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General discussion

Anti Virus Software Suggestions

Feb 21, 2006 3:07PM PST

Free, of course!

I am currently using AVG AntiVirus. I'm not completely satisfied with it, it seems to me they like to keep you from completely customizing your schedule. I like to customize my scanning & updates for a specific time, AVG only lets you choose predefined times that are between this time and another time (2:00 AM and 3:00 AM as an example).

http://free.grisoft.com/

I am planning to switch back to ClamWin Anti Virus as soon as possible. I love it, it runs on the ClamAV scanning engine which is run on most Linux servers. It is also quiet, doesn't take a lot of system resources. NOTE: It DOES NOT have an on access scanner, if you are going to be bringing in thumb drives or files from outside sources that could potentially have viruses on them, make sure you scan them before opening the files (obviously).

I use ClamWin on the older systems on my network (Pre 300 MHz machines) and it runs great. I can schedule the exact time to do the updates & the time to scan the drives. One thing that I don't like about ClamWin is they seem to have a lot of updates to the program, not just the definitions and unless you manually update the virus definitions every so often, you won't know.

http://www.clamwin.com/

For some odd reason, as of this post, their website was down, lol.

There are also versions of ClamAV for Linux & Mac:

Mac
http://www.clamxav.com/

Linux
http://klamav.sourceforge.net/

Discussion is locked

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Scanners
Feb 21, 2006 10:39PM PST

I have AVG and I'm fine with it, but if you are looking for scanners, here are a few to try out.

I hate Norton, sorry, after being a netadmin for 6 years for 120 clients there is no other scanner I hate more then this one. At work we use McAffee, and all I can say is thank god I'm an admin of my machine, anyway.

Trend Micro has a decent one, costs money though

http://www.trendmicro.com/en/home/us/personal.htm

Panda's is good too, they also have an online scan
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/activescan.asp?Language=2

or you can buy one of theirs
http://www.pandasoftware.com/home/particulares/default

I stuck with Computer Associates for years and they were really good, their's is eTrust
http://store.ca.com/dr/sat1/ec_MAIN.Entry10?SP=10023&PN=1&xid=35715&V1=677538&CUR=840&DSP=&PGRP=0&ABCODE=&CACHE_ID=198395

If you are looking for free, you may want to try out Avast. I have used this one, and it is good. Some of my clients really like it
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_cleaner.html

I'd jump onto www.download.com and do a search there. I think it was PC Magazine or one of the big guys that just did a review of the top 5 Anti Virus scanners. The usual suspects were there, but in the top 10 anyway, avast and AVG were still kicking around.

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Avast!
Feb 21, 2006 10:46PM PST
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No Subject
Feb 22, 2006 12:48AM PST

I like the fact that it talks to you, not much else.

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I've always liked Panda
Feb 22, 2006 12:54AM PST

Even though it's not free, I've always liked them. They're always updating their signatures, sometimes even several times a day, to keep up with viruses.

I've used Avast! before too, and would recommend it for a free anti-virus solution.

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Try Nod32
Feb 22, 2006 2:09AM PST

From what I hear lots of more advanced users (like you) use Nod32. Leo Laporte is a big fan, FWIW. It is supposed to be very slim, scans fast, and does not have the bloat problem that Norton has.

http://www.nod32.com/products/products.htm

I've been using Norton System Works for years, but I'm going to dump them when my subscriptions run out in a few weeks. I'm tired of it using up tons of system resources and interfering with a bunch of different products (like my Creative sound card).