OT: Anti-virus / firewall solutions

[Renegade 13]

My Norton anti-virus subscription ran out a couple days ago, and, for various reasons, I'd rather not renew my subscription. So, if anyone has any suggestions for how I can remove Norton (as I've heard it can be rather resistant to removal) from my machine, I'd be greatly appreciative.

I'd also like to get some suggestions for some better anti-virus products, and also some ideas on a good (hopefully free) firewall to use, since I'm not horribly comfortable having my machine completely unprotected from any malicious activities. Again, any suggestions anyone has to offer would be more than welcome, hopefully I can get some sort of consensus on the best products to use, or the best combinations of products to use.

Thanks!!

[Ed Kolis]

I'd recommend Avast for your virus protection...
http://www.avast.com/

Download the home edition - registration is required, but free!

As for firewalls, I've been perfectly happy with the built-in XP/Vista firewall, so I wouldn't know what to get there http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

I'd also recommend running Spybot Search & Destroy every so often to clean up any spyware, ads, etc. that may have accumulated on your machine.
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Remove Norton for good? Well, if add/remove programs doesn't do the trick, I suppose you could search the registry, but I'm not sure what exactly to look for... heck, maybe Spybot might consider Norton to be spyware now if it's really that hard to remove! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[capnq]

I bought this computer used from a friend who's a certified Network Analyst. I'm currently running what she installed and set up on it, which is AVG Free Edition for anti-virus, and the version of Windows Firewall that came with Windows XP Professional.

[Fyron]

Symantec provides a Norton removal tool (http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039).

The built-in XP "firewall" is completely worthless, since it doesn't stop outbound connections (inbound connections should already be blocked at the router level). Vista's is good though, as it is actually a real firewall.

Ars Technica recently posted a security app guide (http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/five-security-apps-linux-osx-windows.ars). Check it out.

[AgentZero]

I use Comodo as a firewall, and haven't bothered with anti-virus in some time. I've used Norton, Mcafee, AVG & Kapersky at various points, and as far as I can remember they've detected two "viruses" though both turned out to be false positives. So now I just don't bother. I run online tests now & then and always come up clean. I stopped bothering with anti-spyware/adware recently as well, after I realized that all the "spyware" that S&D and AdAware were coming up with was all just cookies from the likes of Doubleclick.

And if Doubleclick wants to know what I'm Googling that badly, I don't really care enough to stop them. I'm sure they'll appreciate the irony of seeing "Ad blocking extensions" in there somewhere.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I use Avast and avg for virus-scanning and Spybot for spybots.

[Baron Munchausen]

Plain old AVG seems adequate. The various ratings sites say it isn't that effective, but it seems to work for an awful lot of people. Avast and CLAM AV are good free options, as well.

http://free.grisoft.com/
http://www.avast.com/
http://www.clamav.net/

The built-in XP firewall is sure better than nothing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif but it is rather limited. I use Ghostwall because it's very small and lightweight, but does give some extra functionality over the default XP firewall.

http://www.ghostsecurity.com/ghostwall/

[Fyron]

The XP firewall is worse than nothing because it gives you false confidence about being protected. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Atrocities]

AVG all the way. http://free.grisoft.com/

[Baron Grazic]

eEye Blink Personal Free Antivirus Software. (http://free-antivirus.eeye.com/)
Its firewall can be a bit harsh by banning older applications, but has worked for me.
Baron Grazic

[Xrati]

I use Lavasoft Personal Firewall, which is not free (~$30.). Nothing that is any good, is ever free. It comes with a free 30 day trial period and has already proven itself worth the money four or five times on phishing sites that I was redirected to. If there's something on the market that works well, I beleive you should support it rather then watch it "go away" for lack of support. Even Spybot S&D asks for donations which I have happily have contributed to. You guys need to remember that when you find a good program (just as you support SE) you need to support the product or it will disappear and there's just not enough good software producers left to just continue using freeware.

I will NEVER use any Norton or Symantec software products again. /threads/images/Graemlins/Grenade.gif

You can get by with a good firewall and some spyware. You won't need much more than that to protect your computer. Like Fyron has mentioned, the XP firewall is useless other then a false sense of security it gives you (makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside).

ALSO keeping your privacy/security settings for Firefox or Explorer to the high side will help. You can bring them down later for sites you know and trust.

Spyware S&D has a program called the 'Tea Timer" that protects entries to your registry without your premission. It is one of the best ways to protect your computer. You can't even install a new program without authorizing it to allow registry changes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Fyron]

Xrati said:
Nothing that is any good, is ever free.


Most commercial software is shovelware crap, unfortunately...


Xrati said:
Spyware S&D has a program called the 'Tea Timer" that protects entries to your registry without your premission. It is one of the best ways to protect your computer. You can't even install a new program without authorizing it to allow registry changes.


In my experience, Tea Timer has been more hassle than it's worth. It catches harmless things left and right and doesn't stop a lot of more harmful system accesses. Luckily Vista's UAC makes it completely obsolete, and does a better job to boot.

[Renegade 13]

Awesome, thanks for the suggestions guys! I owe you one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[capnq]

Xrati said: You guys need to remember that when you find a good program (just as you support SE) you need to support the product or it will disappear and there's just not enough good software producers left to just continue using freeware.

I have eventually become dissatisfied with every anti-virus and anti-spyware app I've ever used, commercial or free. The only reason that I suggested AVG is that I haven't been using it long enough for it to disappoint me.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

So use two. Double coverage. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Xrati]

Xrati said:
Spyware S&D has a program called the 'Tea Timer" that protects entries to your registry without your premission. It is one of the best ways to protect your computer. You can't even install a new program without authorizing it to allow registry changes.


In my experience, Tea Timer has been more hassle than it's worth. It catches harmless things left and right and doesn't stop a lot of more harmful system accesses. Luckily Vista's UAC makes it completely obsolete, and does a better job to boot.

[/quote]

So if it's not Vista, it's "No Good?" I don't think so.

In my experience Fyron, I've had no problems with it. Maybe I just have it setup better for my system. Sometimes all we have to work with is what we are given...

[Fyron]

Xrati said:
So if it's not Vista, it's "No Good?" I don't think so.


Why do you extrapolate such a grandiose claim from 2 data points? XP's firewall does not do the most important task of a software firewall, blocking unknown outbound connections (it was useless from the day SP2 came out, nothing to do with Vista). Tea Timer is overly aggressive in blocking the type of changes it blocks, and misses other important types. These are simple facts. Vista happens to come with better software for these particular applications, but there are certainly lots of better apps that can be used in XP as well (eg: Comodo)..

[capnq]

narf poit chez BOOM said:
So use two. Double coverage. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Two antivirus shields running simultaneously can actually interfere with each other and let a virus slip through in the confusion.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I did not know that.

Can I get evidence for that?

[Fyron]

It's common wisdom, espoused in every security-related article on the web (including the one I linked to (http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/five-security-apps-linux-osx-windows.ars) in this thread). Many even recommend not even having more than 1 AV installed at a time. They tend to enable the resident shields automatically, without user intervention. Even Microsoft now advises you to not install a second AV app. Vista even pops up a warning message when you try to do it; hopefully XP SP3 will do so as well. I don't know about explicit evidence, but Google (http://www.google.com/search?q=running%20two%20anti%20virus&hl=en) is filled with admonitions against it.

[Parasite]

Our new VPN system at work requires Norton AV to be installed and updated recently on your computer http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Huh.