Antivirus

[Xelbair]

it was PS3 2.5 update - it did not brick my ps3 and worked well.

[Jman]

Hey guys thanks for the recommendations in this thread. As my main av ran out I decided to try out another, before shelling out the $ for another renewal. Anyhow I used nod32 and it worked out well from the install till now, that the trial period is over, I'm going to give Kaspersky a trial. One issue I faced while attempting to install is an incompatible program message. What gives? I've always used spybot s&d and it's never conflicted with any other apps I've ran and I really don't want to uninstall it only to reinstall after 30days.

Guess I'll try my luck with Avast.

[Buffalobiian]

Guess I'll try my luck with Avast.

I've switched over from AVG to AVAST two weeks ago.

Advantage of Avast compared to AVG:
-Higher catch rate in both antivirus and (especially) antispyware capability (reports only, not from personal experience)
-More tweakable scanning parameters - can change sensitivity etc
-More resident shield modules
-File database update utility
-Updates more frequently, every 4hrs is default.
-Free version has root-kit detection

Disadvantages of Avast vs AVG
-GUI is bad
-Much slower scanner
-More tweakable scanners/options
-More resident shield modules.
-More false positives (highest settings - not from personal experience)

Impressions:
Avast is probably the best free antivirus/antispyware solution out there. Avira scores a touch better in virus detection rate, but comes with no antispyware. You can try to patch up that weakness with something like Spyware Doctor Starter Edition, but news that it only downloads selected detection signatures raises question to its effectiveness.

So in terms of detection rate, Avast is definitely a good antimalware consideration.
That said, Avast on the highest settings can also turn up more false positives than AVG, though I haven't personally encountered any, and AVG is known to be high in FPs anyway.

A major drawback of Avast is its slow on-demand scanner. I repeat, SLOOOW. On the highest sensitivity, it took hours (I lost track of how many, maybe 3) to scan my computer (XP, Intel 2.4GHz Duo, 250GB HDD -70% full). It slows down the rig for the entire scan, but CPU usage never peaks above 40% usage (usually much less). I don't know why that is. AVG runs on 100% CPU and gets it done under an hour. You'll only need to scan once though, since after the comp is cleaned, the resident shield should keep all the bugs out.

Theoretically, that is.

Avast is also a whole lot more customisable in terms of scanning parameters, sensitivity, and all the other tweakable little bits. That's to be expected from a company that wishes to bring household owners a full-powered AV product, as opposed to AVG and a cut-down version. The resident shield is also split into 7 components, allowing more control over how Avast works.

However, this customisation ability is also a disadvantage of Avast. With limited guidance as to how to set all this up, new users wishing to play with some settings are thrown in the deep end, having to wade through all the ticks and boxes by googling home-made tutorials. Those often tell you what to select and what not to, but not all tell you why.

That leads me to the graphic user interface. In short, it sucks. You don't want to hear the long version. The media player-like interface pissed me off when I first started using computers. 7 years or so down the track, it still does. Luckily, a guy named SZCraftec has made beautiful skins for this contraption, which is a must get for anyone using Avast.

My two favourite skins:
1) aVist- a Vista-like interface. It's got a very familiar feel, no matter which Windows version you use. Buttons are also arranged in a handy manner.

2)Silhouette 4 in 1- a skin based on Avast's website design. Not as familiar to the hand as aVist, but just as elegant to the eye. I'm left wondering why Avast didn't come up with the idea for this one.

One important thing to note is that, for full effectiveness, both AVG and Avast need to be up to date. Neither has a particularly strong heuristics engine, and heavily rely on detection signatures for their virus recognition ability. While Avast, updating 6 times a day, may sound much more sensible, and desirable, than AVG's daily updates. you also have to look at how often updates are released. In that regard, I can not say personally, but google may help you.

Two knew features I noticed when I switched over:
1) Avast's Virus Recovery Database - Avast runs a version check of all your files once every 3 weeks by default to keep a file history. It uses that when repairing infected files to a backward state. It's the first I've heard of this function, so I'm curious as to how other AVs heal infections.

2) Avast's webshield module comes with a local proxy. It was not recommended to activate this feature with my Zone Alarm version, so I turned it off. I have no idea what that does, what protection it offers, or any problems it may cause.

Avast does have its drawbacks especially for non-advanced users. However, a little reading, a little tweaking, and a little GUI change is little sacrifice in knowing you've settled with one of the best anti-malware solutions available.

And of course, it's free!!

