Free Anit Virus Programs Again

[Adelphos]

I've been using AVG for a couple of years, and several people mentioned that they were former users of AVG and switched to AVAST. In fact, Mark V. I believe was the first to mention it.

Well, I got a virus (several, actually) using AVG. After going through a tedious progress, including a multi-step drama of finally being able to UNinstall AVG, I finally got AVAST installed.

To make a long story short, I've got most everything cleaned up, and AVAST has already blocked malware and other attempted instrusions that AVG utterly missed.

FWIW.

[Jim Wert]

I have been using avast since that earlier discussion on this forum.
But I also discovered, when my daughter's boyfriend cleaned up a virus problem on my PC, that there is something called "Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware". You have to pay for a permanent installation, so I just use it occasionally, manually downloading its updates each time. It has caught some things that avast missed.

[Adelphos]

I've still got a virus somewhere that I can't get rid of. It does two things, as far as I know...

1. It redirects my Google queries. IOW, after I enter the search string, when I click on the site I want to go to, it takes me to another site which advertises stuff.

2. Somethimes it just hijacks me while I am on the net and opens another IE browser window to take me to another browser site.

This, and MUCH more, was allowed into my system with AVG.

Once I managed to uninstall AVG (which was a problem, because you have to download a seperate program from AVG in order to fully uninstall it, which is further testimony to the mindset of that group), and once I managed to install AVAST, which was a very simply process, AVAST immediately identified several viruses on my computer and eradicated them.

Then -- and this is a TREMENDOUS feature of Avash -- I scheduled a Boot Scan with Avast, which means that it runs a scan BEFORE your computer actually accesses any Windows system files, etc., and guess what?

Avast identified and eradicated THREE rootkit viruses on my computer, and these were the ones that were really causing a lot of problems, and which, again, were allowed in unchallenged by AVG.

Now I have to figure out how to get rid of this virus that sometimes hijacks my IE brower.

All in all, I probably should have kept Norton Antivirus and paid their yearly fee, because even though I sometimes felt they were too intrusive, I NEVER caught a SINGLE virus with them, and I'd MUCH rather have a little bit of the heavy hand intrusion from the anitvirus program than catch the virus itself.

If I could be sure that Norton could fix the problem I have now, I'd go back to them in a heartbeat.

[ISalzman]

Hey Scott, I've got Norton Internet Security 360. It is their most current product. My ISP provides it free of charge. I must say that it is so vastly superior to anything and everything I have ever used before, including earlier versions of Norton Anti-Virus (and McAfee, AVG, etc.). Have you checked to see if your ISP provides you with any subscriptions to anti-virus software? My ISP is Comcast.

[Adelphos]

Thanks, Irv. I'm going to call them today and ask. Even if they don't, I'm probably going to go back to Norton regardless.

[ISalzman]

You're welcome, Scott. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

[Adelphos]

You're welcome, Scott. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Back atcha. And since Hanukkah begins on the 2nd of December this year, I'll beat you to it and say mazel tov! And so on. (John 8:12)

Oh, and while we're at it...

Merrry Christimas, and Happy New Year as well.

Now I think that covers it for at least a month or so.

[ISalzman]

Touche, Scott! Nobody could ever accuse you of not being ahead of the curve! Happy holidays (all of them!) to you too.

[bkMitchell]

I've been using AVG for a couple of years, and several people mentioned that they were former users of AVG and switched to AVAST...

I've never heard or used that program, but now I am interested.


By the way have you are anyone else heard of or used:

Spybot
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

as, the name suggest it not really an anti-virus program, rather it looks for malware and Spybots, of course. I use it and it seem to be pretty good, it is also free.