Antivirus programs

Can anyone recommend a good free antivirus program that works on
Windows 7, other than Avast.

I tried to update Avast today and it stopped working.

I tried to repair it, and it still wouldn't work, so I suppose I'll
need to look for something else.


--
Steve Hayes
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://khanya.wordpress.com

On 12/07/2016 10:07 AM, Steve Hayes wrote:
Can anyone recommend a good free antivirus program that works on
Windows 7, other than Avast.

I tried to update Avast today and it stopped working.

I tried to repair it, and it still wouldn't work, so I suppose I'll
need to look for something else.


Hi Steve,

Avast is junk.

Bit Defender free is the only free one without junkware.
It also scores well in av-comparatives.

It is hard to find on their web site, so use this link
http://www.bitdefender.com/toolbox/freeapps/desktop/

Paid versions that are good are Kaspersky and Bit
Defender.

GBTG,
-T

On Wed, 7 Dec 2016 10:07:53 -0800, T wrote:

Avast is junk.

And that is your expert opinion on this matter?

--
s|b

On 12/07/2016 11:15 AM, s|b wrote:
On Wed, 7 Dec 2016 10:07:53 -0800, T wrote:

Avast is junk.

And that is your expert opinion on this matter?


As a matter of fact ...

Go look at AV-Comparatives over several months.

On Fri, 9 Dec 2016 11:33:09 -0800, T wrote:

As a matter of fact ...

Go look at AV-Comparatives over several months.

Is there a comparison with the settings that I use?

--
s|b

On Fri, 9 Dec 2016 11:33:09 -0800, T wrote:

As a matter of fact ...

Go look at AV-Comparatives over several months.

I checked

https://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/avc_factsheet2016_10.pdf

and

https://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/avc_fdt_201609_en.pdf

Avast seems to score pretty good in the first report. No so bad in the
second report either, but not the best because of false positives. I can
think of worse things than false positives...

--
s|b

On 12/09/2016 12:23 PM, s|b wrote:
On Fri, 9 Dec 2016 11:33:09 -0800, T wrote:

As a matter of fact ...

Go look at AV-Comparatives over several months.

I checked

https://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/avc_factsheet2016_10.pdf

and

https://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/avc_fdt_201609_en.pdf

Avast seems to score pretty good in the first report. No so bad in the
second report either, but not the best because of false positives. I can
think of worse things than false positives...


Hi s|b,

The trick is to look over several (6+) months and see who is
consistent. Anyone can have a good month.

Kaspersky and Bit Defender are the two I find the most consistent.

I sell Kaspersky but not Bit Defender as they are a pain in the ass
to sell. And Bit's sales staff is rude as all hell trying to
get a hold of them. I have a dedicated Kaspersky sales rep that
jumps through hoops for me.

Bit Defender also does not have a vulnerability check that finds
software that is out of date. That is required for credit
card security (PCI). Otherwise Bit is good.

Also, I do think that Free AV's are really not a good idea.
They are just too reduced function. And, except for Bit
Defender, come with junkware. I hate junkware.

-T

On Fri, 09 Dec 2016 00:50:54 +0100, FredW wrote:

- Avast most popular in anti-malwa
https://www.metadefender.com/stats/a...hare-report#!/

;-)

What does that even mean? Never mind, I don't really care. I don't use
their tools, only 2 of their shields and there's zero pop-ups.

--
s|b

T on 2016/12/07 wrote:

On 12/07/2016 10:07 AM, Steve Hayes wrote:
Can anyone recommend a good free antivirus program that works on
Windows 7, other than Avast.

I tried to update Avast today and it stopped working.

I tried to repair it, and it still wouldn't work, so I suppose I'll
need to look for something else.

Avast is junk.

Bit Defender free is the only free one without junkware.
It also scores well in av-comparatives.

Please remember that very free AVs get tested by AV-comparatives (or
other AV test sites). Only if the product is available only as a free
program does it get included. The tests to which you refer are only for
the payware version of BitDefender.

I tried BitDefender for a short time. The free version is missing many
features but not just from its payware counterparts but when compared to
other free AVs. It's GUI (a separate process) would die everytime I
exited a video game. Its service remained running so I was still
protected but there was no GUI to the AV until I restarted their GUI
frontend. I wish they better protected their own processes or, at
least, monitored them and restarted them if they got killed.

