Help with PC Virus Protection

[MB MinnieGirl]

After spending a great part of the day fighting with the people at Norton, and finally getting a refund....I will now be purchasing ANY other program. For those who are loyal to Norton...sorry, but it was a nightmare for me today.

I'm looking for the best protection for my laptop, which I use for business purposes and am on various wi-fi connections throughout the day, so it has to be reliable.

As a photographer....I can tell you about lots of software and just about any camera, but am clueless with which one to go with...and obviously made the wrong decision to begin with.

Thanks so much for the advise!

 

[Shutterbug]

I have used in the past and liked TrendMicro

http://us.trendmicro.com/us/home/

Its alot less bloated than Norton.

 

[cherylp3]

I like Free AVG. http://free.avg.com

 

[honugirl]

Try going to the Kim Komando website www.komando.com She has links to a ton of different programs that will protect, some are free, some aren't. They're all recommended by her. She has a nationally syndicated radio show every week which she talks about all things digital. Good luck!

 

[MB MinnieGirl]

See, I knew this was the place to come for answers! I'm going to look into all of these and any others suggested. I own my own so loosing data or having a full crash is not an option and scares me to death.

 

[manning]

If you installed and uninstalled NORTON you may not have removed all of it. Norton is known for that.

Go to this website and run the Noton Removal Tool at the bottm of the page.

http://savemybutt.com/downloads.php

 

[HLAuburn]

I just bought a new laptop and we are using Kaspersky. It was recommended by to us by a couple people at the store. So far, so good.

I would avoid the free AVG...it's free for a reason.

 

[wdwmom2]

I would avoid the free AVG...it's free for a reason.

Could you please state the reason, I am very interested! I have been running it for years and it has always kept my computer running smoothly and virus free.

 

[dawson5]

Could you please state the reason, I am very interested! I have been running it for years and it has always kept my computer running smoothly and virus free.

I'm curious also, I've been using it for 5+ yrs on the recommendation of friends. All of them techie's and most were IT professionals.

 

[FireDancer]

The only anti virus software I would run is the free software from AVG or Avast. Both are vastly superior in my opinion to the comparable offerings from Symantec (Norton) and McAfee. Those come with some much bloat that no one really needs and take up way too many resources. There is a lot of misconception about computer viruses. I work in the field and the biggest threat to a computer is not a virus, but the user.

This includes the obvious like using links sent in email or opening attachments but also includes the overly permissive scripting settings in most browsers. Scripts that run on malicious pages are much more of a threat than viruses. I manually allow each individual script on every page I visit. Not only does this keep me safe from events like click jacking and malicious scripting but also means that I have not seen an embedded add in a web page in years, at least not one that is pulled in with a script, which is most of them. The rest are handled by Firefox plug ins.

Defects in programs like Adobe Flash or reader or even programs like iTunes are much more of a threat than viruses also.

Anti virus software is only one part of protecting yourself, just don't look at it as a cure all. I'm not saying it isn't important to run something, but don't be so over confident because you are running AV software that you ignore the other, more real threats out there.

 

[MICKEY88]

I own my own so loosing data or having a full crash is not an option and scares me to death.

so you have at least 2 backups of all photos..right ??

 

[HLAuburn]

Could you please state the reason, I am very interested! I have been running it for years and it has always kept my computer running smoothly and virus free.

I'm curious also, I've been using it for 5+ yrs on the recommendation of friends. All of them techie's and most were IT professionals.

Glad it works for you guys. The poster asked for opinions, and my personal one is that the free AVG doesn't work. I've had several incidents of trojan horses getting through (on my computer and others), and a few weeks ago, AVG mysteriously uninstalled itself from my computer. Apprently something got though to allow it to do that.

I'm a firm believer in "you get what you pay for", and I don't know why anyone would give something away that's as good as something they could charge for. Just my 2 cents! Good to know its working for some people, but I'm not taking the risk this time with my new laptop.

 

[MB MinnieGirl]

I knew I would get answers here. For now I'm going to go with AVG since it is free....that gives me the protection I need while I find out if it is right for me.