[Xelbair]

O god, if i were to scan my 750gb hdd 95% full it would be BAD, meybe my core2quad(2,4 each) would speed it up a bit but still, now there is no way i will change to avast(i scan regularly each weak)

[David75]

O god, if i were to scan my 750gb hdd 95% full it would be BAD, meybe my core2quad(2,4 each) would speed it up a bit but still, now there is no way i will change to avast(i scan regularly each weak)

2 hours something to scan that hd if your system is able to process 100MB/s during the whole time, which is probably not the case.
The problem is the disk/interface speed rather than memory and CPU in your case.

[Xelbair]

i don't remember correctly my disc speed but it was one of best at January this year, Seagate Barracuda if i remember correctly - 32mb cache. Still, i choose AVG for its fast scanning, i would go with nod32 but it integrates too much with OS and it failed me many times.

[Buffalobiian]

I'm sure Avast will scan much faster if you unticked "Scan Archives", and further still if you chose the default "Medium" sensitivity rather than a "Thorough" scan. But yes, it is one of the slower antivirus products I've seen.

I'm just wondering what the bottleneck is, since it's definitely not CPU.

[David75]

I'm sure Avast will scan much faster if you unticked "Scan Archives", and further still if you chose the default "Medium" sensitivity rather than a "Thorough" scan. But yes, it is one of the slower antivirus products I've seen.

I'm just wondering what the bottleneck is, since it's definitely not CPU.

My guess is that some antivirus programs organise the scan so that it is more like a sequential read, rather than a random one. There's a lot of time to gain from that, even more on small files.

[Archangel]

I have Eset Smart Security right now, but i seem to have recently downloaded a bad file while trying to get nero 9.

Will a full system sweep by Eset clear the problems or should i get some more programs like Ad-Aware to help out?

[Buffalobiian]

Depends on what it is. Ad-aware won't help you with viruses. Did Eset pick up the file as bad, or are you seeing the effects of the "bad" file? If the latter, then obviously it didn't pick it up, so unless a definition's been added afterwards through update, it won't identify it.

Just do a full system scan, and play around with some free ones to see if anything's left behind. Reboot in between each scan though, just to check if things are really gone.

[itadakimasu]

spybot has saved the day for me a few times. It's really ironic how we spent over $1,000 renewing our license for symantec endpoint protection @ work and then computers still get infected with crap that it doesn' t find.

Thats when you goto freeware like spybot that actually finds and removes lots of stuff that the other program wont get.

[Buffalobiian]

Thought I'd introduce two little apps for those interested:

1) A-Squared Free

-Free to use antivirus/antispyware/antitrojan etc etc scanner. No resident scanner available in this free version, but otherwise quite a nice, complete product. A simple product, which allows you to update, scan, quarantine and whitelist items. Advance users might not like the lack of customization that can be found in more elaborate products, but this seems to work quite well from the user reviews I've read.

I can't speak for detection rates as I'm new to it myself, and haven't had a virus problem with it.

Official website: http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/
Also available at www.download.com

2) Hijack Free

-Official description: Freeware! HiJackFree helps advanced users to detect and remove Malware manually. With HiJackFree you can manage all active processes, services, drivers, autoruns, open ports, hosts file entries and many more. For your full control over your system.

Both these software interfaces remind me of AVG Antispyware Free, when AVG (still called Grisoft back then) bought out Ewido Antispyware, but before integrating the antispyware function into their other AV/firewall products.

Anybody using AVG Antispyware Free back then would remember how much it sucked when it was no longer supported. AVG Free incorporated the Antispyware function, but left out all the other tidbits like process/ports/service/startup monitoring.

Well all that is back in Hijack Free, available here:
http://www.hijackfree.com/en/

Nice software for those who digg all those free security apps.

------------------------------------------
On a slightly nastier note, anybody here using Avast Home/XP SP2 32bit?

Mine can't seem to scan past the C:/ drive, always stopping somewhere before it gets to my other hard disks. I've used chkdsk /r to check for bad sectors that might be stumping it up, as well as corrupt files etc, but nothing seems to fix it.

It only happens when using the Thorough and Standard scanning profiles. QuickScan, Right-click scan as well as boot-time scan are fine. Reinstalling does not fix the problem.

[Archangel]

Didn't i make a thread for that exact same purpose, Bill

[Buffalobiian]

I always look for a thread with a title that matches what I'm trying to say or ask, regardless of what the original intention was. (I mean this in a nice way Archie).

You'll notice that too with some older threads I revived in the past where the topic matched my question, even if the content didn't match.

