antivirus spyware protection help

[old-yellow]

i am looking for free spyware and antivirus protection i use firefox for my internet if someone knows a good one please help

[kb0nly]

The two choices i always use, i do this for a living if that matters, lol...

Free - Avast, does a good job and keeps most users safe.

Paid - Kaspersky Internet Security, antivirus and malware protection all in one.

Malware Only - Malwarebytes, a good scanner and realtime protection if you get the paid version.

You can get the paid version of Kasperky IS on eBay for around $15 these days. We put it on every new computer we sell at work and i highly recommend it. On the other hand i have most of my computers running Avast at home, why? Its free! But its the only free one i trust, AVG used to be pretty good but has been slipping a lot lower on the list lately.

[El Camexican]

I'm near computer illiterate, but I'm told Microsoft Security Essentials (its free) is a good one.

[old-yellow]

thanks guys i found a free Norton internet security.

[kb0nly]

MSSE, Microsoft Security Essentials, is pretty good also, although it doesn't stop some things if you click on them by accident.

Free Norton?? Never seen a freebie from them so i am suspicious of it. Not to mention how horribly Norton bogs down a computer.

[wisconsinite]

I've had good luck with avg. Norton is worse than most of the bugs it " protects" against, imo.

[tulsamike3434]

I use avast!

[just ben]

I use avast!that is what I use also. I havn't had any issues since using it. norton however is a different story. it seems to work but cost moneyand good luck if you want to put another antiviris on instead of norton. You need software to get rid of norton. My laptop came with a trial of norton funy thing is 2 days after the 6 month trial ended I got a virus that could not be removed. it took a whole new operating system to get it working again.The tech that repaired it said he has only seen that virus on snorton trials that didn't get renewed. I don't doubt it, without viruses what good is a paid anti virus?

[El Camexican]

You need software to get rid of norton. My laptop came with a trial of norton funy thing is 2 days after the 6 month trial ended I got a virus that could not be removed. it took a whole new operating system to get it working again.The tech that repaired it said he has only seen that virus on snorton trials that didn't get renewed. I don't doubt it, without viruses what good is a paid anti virus?

Isn't that a tub of $%#??? Programs that can't be removed should be illegal to sell. That and subsctiptions that renew on your credit card automaticaly UNLESS you make a special request they they be cancelled. That stuff gets me border line postal.

[atc007]

I have an Apple now,,So,no worries.. But listen to the pro,,{ kbonly} and go with Avast. My .02

[tulsamike3434]

I use Linux and windows

[WJG1000W]

avg has always worked for me

[kb0nly]

Norton is so horrible that we have removal tools from the company to clean out their antivirus.. No joke... And even after removing them sometimes we still have to spend hours editing the registry to clean them up. Sometimes its just easier to reinstall the OS and start over, what a pain.

AVG and Avast are both excellent choices, i only diss AVG a smidge because they seem to be a little lacking on root kit protection (as tested by PC World magazine) and don't update as fast as Avast. But still, for a free AV they are definitely better than nothing!

I also recommend that if you use AVG or Avast then use Malwarebytes to also make sure the system is clean, and scan now and then to assure it is. AVG and Avast are a little behind on blocking malware but do pretty darn good on most common infections. The problem is, and believe it or not, all these programs are mis-named now days. Its pretty RARE to see a computer infected with what we would call a virus, aka a trojan or a true virus. I would guess over 90% of infections now days are malware, rootkits, and spyware.

I would also like to point out... Mac is not invulnerable like many seem to think. To actual viruses, perhaps, but there has been a rash of malware problems with Mac lately, some even made the news. So its not unheard of, and the ones that affect the Mac are so sneaky that they are truly worse in my opinion. But don't get me wrong, Mac has a far smaller rate of infection. Many think its due to the "better" operating system. Hardly! Its actually due to the fact that such a large part of the world is on Windows that those who want to be malicious target the most popular operating system. I don't use Mac's but i can say, they are pretty nice hardware wise, some of them are quite powerful in comparison to PC's.

