Antivirus and the usual

[Gray]

So, i was going to get myself Norton Internet Security 2008 tonight, however when i got to PC World [Eeee!] i found that it had actually relocated. Called a friend who knew the area but he said not to get Norton.

I agreed somewhat anyway, because the 2007 edition i have is extremely sluggish at times, and as opposed to buying 2008 i was going to just update my subscription. Alas i did not.

He told me to get something called "The Shield" which was basically a combination of Antivirus/Firewall/Spyware as it was rated one of the best. Upon checking online though it said it was just a repackaged product of "ViRobotics".

Ive checked on here for ideas on what ones to go off, on the net it says BitDefender is good, as is Kaspersky but the options ive seen were from 2004-2005 time, so we've come a long way since then i assume.

I dont mind paying really, anything between £20-30 is fair, and i suppose if necessary i could use the Microsoft Firewall if one doesnt come as standard, but yeah...

Subscription runs out tomorrow so dont have to long i guess

 

[nath]

Anti-Virus: AVG-Free - AVG Free Advisor - Free antivirus and anti-spyware downloads
Spyware: Windows Defender (google it) and Ad-Aware - Ad-Aware @ Lavasoft - The Original Anti-Spyware Company - Lavasoft

If you've got a router with NAT, don't worry about a software firewall.

 

[Gray]

So AVG which is free is better than all [or should i say most?] chargable ones out there? Thats fine... Thats fine...

Dont have a router yet, but the times that i used Microsoft Firewall it seemed safe, wont touch ZoneAlarm again, thats become shoddy i noticed

 

[Alan]

I use AVG free too - you can pay for it and get some fluff, or if you use it for a business you have to pay for it - so they do make money

 

[soze]

I use McAffe VirusScan and it is brilliant with the anti spyware plug it it catches alot and it is very out of the way and does not take alot of resources.

 

[JingleBells]

I use McAffe VirusScan and it is brilliant with the anti spyware plug it it catches alot and it is very out of the way and does not take alot of resources.

Ahahahahahaha

 

[Zarjazz]

JingleBells is right for once (), McAffe is bollox.

Kaspersky is still the option I would recommend as I've never had a problem with it unlike all the other major A/V programs. Their KIS 7.0 (a/v, firewall, spyware etc) was recently released and is about £35 if ordered online.

 

[nath]

Tbh - unless you go about opening attachments to emails saying "OMGS BRITNEY SPEARS HARDCORE ANAL, RUN EXE FOR VID PLZ!" then you don't really need anything as hardcore as the really good ones you pay for (such as NOD32). AVG + common sense > *.

 

[Mazling]

Kaspersky is a bit steep but it has been very highly rated, and I've only ever had problem with it in Windoze Vista (v7 locked up on boot).

 

[soze]

Ahahahahahaha

I have On Access Scan running (everything on and off my machine) and a On Demand Full Scan running and scan.exe is using 8% of one of my CPU's if you think that is resource hungry then fair enough.

 

[nath]

What's the memory usage of all the McAfee stuff?

 

[soze]

I use VirusScan 8.5 with Spyware 8.5 and unless im running a scan you do not notice it. The background scanning never registers as one of the 3 highest used process on my side bar. And then when i run a full scan it peaks for 30- 40% for 20 seconds then drops and sits at about 8% on one processor. I think for a an antivirus product it is nice and out of the way.

 

[dysfunction]

I had McAfee and I have sworn by it for years. The latest release however is shite. It has caused me endless hassles with missing emails (cos it regarded them as spam and I could never recover them!!) and resource hogging. It drove me nuts.

The same with Zonealarm. It slowed my PC right down the point it was unusuable!

These guys seem to be on top form with regards to internet security:

Free AntiVirus Download for Virus Scan with Comodo AntiVirus™ Software
Comodo™ Free Firewall Software Download

 

[JingleBells]

I have VirusScan Enterprise Edition 8.0.0 installed on my work machine, it's terrible. Eats memory for breakfast, it's currently using as much memory as firefox. It's even worse when it has an update using generally over 100MB, and when I was compiling a large program with lots of files, it decided it would scan everything I generated everytime, making a build that should take 1 minute take about 7 or 8 mins.

