What's everyone running for AV and firewall?

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John_S

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In the last 12 years that I've owned a pc, I've tried Norton, ESET NOD32, AVG free, Avira free, Avast free. I had run the Avast for several years without any problem, but lately after reading some articles that pointed out that internet vulnerabilities were growing, I thought I'd be smart and try a non free AV. After doing a lot of looking around and reading, I thought I'd give BitDefender a whirl for 30 days. My firewall at that point was Comodo free, and somehow I had forgotten that it had some other security features enabled. So installing BitDefender resulted in several BSOD's. Got it figured out and installed, along with a copy of Zone Alarm to replace Comodo. Initial scan with BD found a trojan that Avast hadn't picked up, so I was feeling lucky. After a couple of weeks, I had noticed 1 or 2 flaky things going on...small but noticeable. I attributed them to recent AV updates, and they disappeared later. Today Firefox became very obstinate and pages didn't want to load. I decided to try to pull some files off my external HD and that became balky. Drive wouldn't appear in My Computer and pc would stall / lock up. OK, that's enough of that. Rip out BitDefender ... problems gone. So I went back and grabbed NOD32...runs just fine. It didn't have the best reviews...good, but not the best. But it runs and doesn't cause issues....yet. I'm curious to see other's experiences with AV and firewalls. After reading lot's of reviews about several products, it always amazes me how a majority can have decent results and a small group will have an abysmal time with same product. After so much reading, you really have no clue what to buy. Anybody else in the same boat ?
 

satosi

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I have Windows Vista on my desktop and 7 on my laptop, and use AVG free and the Windows firewall. I have never had a serious virus, worm, trojan, or malware, and I have downloaded some pretty spurious files before.

A lot of articles about how internet vulnerability is "growing" are probably supported by developers of antivirus software to stoke fear among people who aren't well educated about internet and computer security. This, of course, leads to more sales for them. Also, many free antivirus will report benign, if not completely harmless programs as a virus to scare the user into buying the full package. AVG free has reported windows programs I wrote purely in assembly language that only call a few harmless functions, including one that just called ExitProcess!
 

John_S

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Oh I have no doubt that the AV companies lick their chops at this kind of news, but I also have no doubt that internet related crime is growing, what with the proliferation of hi speed connectivity and the lack of basic knowledge about security with a full time connection. No one thinks about it till they get strange charges on their credit card or someone suffers with identity theft. And yes, I remember running AVG free and encountering false positives.
 
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KD0OTK

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I'm running no AV and no firewall. When ever I have a questionable file that needs to be run, I run it sandboxed or in a VM. I don't get drive-byed and don't run IE either. In my experiences, NOD32 has the highest detection rate. AVG is probably your best bet for a free AV, though.
 

questnz

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John, It is very personal choice, you may get 10 different answers from 10 different people. After some 25 years in IT business I seen and used most of top AV solutions. Bear in mind some of them better than others in different things eg ESET NOD32 Security, great AV protection, good firewall, easy to use and very small memory footprint, very small auto updates, not so great on antispyware department. there is no such thing like 100% bullet proof security in one program. However, if something goes wrong you can easy uninstall and reinstall as it makes very few changes and entries in Windows Registry. For some other software you mentioned you need to run Removal Tools to get rid of the crap they leave behind in Windows despite you run uninstaller or worst run registry edit and manually search and remove all entries before reinstalling or installing other AV software. If you have a licence stay with ESET, use advanced install and enable most settings to maximum and enable strict cleaning, setup scheduled scanning once per week, install some free antispyware software eg, Superantispyware or Malwarebytes and run it fortnightly +/-.

ps Avast, Avira and AVG offer excellent protection for free

Use Revo uninstaller instead Windows uninstaller,
Use Glary Utilities for other Windows "house keeping"
Use CCleaner (simillar to Glary stuff)
Use Recuva in case you delete some files etc.

