.

Although on my own rigs I don't require a background AV, I can usually tell within minutes if a machine is infected with something, seem to have a 6th sense for it. It was back in 2000 I think that I lost faith with Norton, my 6th sense told me my wifes rig had aquired a virus, chernobyl I think it was, so I used the latest trial of Norton and it didn't find it. I used McAfee and it didn't find it. Most people would have thought their rig was clear then. Not me, I got the free fprot that runs from command line, and that one found it and removed it. There seems to be 2 fprots around, one Scandinavian one that is free and a commercial one. The one by the Scandanavians is the good one. It's not so easy to use though and not sure it's updated as often as it used to be, which is why in 2001 I think, I found AVG and started using that as my default virus tool. I've got it set up to run at boot on the kids rig, and just have it installed on my other rigs in case I need it. I run it once every so often just to check.

Strangely enough I've never found a virus on a random sweep. But every time I get that feeling, I've ran an AV and found one. If my 6th sense triggers and AVG doesn't come up trumps though, you bet I will try everything else until I find the bugger.

I have been known to use a disk sector editor to search for and remove virii, but since they rarely have clear text IDable strings in them these days I'm putting more trust in AV products.
On the couple of occasions since 2001 that I've got an infection, where I've had the luxury of time to play, I've found the virus with AVG and left it unfixed and ran other trialware versions of big AVs. It has not been often that they have found the virus!

I've put AVG on other peoples rigs too, they complain about thier PC acting, up, so I go over, sit down in front of it, and tell them, "It's a virus" and they tell me that that's impossible because they always use Norton or McAfee, so then I DL AVG and run it and clean up. One time there were 23 viruses on this one rig that Norton did not see, and 3 that it saw but couldn't remove.

Anyhoo, best AV is common sense and avoidance of reliance on MS. I don't use outlook or IE. I try to avoid the "default" apps for other internet applications as well, most common=most targetted.

Road Warrior
 
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