anti-viral hell
Becky’s Mum brought her computer around for me, in my role as family geek, to perform my usual blessings upon.
Fuck I hate anti-virus apps. I wish I knew what were the decent free Windows ones. Even a decent cheap one that doesn’t try to be anything more than just a virus-scanner.
Anyway, we’d previously excised Norton from her computer and installed McAfee, but I’m not sure if it’s any better to use or less intrusive. And the way anti-virus user interfaces continually steer the user towards upgrading (at further expense) is nothing short of outrageous. It’s always made easier to buy a whole new app every year rather than pay for a new subscription for your current application (and in the last few years the prices are starting to converge anyway). And then they’re always trying to shove extra stuff at you that you may not actually need.
For example, McAfee will leave an icon in your system tray that implies your system is not protected unless you “upgrade” to their anti-spam application (not required in this case as the user employs Gmail exclusively: does this mean her computer is less secure?).
There’s several other “upgrades” required before your system may be considered fully “protected”. There are of course some obscure settings that will tell the application to ignore these warnings… but who, except for the family geek, will find those? (Not that they actually worked when I did find them.)
So do I have to explain to Becky’s Mum that she needn’t worry about some of the warnings that her anti-virus has for her? Well, in this case I do. And that’s hardly a good thing.
Of course, perhaps she should have listened when I told her she should buy a Mac. :-)
Patrick Quinn-Graham
24 October 2006, 04:26 #
I just (well, a few weeks ago) did this to my roommate’s computer.
The answer for me is avast! usually. They have a free version, it doesn’t try and upsell, and seems to work.
Plus, you know, it sounds cool.
The other thing I’d suggest is Microsoft Windows Live Defender (oh god, why Microsoft, why?) which is a software update, or free at least, for Windows XP SP2.
Of course a Mac is the best option :-)
noizy
24 October 2006, 08:47 #
AVG works well for me.
http://grisoft.com/doc/downloads-results/lng/us/tpl/tpl01?prd=avw
Martha
24 October 2006, 08:53 #
Yep, I’ve been using AVG for years, and it is good and unobtrusive.
Tom
24 October 2006, 08:58 #
I’ve been using the open source virus scanner ClamWin for over a year, and don’t seem to have had any virus problems, despite frequenting all sorts of dodgy sites.
Alan
24 October 2006, 19:50 #
Wow, three good suggestions. I used to use the Mac version of ClamAV, but haven’t bothered installing it again with the new machine (I currently have no AV on my Mac).
AVG I’d heard of before when it was free… but I see it’s no longer free (but it is half the price of the majors).
Avast! remains free though.
Definitely some options once the McAfee subscription runs out…
liverstone
24 October 2006, 23:53 #
Yupe. AVG gets my vote, although I recently overheard ${MOTHER_OF_MY_CHILDREN} proclaiming
“Oh, we don’t worry about viruses; we use Red Hat”.
Food for thought.
Would this be any help?
Ben
25 October 2006, 19:04 #
I’d probably recommend ZoneAlarm. ZA security suite has a virus scanner amongst other things in it. It is a far better firewall than the likes of many others, so possibly its Anti virus stuff is good. Though I belive they just bought the AV from some other company.
Brian
26 October 2006, 12:59 #
There IS a free version of AVG. Funnily enough it’s called AVGFree. Available from www.avgfree.com
Have fun!
Brian
26 October 2006, 13:01 #
There’s a free version of AVG’s spyware product too. You’re going to need a firewall too – I’d tend to go with ZoneAlarm – although it can be a bit chatty until you’ve got it trained right.