Avast free

Drew wrote:
Just wondering what free antivirus people are running here. I have been
running Avast Free for years but it is really getting to be a pain with
it's constant program updates (not definition updates) Personally I
think the older interface was better.Right now I have version
2014.9.0.2013 and it is constantly nagging about updating the program. I
know it is a highly rated one but maybe there is something out there
that people like better?

My w7 computer has MSE. It gets a virus or malware every week and
I use an Avira and/or Kapersky Linus boot disk to get rid of it.
This xp3 computer does not have any antivirus. It never gets anything.

On 3/30/2014 8:56 PM, Drew wrote:
On 3/30/2014 5:24 PM, Ron wrote:
On 3/30/2014 7:54 PM, Drew wrote:
I would still like to know
what others are running and what there opinions are though.

I gave you a list. Take your pick.

Really? Do you run all these?. I was just asking a question and
mentioning a problem that I was having. The second part is now cured. I
still do not have a answer to the original question though. I know of
all these programs you mention however I have no experience with them.
Do you? If so why did you change from one to obviously several others?

As to your other post about the car stereo head unit. I was not thinking
about that particular interface. I was thinking more recent than that.

Used AVG for years, switched to Avira because it was less of a resource
hog (at the time). Used Avira for years and then switched to Avast
because Avira seemed to be lagging behind in tech and I didn't care for
Avira's nag screen. Used Avast for the last 2-3 years, just recently
switched over to Norton 360 because I can get it for free and it has a
lot more features.

In the past 4 months I have installed Panda Cloud replacing MSE
(Microsoft Security Essentials) on 4 friends/relatives computers that
aren't very computer savvy and don't need to be nagged.

2 of those computers are also older and Panda is very light on
resources. The only one I haven't used is Bitdefender, but it has very
good reviews. So it's really kind of a tossup. As long as you aren't
doing stupid **** they are all good. I also use WOT (Web of Trust).

https://www.mywot.com/

I have 2 ISPs so I can also get McAfee 2013 for free. I tried it and
went back to Avast because I didn't like it....don't remember why. So if
I didn't have Norton 360 for free I would go back to Avast.

Tests

http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home...7/janfeb-2014/

On 3/30/2014 10:07 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Drew wrote:
Just wondering what free antivirus people are running here. I have
been running Avast Free for years but it is really getting to be a
pain with it's constant program updates (not definition updates)
Personally I think the older interface was better.Right now I have
version 2014.9.0.2013 and it is constantly nagging about updating the
program. I know it is a highly rated one but maybe there is something
out there that people like better?

My w7 computer has MSE. It gets a virus or malware every week and
I use an Avira and/or Kapersky Linus boot disk to get rid of it.
This xp3 computer does not have any antivirus. It never gets anything.

MSE is so bad it's the baseline for other antivirus programs.

http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home...7/janfeb-2014/

On 3/30/2014 7:41 PM, The Other Guy wrote:
On Sun, 30 Mar 2014 16:54:52 -0700, Drew


Why not just allow it to update?

IMO,that would be sensible, but Drew doesn't seem to agree.

How about.... Because in the past many programs have taught me that
newer is not always better.

That is a VERY STUPID attitude when you're talking about an AV
program!

But you KNEW that.

Please re-read the original post. I ALWAYS update definitions daily!!!
It is the program itself that is the question. Two different things.

On 3/30/2014 7:26 PM, Ron wrote:

Used AVG for years, switched to Avira because it was less of a resource
hog (at the time). Used Avira for years and then switched to Avast
because Avira seemed to be lagging behind in tech and I didn't care for
Avira's nag screen. Used Avast for the last 2-3 years, just recently
switched over to Norton 360 because I can get it for free and it has a
lot more features.

In the past 4 months I have installed Panda Cloud replacing MSE
(Microsoft Security Essentials) on 4 friends/relatives computers that
aren't very computer savvy and don't need to be nagged.