Linux... Its a necessary evil these days, servers and such. Its probably the most robust even beating out Mac... Why? Its actually quite simple if you think like a IT tech. Linux is supported by those who do most of the malicious stuff anyway, i know plenty of people that some would consider "hackers", and they all generally use Linux themselves day to day, so no wonder why its protected when those types are using it! LOL

El Camexican... I hear ya. I deal with this crap daily, and i mean daily. One that has been very common is the Fake 2012 AV epidemic that i have been dealing with for almost a year now. You browse to a website, a popup says you might be infected scan now, the unknowing person clicks scan and installs a fake antivirus program which locks down the internet access unless you pay for an upgrade. At which point it allows access and goes back into an idle state, its not an antivirus program just scamware that makes the user pay money to get their internet back. Then of course it expires now and then to ask for more money!

Now here is a good laugh for you guys... I uninstalled Norton from a new Dell the other day, it was the trial and just expired and the owner wanted something better. I ran the usual removal tool and cleaned up the registry, then installed Avast because they just wanted a free one. What happened? Avast popped up saying it detected a Malware program called Norton Internet Security, i kid you not! The new NIS messes up the registry entries to the point that other programs suspect it of wrong doing. So funny!!

[just ben]

Norton is so horrible that we have removal tools from the company to clean out their antivirus.. No joke... And even after removing them sometimes we still have to spend hours editing the registry to clean them up. Sometimes its just easier to reinstall the OS and start over, what a pain.

AVG and Avast are both excellent choices, i only diss AVG a smidge because they seem to be a little lacking on root kit protection (as tested by PC World magazine) and don't update as fast as Avast. But still, for a free AV they are definitely better than nothing!

I also recommend that if you use AVG or Avast then use Malwarebytes to also make sure the system is clean, and scan now and then to assure it is. AVG and Avast are a little behind on blocking malware but do pretty darn good on most common infections. The problem is, and believe it or not, all these programs are mis-named now days. Its pretty RARE to see a computer infected with what we would call a virus, aka a trojan or a true virus. I would guess over 90% of infections now days are malware, rootkits, and spyware.

I would also like to point out... Mac is not invulnerable like many seem to think. To actual viruses, perhaps, but there has been a rash of malware problems with Mac lately, some even made the news. So its not unheard of, and the ones that affect the Mac are so sneaky that they are truly worse in my opinion. But don't get me wrong, Mac has a far smaller rate of infection. Many think its due to the "better" operating system. Hardly! Its actually due to the fact that such a large part of the world is on Windows that those who want to be malicious target the most popular operating system. I don't use Mac's but i can say, they are pretty nice hardware wise, some of them are quite powerful in comparison to PC's.

Linux... Its a necessary evil these days, servers and such. Its probably the most robust even beating out Mac... Why? Its actually quite simple if you think like a IT tech. Linux is supported by those who do most of the malicious stuff anyway, i know plenty of people that some would consider "hackers", and they all generally use Linux themselves day to day, so no wonder why its protected when those types are using it! LOL

El Camexican... I hear ya. I deal with this crap daily, and i mean daily. One that has been very common is the Fake 2012 AV epidemic that i have been dealing with for almost a year now. You browse to a website, a popup says you might be infected scan now, the unknowing person clicks scan and installs a fake antivirus program which locks down the internet access unless you pay for an upgrade. At which point it allows access and goes back into an idle state, its not an antivirus program just scamware that makes the user pay money to get their internet back. Then of course it expires now and then to ask for more money!

