AV and Anti-spyware

[Chaseme]

What do you guys recommend for AV (free) right now? I'm thinking AVG but figured I'd ask if there's anything new/better for free?

As well what should I use for a anti-spyware/malware shield? I don't want a scanner but something for realtime protection.

[DreadCthulhu]

AVG works fine, as far as I have seen, though a good dose of common sense (being careful of what you download, and not using Internet Exploder) & having a firewall (any firewall, even the built in Windows one) are far more important. As for other protection, Spybot S&D has an immunize function that works pretty well, and of course there is Windows Defender.

[RED STATE RAY]

For AV, I'm a fan of Avast Home Edition.
For realtime anti-malware, Windows Defender hasn't let me down yet.

As stated earlier, common sense is the best defense.

For those who are common-sense-challenged. Enable the Windows firewall, lay off the nudie pics, , be careful what you search for and don't be click-happy.

[Sargent Duck]

For virus scanner, you can't go wrong with AVG. TrendMicro also seems pretty decent.

For anti-spyware, Ad-Aware hasn't let me down yet.

And just to stress what others above me have said, use common sense. If you see an email attachment from someone you don't know (or even if you do know) that ends in a .exe, DON'T OPEN IT!

Anything porn is garunteed to have spyware/viruses

If you *ahem* use peer-2-peer *ahem* again, be super careful. There are some application that are much more virus ridden than others.

[replay]

I use AVG Free and Ad-Aware. I think Norton is a POS.

[Chaseme]

Ok thanks guys. I'm well aware at what it takes to keep my stuff clean. This PC in question coming from a family member is a different story...

[Flying Fox]

AVG just released a free anti-spyware product as well. Haven't seen anyone bitching about it yet, so it should be ok.

[Dirge]

Softpedia has a review of three free options, you can check it out here

Personally I choose to use AntiVir, and have another antivirus program ClamWin Free Antivirus installed as a backup. ClamWin doesn't do background scans and won't/shouldn't interfere. It's still in development, and I like it because its open source.

Edit: Spelling

[muyuubyou]

Avast is very effective and free. AVG is a bit less effective than Avast in my experience but a lot less resource-hungry. Clamwin is slow as hell but it's okay. Panda works just fine (used to be a free online scanning tool which saved my day a couple of times).

Non-free: Kaspersky and BitDefender are excellent, but will set you back some. Stay away from Norton. It's too popular and whenever there's something big, it's always Norton-ready. Other than that, it's horribly bloated and will slow down your computer big time.

Since I'm booting windows less and less, I might be missing some of the new stuff.

[lordT]

I've always used Kaspersky and it has never let me down. For anti-spyware, I've been using Windows Defender and its great

[p645n]

I check out all sorts of sites that many, because of security issues, would shy away from. Having said that I'll add that I've never caught any of the cretins that lure around those sites.

To stay clean I use to use the small foot print Norton 2002 with updates. For the past year I've used the superb anti-virus program NOD32 [yes it costs $40 but it's worth every cent.] I team NOD32 with Windows Defender -- a great free program that is pretty well transparent.

And a word on Windows Live OneCare. Live OneCare is a $50 [for up to 3 machines] virus scanning, firewall, tune up & file backup program. It offers unlimited free tech support.

A friend is using the 90 day trial version of OneCare. She had a huge problem with her machine. I suspected it was a trojan. and spent 5 [yes 5] hours on the phone with Microsoft support as we sorted it out. In the end the problem was not a trojan but a screwed up uninstall of a Internet Explorer 7 Beta.

OneCare gets a yes vote from me as I don't know of any other antivirus company that would spend all that time getting that screwed up computer running again.

[jgibson_2k]

I use AVG Free. I love it.

What does everyone think of Windows Firewall? I recently installed ZoneAlarm and I really dont like it so far. It has become very annoying. Should I just stick with Windows Firewall or is it not going to provide me with enough protection. I currently have a router with a built in firewall and I consider myself a safe internet user.

Thanks.

[Kef]

A couple of years ago I decided to find out which of the free anti-virus program would fit my need. I was not happing paying the expensive and restricting licences for commercial anti-viruses. I tried all the free ones, including AVG, Avast and many others.

In the end I found out that Avira's AntiVir was the best one for me. I didn't slow down the computer at all and had a very low memory footprint at the time. That was version 6. It wasn't the most user friendly but it did the job. Since then, version 7 has been released and it is now much more user friendly and still doesn't bog down your computer to a crawl.

It has on-demand scanner, real-time protection and can also protect you from some adware/spyware and malware. Strongly recommended. You can find it here: http://www.free-av.com/

ps. This is a very good site for independent comparatives of both free and commercial anti-virus software. http://www.av-comparatives.org/ Very informative!

[cheesyking]

I use AVG Free. I love it.

What does everyone think of Windows Firewall? I recently installed ZoneAlarm and I really dont like it so far. It has become very annoying. Should I just stick with Windows Firewall or is it not going to provide me with enough protection. I currently have a router with a built in firewall and I consider myself a safe internet user.

Thanks.

I'd say you'd be OK with just the windows one. The only situation where the windows firewall really doesn't cut it is where you have a machine that connects directly to the internet with a modem of some sort and is also on a lan with file and printer shareing enabled.

I might be missing something / not have some update installed but the windows firewall seems to like applying the same rules to all its network connections.