I personally have AVG installed on my laptop, Symatec Corp on my desktop, and use the windows firewall as I'm behind a hardware firewall (i.e.: my router).

 

[nath]

I use VirusScan 8.5 with Spyware 8.5 and unless im running a scan you do not notice it. The background scanning never registers as one of the 3 highest used process on my side bar. And then when i run a full scan it peaks for 30- 40% for 20 seconds then drops and sits at about 8% on one processor. I think for a an antivirus product it is nice and out of the way.

Thing is, I'd never expect an anti-virus product to be that heavy on the CPU - as I said it's the memory hogging that's the issue. Check that out and see what McAfee is using, I expect it's a fair chunk.

 

[soze]

Thing is, I'd never expect an anti-virus product to be that heavy on the CPU - as I said it's the memory hogging that's the issue. Check that out and see what McAfee is using, I expect it's a fair chunk.

scan32.exe is stilling on 34,436k during a scan but that dissapears on after the scan.

Mcshield.exe is on 24380k thats the on access scanner so always there
mctray.exe is also alwyas there on 328k

I dont use Anti spam so that might make a big difference.

 

[nath]

So without a scan running, you've just got Mcshield.exe and mctray? If so that's not so bad. My experience of McAfee products is that when it's inactive there's about 5 processes running taking up a total of about 100-200mbs of ram. Maybe the newer versions have sorted this.

 

[soze]

So without a scan running, you've just got Mcshield.exe and mctray? If so that's not so bad. My experience of McAfee products is that when it's inactive there's about 5 processes running taking up a total of about 100-200mbs of ram. Maybe the newer versions have sorted this.

I think so they are the only two that claim to be McAffe Products
shstat is one too at 348k

Spoiler

System Idle Process 0 Services 0 28 K
System 4 Services 0 10,660 K
smss.exe 456 Services 0 536 K
csrss.exe 528 Services 0 3,996 K
csrss.exe 580 Console 1 13,728 K
wininit.exe 588 Services 0 3,156 K
services.exe 624 Services 0 6,960 K
lsass.exe 636 Services 0 39,648 K
lsm.exe 644 Services 0 3,468 K
svchost.exe 784 Services 0 5,752 K
svchost.exe 840 Services 0 6,896 K
svchost.exe 876 Services 0 17,820 K
winlogon.exe 924 Console 1 4,452 K
Ati2evxx.exe 972 Services 0 2,996 K
svchost.exe 1000 Services 0 11,136 K
svchost.exe 1060 Services 0 59,828 K
svchost.exe 1100 Services 0 35,416 K
audiodg.exe 1200 Services 0 13,660 K
SLsvc.exe 1244 Services 0 3,628 K
svchost.exe 1296 Services 0 12,828 K
svchost.exe 1468 Services 0 15,112 K
Ati2evxx.exe 1628 Console 1 4,568 K
spoolsv.exe 1684 Services 0 10,148 K
svchost.exe 1724 Services 0 11,016 K
svchost.exe 1992 Services 0 2,788 K
LSSrvc.exe 320 Services 0 2,516 K
FrameworkService.exe 768 Services 0 4,700 K
VsTskMgr.exe 1732 Services 0 620 K
mdm.exe 1988 Services 0 3,684 K
naPrdMgr.exe 2052 Services 0 1,192 K
svchost.exe 2100 Services 0 4,480 K
svchost.exe 2132 Services 0 5,404 K
svchost.exe 2184 Services 0 3,712 K
winvnc4.exe 2204 Services 0 3,712 K
SearchIndexer.exe 2240 Services 0 22,612 K
taskeng.exe 2880 Services 0 5,940 K
taskeng.exe 3728 Console 1 10,152 K
dwm.exe 3820 Console 1 117,196 K
explorer.exe 3868 Console 1 223,420 K
Scheduler.exe 2436 Console 1 9,232 K
MSASCui.exe 2448 Console 1 6,368 K
RtHDVCpl.exe 1540 Console 1 5,868 K
shstat.exe 2840 Console 1 796 K
UdaterUI.exe 2600 Console 1 2,636 K
UltraMon.exe 1464 Console 1 1,804 K
wmdc.exe 2296 Console 1 16,196 K
Mctray.exe 2852 Console 1 3,488 K
UltraMonTaskbar.exe 2084 Console 1 4,520 K
ipoint.exe 816 Console 1 8,904 K
GrooveMonitor.exe 2376 Console 1 7,568 K
svchost.exe 2424 Services 0 2,836 K
sidebar.exe 2140 Console 1 10,408 K
MOM.exe 1256 Console 1 8,124 K
mobsync.exe 3048 Console 1 8,812 K
sidebar.exe 3948 Console 1 33,776 K
WmiPrvSE.exe 1240 Services 0 7,804 K
OUTLOOK.EXE 3420 Console 1 146,348 K
CCC.exe 1488 Console 1 8,856 K
msnmsgr.exe 5616 Console 1 21,288 K
usnsvc.exe 5924 Services 0 3,232 K
wmplayer.exe 4696 Console 1 21,392 K
TIWin.exe 3296 Console 1 45,896 K
Mcshield.exe 4048 Services 0 33,008 K
EXCEL.EXE 4932 Console 1 30,532 K
mstsc.exe 3476 Console 1 27,528 K
iexplore.exe 5372 Console 1 89,088 K
cmd.exe 4344 Console 1 2,320 K
tasklist.exe 408 Console 1 4,564 K