Good luck Chris
 
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r_eugene1

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We are running 3 computers on line sometimes, 4 if my stepson is here. The pc's here are running Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. VP we are running is Avast (free version) along with Window's Firewall, and so far we are very pleased with Avast. Tried Norton and McAfee (bought versions) several years ago and were very unhappy with them.
So far Avast has worked very well, and are pleased with it.
 

KB0VWG

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No issue with

I have had Microsoft Security Essentials on all 8 computers and also run malwarebytes and windows firewall and no issues whatsoever. there was a few times MSE had a slight hiccup but nothing big to worry about. I do have 2 other computers running McAfee but the only reason Thats running is was that it was free.

The score with consumer reports was that Avira was No 1 and Microsoft Security Essentials was rated No 2 for the free software.
Michael
 

kb2crk

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I run AVG free with Malwarebytes and Spybot. all free versions. Spybot has caught many a spyware program trying to sneak in. i have 2 vista and 5 XP computers online and a windows 98se and a dos computer doing specialty work (radio programming). i have not had a virus in over 4 years and spyware is pulled out at least once a week by one of the spyware removal programs.
 

John_S

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Interesting reports guys. Like I said, I've tried a variety of both paid and free stuff, with the last being Avast.... and I was impressed with Avast... easy on resources, no problems with other software, nice interface on last version. But sometimes you just wonder if a free program is catching everything it should be. So I went looking. Just like in life, you don't appreciate what you have till you try something else. Although BitDefender found a generic trojan, it became problematic. I used to run NOD32 about 5-6 years ago and gave it up when it was time to re-up. I'll try to set some cash aside for it now, as it plays very nicely on my pc, with noticeably better boot and shut down times. Interesting on the firewall choices, esp Windows firewall, as it won't pass Steve Gibson's Leak Test. I'll stick with Zone Alarm free on that one, although Comodo is OK too.
 
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kb0nly

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I run Avast on six computers here in my household. No problems no worries. As for catching everything, normally someone brings me an infected machine that has another AV on it and i put on Avast to clean it up, so no worries there... I have seen Avast detect and remove stuff that Norton and McAfee didn't even bother detecting, and no it wasnt a false positive either, it was a baited file i put on a thumb drive to test the AV installed.
 

kendrik578

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MSE, Malwarebytes, and Threatfire is what i run. And cant forget Noscript - I consider that just as important as an AV. Last but not least, some common internet/computer sense :D My computer still runs like new.
 

John_S

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I just started running NoScript myself recently. Interesting add-on for Firefox. I also added Ghostery which blocks web bugs. And I also feel pretty good about keeping a soon-to-be 7 year old pc up and running just like it was. System is Dell Dimension 8400, P4 3.2gHz, Win XP Pro. I updated the PS last year and threw in a new Lite-On DVD-ROM and recently took advantage of a nice deal from Crucial for a pair of 1gB RAM sticks for $30. I'm thinking that soon I'll need to replace the HD ... Seagate Barracuda... that hasn't had any problem yet, but jeez, how long can it last given daily usage?
 

newsphotog

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If I told you what I was running for firewall and antivirus, I might have to kill you.

Do you still want to know?
 

moonbounce

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I have Windows 7 Pro and I use Microsoft Security Essential, and Comodo firewall, and Malwarebytes. I selected them both after reading about them in various magazines as being at the top of or near the recommended list, that was good enough for me.

Moonbounce
 

JokeInsurance

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ps Avast, Avira and AVG offer excellent protection for free

Use Revo uninstaller instead Windows uninstaller,
Use Glary Utilities for other Windows "house keeping"
Use CCleaner (simillar to Glary stuff)
Use Recuva in case you delete some files etc.

I've been hearing a lot that AVG has been out to date for about a year. What do you have to say about that?

Why do you suggest Revo over Windows uninstaller and Glary Utilities?
 

brandon

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Eset NOD32
Malwarebytes
Comodo Firewall
Adblock Plus and Ghostery (Firefox addons)
 
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