Bitdefender free is similar to Avira free: no web traffic monitoring.
With Avira, you have to install their free toolbar - which is adware.
No thanks. With Bitdefender free, no choice: no web monitoring.

http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions...omparison.html

They only provide a comparison between their payware products. So you
won't know what was removed from the freeware version. I've been told
by Bitdefender that they use the same on-access scanning engine as in
all their products whether freeware or payware. Okay, but which AV
doesn't do that? It's the extra infection vectors that help eliminate
blocking the pests instead of having to handle them after they're in.
What's the biggest infection vector? The web (e-mail is next but
scanning attachments is superfluous since the same on-access scanner
gets used when the e-mail updates a file in the local message store).

Other than the "Intelligent Antivirus" item in their comparison list,
the freeware version does not have any of those other features. It's
very basic and contributes to it being lightweight on resources.

I did find the following old page showing what the free version does and
does not have; however, it is for the 2014 versions.

http://www.bitdefender.com/media/htm..._FreeAV_Upsell

The free version always lag by, at least, one major version but I don't
know what you get today for a download of their free version. They
don't say on their web pages and they don't tell you in the filename of
the download. In fact, at only 8.1MB for the download, I suspect what
you get is stub installer that is really a web installer: you run it and
it connects back to their server to give you what they're currently
offering.

That compare page omits some other features lacking or limp in the free
version. For example, while you can enable/disable scheduled scans, you
cannot configure when those scans are ran. You cannot whitelist any
files, like those in another security program, to avoid potential
conflicts between them (i.e., don't have them scanning each other along
with possibly quarantining files in the other program). You get no
control over AVC (Active Virus Control) regarding the aggression
involved in finding new threats. In fact, their BitDefender Photon
feature for best performance enhancement by analyzing your computer to
decide on what actions are appropriate is not in the free version
(https://antivirusinsider.com/bitdefe...n-technology/). Avast
free has included cloud-based file hash analysis for quite awhile now
called CyberCapture; see
https://blog.avast.com/cybercapture-...second-attacks.

What I found at softpedia.com regarding versions available there to get
Bitdefender was:

Bitdefender free: version 1.0.5.10
Bitdefender Plus: version 21.0.22.1011

While there is a huge difference between version numbers, it's likely
that the free version is not synchronized to the versioning of the
payware version. http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html does
say "With Smartscan, BitDefender Antivirus Free Edition 2016 learns how
to use your computer ..." SmartScan (skipping files previously deemed
safe) has been a feature for many years but this statement does mention
2016 for a year version.

It is hard to find on their web site, so use this link
http://www.bitdefender.com/toolbox/freeapps/desktop/

http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html

That's where I found it, plus where you get landed if you click on the
"more" link on the page you referenced.

Avast free is bloated, to be sure. Some of it is even lurewa you
have to pay after a trial period. I do a custom install and only
install the file and web shields (the essentials) plug the browser
cleanup and network security (non-essential but handy). The rest is
superfluous or lureware.

Avast is not junk, even in its free flavor. Of course, if you're a boob
that installs all the bloatware they shove in their installer by
including superfluous features (e-mail/NNTP scanning) and their lureware
(you didn't bother to find out about it) then it probably would be seen
as junk - but for all the other crap you chose to install and not
regarding its basic AV function. I tried BitDefender Free and it was
good but I decided to go back to Avast. For boobs that haven't a clue
how to configure, use, or manage an AV program, yeah, BitDefender Free
is probably a good choice for them. However, when it quarantines a file
or prompts about a suspect file or activity, these same boobs won't know
what the hell to do (and will likely just let the AV do whatever it
wants). I don't even consider the default action set in Avast when it
finds a suspect to be the correct choices but that's because I want more
control, not just to click a button and hope it goes away.

On Wed, 7 Dec 2016 10:07:53 -0800, T wrote:

Hi Steve,

Avast is junk.

Bit Defender free is the only free one without junkware.
It also scores well in av-comparatives.

I actually tried BitDefender, but after a month they wanted me to do
something on their web site -- I forget what.

They sent me an e-mail and asked me to click on something, but instead
of sending a plain texct e-mail with a URL (which my e-mail program
turns into clickable links) they used spammer/malware fancy tricks
with it, which meant I could not reach the URL or even read it to see
what it was, to do whatever it was they wanted me to do.