This is whats running on my machine you might be able to spot something else.

 

[Deebs]

Oh how this is so true. We uninstalled Mcafee at work as it was the most terrible piece of shite I have ever used in respect of AV products.

At least 80% of the user base complained and many of them are on dual core intels. Anyway, NOD32 is now in where it belongs and not a peep out of people.

I have used NOD32 for over 2 years and it is the only AV product I will touch. Love it.

I have VirusScan Enterprise Edition 8.0.0 installed on my work machine, it's terrible. Eats memory for breakfast, it's currently using as much memory as firefox. It's even worse when it has an update using generally over 100MB, and when I was compiling a large program with lots of files, it decided it would scan everything I generated everytime, making a build that should take 1 minute take about 7 or 8 mins.

I personally have AVG installed on my laptop, Symatec Corp on my desktop, and use the windows firewall as I'm behind a hardware firewall (i.e.: my router).

 

[soze]

Did you run epo to update your clients? When we trialed that it turned our machines to paper weights during the Push update now the clients download it from the sever instead its fine. I would be interested to know what version and what components of McAffe you were running as when its time to renew it would be good to have a horror story too.

 

[Deebs]

I will dig it out, the problem wasn't with EPO, it was with on demand scanning and the like. Also memory usage would make us cringe.

 

[xane]

I agreed somewhat anyway, because the 2007 edition i have is extremely sluggish at times, and as opposed to buying 2008 i was going to just update my subscription. Alas i did not.

I used to have Norton Internet Security (includes AV), and I never updated via subscription, it was far cheaper to get a (legal) up-to-date version via eBay which came with a free year subscription.

Norton AV slowed my machine terribly, even the later versions, it had to go, and the Parental Controls were increasingly lame and never worked correctly.

I gave up on McAfee a long time back when I upgraded to an Athlon and it refused to recognised it !

I'd stick to AVG Free & ZoneAlarm, can't fault them.

 

[dysfunction]

ZoneAlarm is shite these days esp if you have vista. It completely ground my PC to a halt..I could barely use it.

Won't be using ZA again thats for sure

 

[Guest]

Norton internet security (or any norton product) is harder to get rid of than a reader digest subby, so do not go near it with a bargepole, it is bloatware and does not uninstall corectly from add/remove programs, you have to get this SYMNRT app (googles your friend) to remove it properly.

I use AVG antivirus free and the AVG anti spyware free, no software firewall as im behind several router type things and a hardware firewall.


Norton = satan. Please do not buy, also, buy online for your stuff, do not goto pc world under any circumstances, you get spots from the sales (sic) staff.