[Erebos]

Windows Firewall = inadequate
Hardware (router) Firewall = inadequate
(True) Software Firewall = ZoneAlarm, Outpost, Kerio

AV = Avast, AVG, ZoneAlarm with Antivirus™
Anti-adware = Ad-Aware SE Personal, Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal
Anti-spyware = SpyBot-Search & Destroy, Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal

Also, check this list here.

[Tygrus_Artesiaoa]

For our security suite at work we use AVG, ad-aware, spyware S&D, and spyware blaster.
I like the Windows Defender, formerly Giant sw. Haven't played around with enough of the freeware antivirus/spyware and firewalls. Used to Zone Alarm. As for the MS firewall, everything I've seen and heard is that's it's pretty lame.
As for McAfee and Norton or Trend Internet Security Suites/Antivirus...they suck up quite a bit of resources and cpu cycles. Sometimes like Norton they can really muck up an OS like clamping down your network off the net or other quirks like OS startup. Any of the newer suites can't really be installed on older systems due to how much they kll performance.

[Overkill]

Windows Firewall = inadequate
Hardware (router) Firewall = inadequate
(True) Software Firewall = ZoneAlarm, Outpost, Kerio

AV = Avast, AVG, ZoneAlarm with Antivirus™
Anti-adware = Ad-Aware SE Personal, Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal
Anti-spyware = SpyBot-Search & Destroy, Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal

Also, check this list here.

False. The very notion of running a firewall on the machine that it's supposed to protect is flawed, because if something DOES get past it, it could compromise the entire firewall and let everything in.

Hardware firewalls with stateful inspection are far more than adequate and are really the best way to go. They are dedicated to just being firewalls and don't bloat your system and slow down traffic.

Application control in ZoneAlarm and Outpost is also useless and bloats the system as does a real-time AV scanner, not to mention the annoyance. It's better to keep spyware and adware out, than it is to stop it from talking to the outside world once it's in.

I myself go with my WRT54GL's firewall. NOD32 is my choice for AV as it's the best one out there with its low memory usage, advanced heuristics, and fast scanning; ZoneAlarm is also far from being a good antivirus. As for antispyware, I go with Spybot and Ad-aware.

[Chaseme]

I'm the happiest with my NOD32 for my own system. Seems to cover me for malware coming of sites as well as viri via e-mail etc.

For my router/firewall I'm using an older PC running IPcop. I have all the faith in the world in it as I was being attacked to a certain extent before I set it up. Now with snort and it's constant updates I'm pretty happy. I've tested it against a Belkin wifi router and I can say dns resolution etc is much faster, it's noticable. If you guys have old machines kicking around you should give it a run.

[z-man]

I use Trend's PC-Cillin's Internet security, and hardware firewall and Maxthon browser. Haven't gotten a thing in years.

[Player]

For the price, I use Computer Associates EZ Anti-Virus. The leading spyware tool is SpyDoctor. Both are pretty affordable, but if you want to go with open source or free utilities, I'd recommend Spybot S&D and one of the already mentioned anti-virus programs.

[jeffry55]

I use the AVG free and the Ewideo anti-spyware from AVG. I also use Adaware and Spybot search and destroy. I like 'em all.

[Calum]

Another vote for ESET NOD32 here. Lightweight, frequent updates, unobtrusive but does seem to be very effective (in the one or two cases it's ever had to do something)

I also use Outpost Pro firewall which has some antimalware features.
Overall though a sensible and commonsense approach to internet use is as important (or more so) than what product you use.

[Fighthouse]

Could the same company that produced IE really be that reliable when it comes to anti-spyware (Windows Defender)? I haven't tried it myself, but it would be awesome if Windows got something like that right.

For anti-virus I have always been a norton guy, they have never let me down. Others say it is a system hog, and it is when scanning for viruses, but just start a scan before you go to bed and then you wont have a problem.

For spyware, Ad-Aware has also served me well, the program is very simple to use and it gets 99% of spyware off of the machince. If I ever need to get that extra 1%, Webroot Spy Sweeper gets some of the stuff that ad-aware doesn't.

[Jigar]

I use the AVG free and the Ewideo anti-spyware from AVG. I also use Adaware and Spybot search and destroy. I like 'em all.

Ditto here

[Faiakes]

I use BitDefender as it has the heuristic machine out there (at least it did 6 noths ago)
Firewall wise, ZoneAlarm is excellent, and the application module is useful.
Why is it useless?

I check my system at ShieldsUp and I come out completely stealthy

[ScythedBlade]

I'm surprised no one has suggested the pwning NOD32 ...

[Dirge]

Clamwin is slow as hell but it's okay.

You got that right, but since ClamWin is FOSS it will improve.

[Calum]

I'm surprised no one has suggested the pwning NOD32 ...

At least three people (including myself) have

[Flying Fox]

I'm surprised no one has suggested the pwning NOD32 ...

Because that's not what the OP asked?

I'd ask if there's anything new/better for free?

[bthylafh]

I like AVG Free for antivirus. For spyware, I semi-immunize my system with both Spybot and SpywareBlaster, and scan with both Spybot and Ad-aware. I don't use in-memory antispyware for performance reasons (and because I'm careful enough anyway).

Heh, if you're serious about protecting this person's system, install the VMware player and the browser appliance. It's a little out-of-date since it's still based on Ubuntu 5.10 [1] with FF 1.5 added in, but there will be full separation between it and the computer. Or you could install Qemu and Kqemu and roll your own.


[1] Don't try updating to 6.06. It won't work.