2 of those computers are also older and Panda is very light on
resources. The only one I haven't used is Bitdefender, but it has very
good reviews. So it's really kind of a tossup. As long as you aren't
doing stupid **** they are all good. I also use WOT (Web of Trust).

https://www.mywot.com/

I have 2 ISPs so I can also get McAfee 2013 for free. I tried it and
went back to Avast because I didn't like it....don't remember why. So if
I didn't have Norton 360 for free I would go back to Avast.

Tests

http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home...7/janfeb-2014/


Thank you for that info, I will look at it all and learn from it I am sure.

On 3/30/2014 11:14 PM, Drew wrote:
On 3/30/2014 7:26 PM, Ron wrote:

Used AVG for years, switched to Avira because it was less of a resource
hog (at the time). Used Avira for years and then switched to Avast
because Avira seemed to be lagging behind in tech and I didn't care for
Avira's nag screen. Used Avast for the last 2-3 years, just recently
switched over to Norton 360 because I can get it for free and it has a
lot more features.

In the past 4 months I have installed Panda Cloud replacing MSE
(Microsoft Security Essentials) on 4 friends/relatives computers that
aren't very computer savvy and don't need to be nagged.

2 of those computers are also older and Panda is very light on
resources. The only one I haven't used is Bitdefender, but it has very
good reviews. So it's really kind of a tossup. As long as you aren't
doing stupid **** they are all good. I also use WOT (Web of Trust).

https://www.mywot.com/

I have 2 ISPs so I can also get McAfee 2013 for free. I tried it and
went back to Avast because I didn't like it....don't remember why. So if
I didn't have Norton 360 for free I would go back to Avast.

Tests

http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home...7/janfeb-2014/


Thank you for that info, I will look at it all and learn from it I am sure.


Here is a good site for a lot of free software reviews.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/

They also have Comodo Antivirus listed. I haven't used that one.

Antivirus reviews with a lot of comments below the selections.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best...election_Guide

Ron wrote:
On 3/30/2014 10:07 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Drew wrote:
Just wondering what free antivirus people are running here. I have
been running Avast Free for years but it is really getting to be a
pain with it's constant program updates (not definition updates)
Personally I think the older interface was better.Right now I have
version 2014.9.0.2013 and it is constantly nagging about updating the
program. I know it is a highly rated one but maybe there is something
out there that people like better?

My w7 computer has MSE. It gets a virus or malware every week and
I use an Avira and/or Kapersky Linus boot disk to get rid of it.
This xp3 computer does not have any antivirus. It never gets anything.

MSE is so bad it's the baseline for other antivirus programs.

http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home...7/janfeb-2014/

Oh that's funny! It's very easy to use though!
Thanks for the AV-test link.

On Sun, 30 Mar 2014 21:07:23 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
wrote:

Drew wrote:
Just wondering what free antivirus people are running here. I have been
running Avast Free for years but it is really getting to be a pain with
it's constant program updates (not definition updates) Personally I
think the older interface was better.Right now I have version
2014.9.0.2013 and it is constantly nagging about updating the program. I
know it is a highly rated one but maybe there is something out there
that people like better?

My w7 computer has MSE. It gets a virus or malware every week and
I use an Avira and/or Kapersky Linus boot disk to get rid of it.

You didn't ask for advice, but I'll offer it anyway. The person or people
who use that computer are making some repeated mistakes related to where
they're going on the Internet and what they're clicking on. I'm guessing
they'd rather deal with the malware than give up their current behavior.

This xp3 computer does not have any antivirus. It never gets anything.

How would a person know for sure?

--

Char Jackson

On 3/31/2014 12:01 AM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Ron wrote:
On 3/30/2014 10:07 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Drew wrote:
Just wondering what free antivirus people are running here. I have
been running Avast Free for years but it is really getting to be a
pain with it's constant program updates (not definition updates)
Personally I think the older interface was better.Right now I have
version 2014.9.0.2013 and it is constantly nagging about updating the
program. I know it is a highly rated one but maybe there is something
out there that people like better?

