AVG Software

[Starship Coyote]

If you're not using the free AVG anti-virus on your XP, then do so. It's much better than any other AV software I've ever encountered... and it's free.

AVG also has a pro version which you pay for... or pirate off of bittorrent. Your choice.

On the flip side: AVG also puts out a free and pro version of an anti-spyware that sucks balls.

Oh, it's thorough, to say the least... does the job fine. However, I've found two problems with it that make it just not worth the time for me. First, for some jackassed reason, while AVG AS is running, I can't burn a disc. Every attempt results in a failure with zero explanation. Through experimentation, I found that somehow AVG AS was throwing a monkey wrench into the mix.

Second, again for some reason, the exe known as guard.exe that is an AVG AS subprocess will suddenly and for no reason I can see start slowing everything down and making all other processes run like shit.

I disabled the bastard... well, uninstalled it really... four days ago, and not a hitch since.

 

[Mentalist]

Any active Spyware monitor will bash your resources. They're not worth the trouble. It's best to just scan with Ad-Aware on a regular basis. AVG is decent though and it's pretty light on raping resources unlike some other bloated pieces of shit *cough* Norton *cough*

 

[Cassie]

Someone else told me about avg earlier today. I was thinking about installing it.

 

[Starship Coyote]

Do so. I've had several techies tell me they rely on it. I haven't had a problem with it yet, and my pickup of viruses has dropped to practically zero.

 

[Colonel Kira's Left Tit]

AVG is pretty damned nice and doesn't hog many resources. I use it on my laptop (which is ancient) and it doesn't slow things down at all.

I haven't tried their antispyware thing, but I've heard it's a little problematic. Spybot and Ad-Aware do a great job of covering that stuff, anyway.

Avira (Antivir) is another good choice for free antivirus software, but recently it's started throwing out too many false positives. Usually over some keygens I have on my storage drive.

 

[Colonel Kira's Left Tit]

Oh, and Norton's been shit since the early part of the decade. Waaaaay too much bloat and not as good at detecting infections than most of today's freeware.

 

[jack]

I love AVG and use it with AD-Aware and I've sequestered active "exploits" with them with out having to go to the shop after.

 

[Cassie]

I kicked Norton to the curb today and downloaded AVG. So far so good, and not as annoying as Norton.

 

[The Question]

I've actually ditched both AV and AS (at least on-board) and currently run a OneCare Safety Scan every week from the web.

 

[Starship Coyote]

Know what I don't like about that, though? That's once a week, or once a day, or once an hour. I want something on here that catches things in the act. I've been catching trojans through bittorrent downloads, and AVG will pounce on it like it's the last chopper out of Saigon.

 

[RobL]

^ My McAfee does that.

Example: I recently decommissoned my WinME machine, and pulled the HD out. I bought an external enclosure and put it in there, so I could store movies on it. Moment I plugged it in, McAfee started to ping and shit, saying that there were trojans on the old drive. Trojans that both Norton, and other free AVs missed.