Now here is a good laugh for you guys... I uninstalled Norton from a new Dell the other day, it was the trial and just expired and the owner wanted something better. I ran the usual removal tool and cleaned up the registry, then installed Avast because they just wanted a free one. What happened? Avast popped up saying it detected a Malware program called Norton Internet Security, i kid you not! The new NIS messes up the registry entries to the point that other programs suspect it of wrong doing. So funny!!the virus or malware you are talkin about is what took my laptop down two days after the norton trial expired. I posted a thread about it when this happened. I was able to rollback to before the systemcheck B.S was there but it only worked for about a week and it came back, along with 3 others. It got to the point that windows wouldn't even boot up nor would it go to the diagnostics menu

[RIDE-RED 250r]

I'm no IT expert by any means but I have had my share of bad experiences with those trick "viruses". I have had them pop up with a window that says it's transferring all my C:drive data and that I could be arrested. I figured out it was all BS when I physically disconnected the internet from my computer and when I clicked the "fix it" button it tried to open a webpage asking me for money. Ended up figuring out how to start my comp in safe mode and got rid of it all. When I was told by a friend who is a little more savvy about this stuff I couldn't believe it was legal! What a bunch of BS..

Just installed the Avast program in both my desktop and laptop. Seems to be working fine. For the longest time I was having problems with google searches. When I would click on a link I would get hijacked to some other webpage or no-name search engine that had nothing to do with the link I clicked on... Hopefully the pre-boot scan I just did took care of that. Had quite a few hits for infections....

Thanks for the recommendation Kb0nly! :beer

[kb0nly]

Fix em like that all the time! Usually doing a full system restoration from the factory image or just tossing in the windows disc and starting over after formatting. It sucks but its pretty common. So common in fact that we put up O/S Reinstall on our pricing list as a standard charge, we do it daily.

[kb0nly]

I'm no IT expert by any means but I have had my share of bad experiences with those trick "viruses". I have had them pop up with a window that says it's transferring all my C:drive data and that I could be arrested. I figured out it was all BS when I physically disconnected the internet from my computer and when I clicked the "fix it" button it tried to open a webpage asking me for money. Ended up figuring out how to start my comp in safe mode and got rid of it all. When I was told by a friend who is a little more savvy about this stuff I couldn't believe it was legal! What a bunch of BS..

Just installed the Avast program in both my desktop and laptop. Seems to be working fine. For the longest time I was having problems with google searches. When I would click on a link I would get hijacked to some other webpage or no-name search engine that had nothing to do with the link I clicked on... Hopefully the pre-boot scan I just did took care of that. Had quite a few hits for infections....

Thanks for the recommendation Kb0nly! :beer

Your welcome! Remember, your AV is only as good as what you click on! If you use FireFox get the adblock plus plugin for it, it will kill so much more of the popups, rollovers, banner ads, etc. But you can put sites like 3WW in your allow list so you don't miss any of those trike goodie ads on here... LOL

I actually tell people to avoid Internet Explorer now. Use FireFox or Chrome, faster and better protection from garbage.

[MonroeMike]

I use Avast and Malwarebytes also.

My neighbor had a rootkit virus that I tried several programs to get rid of it. Nothing worked until I found TDSSKiller, it fixed it in 30 seconds.
http://kaspersky-tdsskiller.en.softonic.com/

[kb0nly]

TDSSKiller is awesome, one of the best tools out there. Another good one is ComboFix but i suggest you use that one as a last resort cause it will mess up things in the registry, but it will kill everything.

Other tools i recommend...

CCleaner www.ccleaner.com its an awesome tool for cleaning out the accumulated crud, also for cleaning up the registry. They also have another program called Defraggler which is an awesome defrag tool. Both of which are totally free! They have some other neat programs as well.

[atc007]

My.02 on computers. I know Nothing about them! I have had one since Sep 99. A new Emachine. Loved it. Went thru the "Millenium" just fine,lol. Then went to strictly Hewlett Packard/ Compaqs, laptops.,till this Apple. I had spent the big bucks on a cpl " BIG" ones.. I needed none of that storage. And NEVER found more speed. I get on here,,that's it! No gaming or photoshop,none of that. No porn,,they say that's what kills a lot of computers. Anyhow,,my Compaqs would start slowing down,,but overheat,,burning my leg! 3 or 4 of them. Popped for this Apple Macbook Pro, w every option. NO speed. Hated it the 1st year...However,,I have had ZERO issues,,till last week,it started burning my leg! Got looking,,wifie had some Mahjong card game going,factory installed by Apple. BUT,,my kids go to Northpole.com,,all the time. There were 23!! pop ups playing in the background behind MY windows!! Shut all that crap down,,closed her game. boom,new machine. Also,,this has taken TWO bad falls,,they would have blown the screen and stopped a Compaq from running. This Apple is machined out of one piece of aluminum. Moral of this story. After having this apple for awhile,,I see,,like everything,,It WAS a good investment.But,,,Staples Always has a steal on a Compaq for mid $200's....lol

[Lord Letto 20]

I Have CCleaner and MSSE on my Laptop. used to have Norton 360 on it, but i can say that MSSE is a lot better, at least it don't crash my laptop like norton would.