Similarly, I detest the behaviour of mislabelling threads, or giving vague titles. You see this more in other forums, where there's literally hundreds of "help me!", "I'm a noob", or "I'm looking for an anime but I don't know the name" threads that screw up the search engine, sounds bad, and tells you nothing about the contents.

Having said that, it seems the most appropriate place for my previous post would have been here:

http://forums.gotwoot.net/showthread.php?t=13117

Meh, mods are welcome to move it if they care enough.

[Penner]

Just downloaded and set up ZoneAlarm Free Firewall, and those little red/green traffic bars on the start menu are quite addictive ;P

Edit:

Mhmm. uTorrent crashed and then became unable to shut down in any way, even killing the .exe from processes didnt work so i checked around and apparently ZoneAlarm can cause that shit, so meh, i just uninstalled it again.

Just a heads up if ya'll didnt already know this :P

[Buffalobiian]

Addictive those little traffic lights are It's a pity that ZA still doesn't support 64bit systems though.

I've been using ZA for years now, and I haven't had that problem you're talking about with uTorrent, which I've also been using for an equally long time. I've only got ZA Free on my laptop though, which doesn't have uTorrent installed.

On my desktop, I've got the latest non-beta release of uTorrent with an outdated ZA Security (the whole package) software. It's not exactly "proper", so I can't upgrade. Since I don't actually need it for anti-hacking as I've got my router's, I keep it for:

a) the OS firewall, which the free version doesn't have.

b) the Anti-Identity Theft function, which warns you if you're sending any specified passwords/creditcard numbers over a non-secure connection (namely https). Just a little security against key loggers and trojans sending your info out.

c) Those little red and green bars

[Penner]

Ah, i do have Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit so that might also cause some issues eh? :P

[Buffalobiian]

That limitation seems to only apply to their free product.

System Requirements for all other ZoneAlarm Products*:
Microsoft® Vista SP1:

* 2 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor
* Minimum system RAM: 2 GB (32-bit) and 4 GB (64-bit)
* 250MB of available hard disk space. Internet access

* Free ZoneAlarm Firewall is not available for Vista 64-bit
Microsoft® Windows® XP SP2, SP3, Home or Professional Edition:

* 1 GHz 32-bit processor or higher
* Recommended system RAM: 768 MB
* 250MB of available hard disk space

ZoneAlarm security software works with most types of TCP/IP connections including Ethernet LAN, wireless LAN, DSL, cable modem, and dial-up connections.

* Supported Protocols for Email Protection
* Support for Parental Controls
* Operating Systems Support
* FAQ for ZoneAlarm End-of-Life Policy

So yeah, if you somehow find a "solution" to it, it might work.

[Buffalobiian]

Okay, i guess people here are more than comfortable with their computers (or are hoping to be if you're reading this). We've seen all those fakers try to take advantage of the ignorance of the poor, computer illiterate individuals.

The spam in your inbox about the latest worm out there (haven't seen that for a while now actually), the advertisement banners showing you just how many errors your computer is getting, those pop-ups asking you if you're really sure you don't want to download the latest registry fixer...



But today I got one through the phone.



Lady just calls up and talks to me (with an Indian accent, take that for what you will) about my computer.
At first I thought it was my ISP giving me a cease-and-desist notice for downloading some photoshop tutorial DVDs.

It took a while for me to see where she's getting at. According to her, my computer will crash in 48 hours, and they know this because they detected that my computer has downloaded a virus (via some service called International Routing). Next, they wanted me to go to their website and download a remote-assistance tool that will help show me "with my own eyes" the errors in my computer.

She kept insisting that "she's trying to help me" when I told her it's not an appropriate time for a call right now, and despite all her godly knowledge about how this "virus" ended up on my computer, she couldn't tell what antivirus I was using, or what windows OS I was on. Thinking back now, I should have asked how she worked out my physical address from my IP.

Normally I'd scoff at attempts like these and move on, except (by bizarre coincidence?) that my Avast webshield and mailshield were down for both my desktop and laptop and refused to start until I rebooted (other computers around the house were fine.).

So in the meanwhile, I've gotten the lady off my phoneline for now, and am running some scans just for peace of mind.



Anyway. Strange coincidence...

edit: for those interested, the referred site was (www [dot] teche4pc [dot] com). Visiting it doesn't isn't malicious, though I can't say for their tools.

[David75]

You have reached a CIA lab, terminate this phone call or you'll be terminated in the next 48 hours

I guess you should have played with her a little, telling her you're under linux and use false program names...

Like:
OpenOffice is the best firewall/ativirus protection there is (do not laugh, one of our ministers here in France thought OpenOffice is a firewall... and she was in charge of internet regulations...)