My w7 computer has MSE. It gets a virus or malware every week and
I use an Avira and/or Kapersky Linus boot disk to get rid of it.
This xp3 computer does not have any antivirus. It never gets anything.

MSE is so bad it's the baseline for other antivirus programs.

http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home...7/janfeb-2014/

Oh that's funny! It's very easy to use though!
Thanks for the AV-test link.

If you want something that is easy to use I would recommend Panda Cloud
free. Once you install it, it never bothers you and the scanner is
simple to use.

http://download.cloudantivirus.com/

Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 30 Mar 2014 21:07:23 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
wrote:

Drew wrote:
Just wondering what free antivirus people are running here. I have been
running Avast Free for years but it is really getting to be a pain with
it's constant program updates (not definition updates) Personally I
think the older interface was better.Right now I have version
2014.9.0.2013 and it is constantly nagging about updating the program. I
know it is a highly rated one but maybe there is something out there
that people like better?
My w7 computer has MSE. It gets a virus or malware every week and
I use an Avira and/or Kapersky Linus boot disk to get rid of it.

You didn't ask for advice, but I'll offer it anyway. The person or people
who use that computer are making some repeated mistakes related to where
they're going on the Internet and what they're clicking on. I'm guessing
they'd rather deal with the malware than give up their current behavior.

That's me getting the viruses on the work computer.
Unfortunately some of the work related sites I visit have been
hijacked or just not safe. It seems like many oil & gas production
and O&G related sites in third world countries are infected.
I could replace the current av product with a better one but it's
not that important. Removing the bad stuff is usually an interesting
and fun challenge. Everything is scanned and backed up to several
locations every other night, including external SATA drive, company
servers, Dropbox, and 32GB USB chip.

This xp3 computer does not have any antivirus. It never gets anything.

How would a person know for sure?
It has no active blockers but I know my computer well and I run
the Linux and Malwarebyte scans on it weekly. It gets backed up
after scans to an internal drive that I unplug after backups.

On Sun, 30 Mar 2014 23:34:06 -0400, Ron wrote:

On 3/30/2014 11:14 PM, Drew wrote:
On 3/30/2014 7:26 PM, Ron wrote:

Used AVG for years, switched to Avira because it was less of a resource
hog (at the time). Used Avira for years and then switched to Avast
because Avira seemed to be lagging behind in tech and I didn't care for
Avira's nag screen. Used Avast for the last 2-3 years, just recently
switched over to Norton 360 because I can get it for free and it has a
lot more features.

In the past 4 months I have installed Panda Cloud replacing MSE
(Microsoft Security Essentials) on 4 friends/relatives computers that
aren't very computer savvy and don't need to be nagged.

2 of those computers are also older and Panda is very light on
resources. The only one I haven't used is Bitdefender, but it has very
good reviews. So it's really kind of a tossup. As long as you aren't
doing stupid **** they are all good. I also use WOT (Web of Trust).

https://www.mywot.com/

I have 2 ISPs so I can also get McAfee 2013 for free. I tried it and
went back to Avast because I didn't like it....don't remember why. So if
I didn't have Norton 360 for free I would go back to Avast.

Tests

http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home...7/janfeb-2014/


Thank you for that info, I will look at it all and learn from it I am sure.


Here is a good site for a lot of free software reviews.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/


Nice link.

They recommend Avira for me.

I used Avast, then switched to Mictosoft Security Essentials for my XP
computer when Avast began finding too many false positives and stopped me
working (I still use Avast on my Win 7 machine).

Now Microsoft have said they are phasing out their Security Essentials for XP,
so I think I'll try Avira.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

On Sun, 30 Mar 2014 09:39:38 -0700, Drew wrote:

Just wondering what free antivirus people are running here. I have been
running Avast Free for years but it is really getting to be a pain with
it's constant program updates (not definition updates) Personally I
think the older interface was better.Right now I have version
2014.9.0.2013 and it is constantly nagging about updating the program. I
know it is a highly rated one but maybe there is something out there
that people like better?