[kb0nly]

The macbooks are just cool, light and thing, but there is a few PC's now that rival them! The new samsung slim series are like a pound or so and maybe a 1/2" thick! Insane.. The only problem is, the smaller and lighter you make them the less heat sink you have for the processor, so the whole unit pretty much becomes the heatsink, and hence you get a hot leg! I sit on my laptop most of the time when home, i use a Logitech Lap Desk with it, the N700 with a fan and built in amplified speakers via USB, it makes any laptop so much nicer sound wise and the fan helps keep it cool. If you use a laptop get a laptop cooler, best investment you can make with them. I got tired of getting a hot leg also!

MSSE beats Norton hand down in my opinion, but then anything pretty much does. I remember years ago i used to be a strict Norton user, then they started to bloat the interface and increased the amount that runs in the background, to the point that the overhead of just having the realtime protection running bogs the computer down. I dumped it and went to AVG and it was like buying a new computer, then i moved to Avast as they started updating more and beating AVG in realtime tests. I still use Avast on five computers at home, one uses Kaspersky because thats what we sell at work and i got it free for a year. When it expires i might just go back to Avast.

[Mosh]

I ran Kaspersky for 2 years on 2 pc's. It did work well for the first year. I bought both disks from a PC store and got the delux editions for each year.
The second year I ran it, it bogged the PC down some and caused quite a few glitches.(Especially with windows updates crashing during install, long boot times IE problems and some other issues... Then towards the end of the licesne period, you will see all sorts of wierd stuff happening within the last 3 weeks. The PC barely wants to run..
I dumped them after that and went AVG paid. Both my systems run well on that.

OH YEAH>>>NORTON SUCKS COIN!

[El Camexican]

I ran Kaspersky for 2 years on 2 pc's. It did work well for the first year. I bought both disks from a PC store and got the delux editions for each year.
The second year I ran it, it bogged the PC down some and caused quite a few glitches.(Especially with windows updates crashing during install, long boot times IE problems and some other issues... Then towards the end of the licesne period, you will see all sorts of wierd stuff happening within the last 3 weeks. The PC barely wants to run..
I dumped them after that and went AVG paid. Both my systems run well on that.

OH YEAH>>>NORTON SUCKS COIN!


Not sure how old your computers are, but my old laptop couldn't support a modern anti-virus, it just flat out died whenever I would open a second program, so I had to get another one. I swear they (manufactures) do all that on purpose.

[kb0nly]

Of course they do, its a throw away society and the software out paces the hardware all the time in the IT industry. I have had older laptops come through with XP on them and despite memory upgrades when they get all loaded up with updates and software they run like total crap. A lot of people are putting Ubuntu on these older computers to keep them going a few more years but eventually they all need to be replaced. I buy a new laptop every 3-4 years just to keep up.

[old-yellow]

Thanks guys for all the info, but i don't have any problems with my Norton so i am just going to stick with them.

[WIkid500]

Pssshh keep the windows defender up to date and your fine. I've been running "unprotected" for years now with no issues.... Who knows maybe my computer has AIDS and I don't know it. hahah. Kaspersky was my favorite anti-virus program when I paid or pirated it. Now I just don't care.

[Dirtcrasher]

Norton bogged me down also. I now use AVG and Malwarebytes.............

[atc007]

Norton has been nothing but GARBAGE on EVERY system we have ever owned. I found the special loot and erased off the last couple Compaqs. And I bet it was Still not totally out of the machine! I despise Norton.