Antivirus Software

[meriad]

Just thought I'd give a quick (non) update. Again thank you all for your ideas / suggestions etc but I ended up just biting the bullet and going with the renewal cost. Not because I thought it was the best or the others weren't as good, but things at work have been (and to some extent still are) not very nice at the moment and I really just haven't had the energy to focus on this - no time at work and just not interested in seeing a computer when I get home; it's been right at the bottom of my priorities. Which basically meant the auto renewal date came and went and I just went with it...

Once things here settle (at work that is) I PROMISE I'll look into things closer and know what to do next year onwards x

thanks again

[Workingman]

Sorry to hear about your work/life problems, Ria, but you know that we are here to help any time we are needed. It's easy to understand why you to took the route of least resistance, we all do that at some time just to be able to get on. (((Ria)))

[meriad]

Thanks Frank - just getting on with it is exactly what I'm doing at the moment. The situation at work will come to a head end of June - one way or the other - so not much longer x

[Suff]

Sorry to hear that you're having problems at work Ria. These things happen and we just have to work through them. Here at work one PM has been sacked and two have handed in their notice, in the last month, on my immediate team... Rough working environment.

On the AV front, renewal is as good as any. We just give advice and general help. If you want to follow up we'll be very happy, if you don't at least we know that you have options.

[Gal]

I've had the free AVG for yonks, and not had a problem. Have they stopped using a key to get the next years protection though? And do you all run a full scan every week or whatever?

[Suff]

I don't run a full scan unless I see a problem.

My on access scanning is as thorough as my offline scan so doing a full scan is redundant. For me, if I had to do a full scan, I would need it run daily, not monthly. Also the impact of being infected is so great now, that even daily is not something I want to get into.

The more expensive packages are becoming more intelligent. Almost all apps you install today are signed with a digital signature. The scanning package can verify the signature and the modification date. If the two match, then it does not scan. This makes things much faster.

My biggest problem, right now, is the cost of scanning a web page. There is so much junk in most pages that it can take up to 2 minutes for a page to fully load after the scanning. Ad blocking is becoming a real pain too.

[Workingman]

Gal, I am not sure what you mean about a key for next year's protection. I thought that AVG did virus and program updates automatically. If yours isn't then have a look at this page.

I do a quick scan about once a month, if I remember, but like Suff I only do a full scan when I see a problem. If you are updating daily and have active scanning turned on you should be OK. I would also advise to make sure AVG protects itself from attacks and also that Phishing protection is turned on.

Btw: If you are running Chrome, or one of the many clones, try running Adguard instead of AdBlock or AdBlock Plus, just disable them in Extensions. Very quick and very comprehensive.

[Suff]

And for anyone who is wondering why we keep changing products?

The spammers and the virus writers buy them too and attack them until they find a way in.

So we sound a bit like Severus Snape talking about the Dark Arts when we talk about Anti Virus, viruses and the way to defeat them...

[TheOstrich]

I always ensure all the components of AVG have initialised themselves properly before venturing on t'net. It's set to do a quick scan every time the PC boots or wakes up.

I run SuperAntiSpyware (Free edition) quick-scan every 5 days when prompted, and delete anything up to around 650 tracking cookies .....

Slightest hint of a problem, I update and run my free Malwarebytes (probably monthly), plus full scans of the other two.

Just call me Mr. Paranoid ...