So BitDefender stopped working on my XP desktop, and I went back to
Avast.

Actually I updated Avast on my XP desktop yesterday and it works fine.
But since updating it on my Win 7 Toshiba laptop I keep getting
messages to say that I am unprotected.


--
Steve Hayes
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://khanya.wordpress.com

Steve Hayes on 2016/12/07 wrote:

T on 2016/12/7 wrote:

Bit Defender free is the only free one without junkware.
It also scores well in av-comparatives.

I actually tried BitDefender, but after a month they wanted me to do
something on their web site -- I forget what.

Sounds like instead of getting the free version of Bitdefender that you
downloaded and installed the trialware full version and which has now
expired on its trial period.

This newsgroup discusses Windows *7*, not Windows XP. Did you not
review the system requirements for Bitdefender? Go take a look at:

http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions...tml#av_sys_req
(Besides scripts on their own domain, you will need to enable scripts
from off-domain ajax.googleapis.com for their page to render.)

Scroll to the bottom and click on the "system requirements" link. Is
Windows XP listed? Or read:

http://www.bitdefender.com/support/s...cts)-1471.html

You can also read:

http://www.bitdefender.com/support/o...ces)-1137.html

and scroll down to the "BitDefender Antivirus Free Edition" section.
Looks like the "they wanted me to do something" was for you to upgrade
to a later Windows.

Avast (free or paid) still supports Windows XP SP-3. See:

https://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB44#idt_100

They sent me an e-mail and asked me to click on something, but instead
of sending a plain texct e-mail with a URL (which my e-mail program
turns into clickable links) they used spammer/malware fancy tricks
with it, which meant I could not reach the URL or even read it to see
what it was, to do whatever it was they wanted me to do.

Sounds like a crappy e-mail client that cannot handle HTML. What
happens when you copy the URL and paste it into the address bar of a web
browser? Look at the raw source of the e-mail to get the URL (probably
the href attribute of an A tag).

So BitDefender stopped working on my XP desktop, and I went back to
Avast.

Actually I updated Avast on my XP desktop yesterday and it works fine.
But since updating it on my Win 7 Toshiba laptop I keep getting
messages to say that I am unprotected.

Sometimes there are *program* updates to Avast (or any security product)
and you have to reboot to complete the installation. Not hibernate, not
hybrid mode, not standby mode, but a full reboot. Presumably you are
not concurrently running other security software since you didn't
mention anything other than Avast.

For help on Avast, visit their web-based forums to reach a community
more focused on that software (https://forum.avast.com/).

On Thu, 8 Dec 2016 00:18:03 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Steve Hayes on 2016/12/07 wrote:

T on 2016/12/7 wrote:

Bit Defender free is the only free one without junkware.
It also scores well in av-comparatives.

I actually tried BitDefender, but after a month they wanted me to do
something on their web site -- I forget what.

Sounds like instead of getting the free version of Bitdefender that you
downloaded and installed the trialware full version and which has now
expired on its trial period.

This newsgroup discusses Windows *7*, not Windows XP. Did you not
review the system requirements for Bitdefender? Go take a look at:

The computer that has problems with Avast is running Windows 7.

Avast works fine on my XP computer.


--
Steve Hayes
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://khanya.wordpress.com

Steve Hayes on 2016/12/08 wrote:

The computer that has problems with Avast is running Windows 7.

But still an issue with Avast, not Windows. You have a better chance
that peers in the Avast forum might know what is the issue with Avast.

Steve Hayes wrote:
Can anyone recommend a good free antivirus program that works on
Windows 7, other than Avast.

I tried to update Avast today and it stopped working.

I tried to repair it, and it still wouldn't work, so I suppose I'll
need to look for something else.

Sophos has recently started providing a free home version.
My employer provides us with the Sophos enterprise version that I really like
for the work laptops.
I have no experience with the free version.

On Wed, 07 Dec 2016 20:07:27 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:

Can anyone recommend a good free antivirus program that works on
Windows 7, other than Avast.

Try avast! again, but don't install any of their tools and only install
File System Shield and Web Shield (you don't really need Mail Shield).
Then enable Silent/Gaming Mode and you won't see a single pop-up.

--
s|b