AV

[MarineHawk]

What's the best anti-virus software package thingy available for home PCs - best in terms of cost, effectiveness, ease of use/deployment, etc ...?

Thanks in advance.

[DDWH]

Symantec/Norton, get the internet security, has a nice firewall too and intergrates with OE/OE express nicely.

[HummerNewbie]

I had a lot of issue with Norton several years back on multiple PCs so I switched over to Trend Micro's PC-cillin on all my computers and have been very happy. At the time it also offered features that Norton didn't but I am sure they have added them and that Norton is better these days.

[dеiтайожни]

I've just been using http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ for several years now. If you don't do stupid things online, using that to scan once in awhile or when you suspect something, is fine. Second choice would be Norton, it came on a computer I just bought and it's pretty nice compared to the annoying ones back in the day.

[H2Finally]

If u're among the lucky (not as many as u think), and never have prob w Norton gobbling resources, then Norton's OK. Just remember, you'd prob be stuck with it forever. Norton is notoriously difficult to remove cleanly, and many AV will not install with Norton's fossil in your computer.

Since no AV is 100% foolproof, I've been using NOD32 -- free, internet based, small(er) resource reqrmn't, seamless bkgrnd updates.

[DennisAJC]

Originally Posted by H2Finally

If u're among the lucky (not as many as u think), and never have prob w Norton gobbling resources, then Norton's OK. Just remember, you'd prob be stuck with it forever. Norton is notoriously difficult to remove cleanly, and many AV will not install with Norton's fossil in your computer.

Since no AV is 100% foolproof, I've been using NOD32 -- free, internet based, small(er) resource reqrmn't, seamless bkgrnd updates.

X2. Norton makes your computer run sloooooooooow.


AVG Pro > All

Try the AVG free version on-line.

[Agriv8r]

dont use the internet or load anything into your computer and then you dont need anti-virus software

[ree]

Frankly, I think AV packages are near useless if you are reasonably careful. They bog your system down. They don't defeat the latest viruses/worms as the authors of those things test against the latest AV packages. And you really aren't at risk for this things if you don't randomly download and install things from questionable sources or email.

If you are looking to protect a PC that you have kids working on, then assuming you are using XP, setup user accounts for them that don't have privileges to install products and configure a lot of things. Then become religious about not letting the kids use the system without being logged into one of those restricted accounts. If it's a problem with an SO, then do the same to them

[MarineHawk]

Thanks for all the advice. Based on the below, any further advice would me much appreciated.
Backround: I have windows XP on a PC laptop. I've been having trouble lately sometimes when I turn on the puter, and a message about an error with a system32 file comes up. If I reboot, sometimes more than once, it will eventually work fine.
Update: I started out with the Trend Micro free thingy last night. It went through step #2 whereby it identified about a dozen viruses - all some permutation of a Trojan Horse virus. When I progressed to step #3, cleaning the viruses, I got some kind of error message saying something to the effect that there was an "addition" named HouseCall (the Trend software), and Internet Exlporer must shut down.
Upon shut down, and multiple rebootings, the same thing occured: When i got to the beginning of step #2, an error would come up and say that Internet Explorer must shut down. This happened at least 6 times at precisely the same level of progression.
Not to be deterred, I downloaded the AVG free stuff. After I realized, though there is no message to this effect, that one must reboot after installing any upgrades to that software, I rebooted, and launched it. It swept through my entire puter and identified 11 files corrupted by the Trojan thingy. These files appear in a list of some kind. When I highlighted and right clicked on all of them, the option "Heal" appeared. I clicked it. Then all of the red icons next to these files turned into some other non-red thingy, apparently indicating that they had been "healed." After saying some sincere puter health prayers, I went to bed at the late hour to which all of this had brought me. This morning, I restarted the puter, and an AVG window came up stating that the Trojan Horse was in this file: C\windows\system32\wxtwdx.sys
Then, when I press "Heal," it says that it cannot to so, access to the above named file is "denied."
Any suggestions?
Thanks again.

[CO Hummer]

Originally Posted by dеiтайожни

it's pretty nice compared to the annoying ones back in the day.

Back in the day? When you were 12?