Interesting topic and discussion. I have been using Avast for a number of years
on all of our office machines. In the past 6 months, I have experienced some
significant glitches with Avast.

As a result of comments in this thread, I have removed Avast from my personal
system and I have installed Panda Cloud, so far, it seems OK but it is going to
take a while to evaluate it.

One thing to keep in mind, and I suspect most people in this forum know, it is
important when installing a third party AV product on Windows 7, be sure to
completely disable the Windows Defender program. This can be found in the
Control Panel.

On Sun, 30 Mar 2014 16:54:52 -0700, Drew wrote:

On 3/30/2014 4:37 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Sun, 30 Mar 2014 17:20:33 -0500, Char Jackson wrote:

On Sun, 30 Mar 2014 11:52:59 -0700, Drew wrote:

Maybe the word "constant" was used wrongly.. What I meant was after I
chose not to update the program anymore I was badgered repeatedly to do
so (as in every time I brought it out of sleep mode) I have taken the
advice of others to make some changes to the settings but was still
wondering about other antivirus program advice.

Why not just allow it to update?

IMO,that would be sensible, but Drew doesn't seem to agree.

How about.... Because in the past many programs have taught me that
newer is not always better. With Avast I have found that they seem to be
dumbing down the program and adding some really useless "tools"?
Unfortunately because of time constraints lately I have not looked into
turning some of this stuff off. Many have pointed out my stupidity and I
appreciate the help in curing the problem. I would still like to know
what others are running and what there opinions are though.

OK, that makes sense to me, although I still respectfully disagree. To
be a bit more fair, I'll tell you my thinking.

My thinking is specific to antimalware. Malware keeps changing, since
there are a lot of people out there having fun at your expense and mine.

So antimalware programs need to keep changing as well. In particular, as
the approaches taken by the malware programmers change, some new
exploits can't be handled by simply changing the malware definitions,
and require new algorithms in the code to cover the new behavior.

So updating antimalware programs is very prudent, in my book.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

Charles Lindbergh wrote:

One thing to keep in mind, and I suspect most people in this forum know, it is
important when installing a third party AV product on Windows 7, be sure to
completely disable the Windows Defender program. This can be found in the
Control Panel.

Windows Defender in Win 7 (or XP) isn't an anti virus program. I have
use both in XP and 7. Windows 8', OTOH, Windows Defender *is* an anti
virus program.

--
Blue

On Mon, 31 Mar 2014 15:12:21 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Sun, 30 Mar 2014 16:54:52 -0700, Drew wrote:

On 3/30/2014 4:37 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Sun, 30 Mar 2014 17:20:33 -0500, Char Jackson wrote:

On Sun, 30 Mar 2014 11:52:59 -0700, Drew wrote:

Maybe the word "constant" was used wrongly.. What I meant was after I
chose not to update the program anymore I was badgered repeatedly to do
so (as in every time I brought it out of sleep mode) I have taken the
advice of others to make some changes to the settings but was still
wondering about other antivirus program advice.

Why not just allow it to update?

IMO,that would be sensible, but Drew doesn't seem to agree.

How about.... Because in the past many programs have taught me that
newer is not always better. With Avast I have found that they seem to be
dumbing down the program and adding some really useless "tools"?
Unfortunately because of time constraints lately I have not looked into
turning some of this stuff off. Many have pointed out my stupidity and I
appreciate the help in curing the problem. I would still like to know
what others are running and what there opinions are though.

OK, that makes sense to me, although I still respectfully disagree. To
be a bit more fair, I'll tell you my thinking.

My thinking is specific to antimalware. Malware keeps changing, since
there are a lot of people out there having fun at your expense and mine.

So antimalware programs need to keep changing as well. In particular, as
the approaches taken by the malware programmers change, some new
exploits can't be handled by simply changing the malware definitions,
and require new algorithms in the code to cover the new behavior.

So updating antimalware programs is very prudent, in my book.

+1 to all of that. Well said, Gene.

--

Char Jackson