MICKEY88 - YES, YES AND YES! External HD, Mozy, and the list goes on.

FireDancer - Thanks for the advise. I am one of the users who is does follow the common sense rules of, no banners, no attachments, no unknown emails, no downloads unknown, and on and on. I'm just clueless as the differences in security programs. I'm actually more afraid of ad/spyware etc. then a virus but know I need the protection and don't want to risk making the wrong decision again.

Thanks everyone! Don't know why I ever worry when I know one simple question here and POOF instant answers!

 

[luv2sew]

I just had a battle with McAfee....whatever you do don't sign up for any of them online....I suggest you go buy the disk. We don't even have the computer anymore that we had McAfee on and they charged my account as an automatic renewel thing. They did in the end refund it but cheeze you would think you'd have to click and update on something

Kaspersky, I had never heard of before and my DD purchased a new netbook and Best Buy put that on.....It didn't work locked up the whole mini laptop and we went back to BB and they replaced the netbook with a new one cause it was new and didn't work...the minute they put on Kaspersky the new new one crashed. So now she has Trend on it and it is working fine. We also use Trend at work.

 

[dawson5]

We've had the Trend before, came on the Sony we bought in '02 I think. I liked it but I never had the disk, had a hard time updating it without it (I needed a key or something). So I talked with a few friends and they all suggested the AVG.

There was something big & nasty out then, I thought Trend and AVG were the only two to catch it/isolate it.

I've heard good things about eset NOD. I've just been too happy with AVG to try something new. Wonder what happened with the Kaspersky to lock up a new pc.

 

[Blue.Fairy2]

I just had a battle with McAfee....whatever you do don't sign up for any of them online....I suggest you go buy the disk. We don't even have the computer anymore that we had McAfee on and they charged my account as an automatic renewal thing. They did in the end refund it but cheeze you would think you'd have to click and update on something

Kaspersky, I had never heard of before and my DD purchased a new netbook and Best Buy put that on.....It didn't work locked up the whole mini laptop and we went back to BB and they replaced the netbook with a new one cause it was new and didn't work...the minute they put on Kaspersky the new new one crashed. So now she has Trend on it and it is working fine. We also use Trend at work.

It is a software conflict with Kaspersky and that netbook.

Norton's is utter crap! I would never have it on another computer I own for as long as I live! Had it on our desktop years ago and we got a virus that ate up everything we eventually just had to scrap the computer and buy a new one. We were on auto update and scan and Norton's never caught the virus. Actually can not remember what program I used at the time to find it but this was a nasty virus and Norton's at the time did not even acknowledge it!

 

[S. C.]

Could you please state the reason, I am very interested! I have been running it for years and it has always kept my computer running smoothly and virus free.

I'm curious also, I've been using it for 5+ yrs on the recommendation of friends. All of them techie's and most were IT professionals.

Glad it works for you guys. The poster asked for opinions, and my personal one is that the free AVG doesn't work. I've had several incidents of trojan horses getting through (on my computer and others), and a few weeks ago, AVG mysteriously uninstalled itself from my computer. Apprently something got though to allow it to do that.

I'm a firm believer in "you get what you pay for", and I don't know why anyone would give something away that's as good as something they could charge for. Just my 2 cents! Good to know its working for some people, but I'm not taking the risk this time with my new laptop.

We also use AVG free on the advice of techies.

I had Trend Micro on my laptop and got trojan horses. When I took laptop in to get it fixed they recommended AVG free.
Were/are you using internet explorer? That's what I was using on my laptop when It got trojan horses. IE had (might still have not sure it was fixed) a hole for things to get thru. We switched to Firefox on the advice of the place that fixed my laptop and they installed AVG free ( DH also put AVG on his desktop) neither of us have had any problems.

 

[manning]

It is a software conflict with Kaspersky and that netbook.

Norton's is utter crap! I would never have it on another computer I own for as long as I live! Had it on our desktop years ago and we got a virus that ate up everything we eventually just had to scrap the computer and buy a new one. We were on auto update and scan and Norton's never caught the virus. Actually can not remember what program I used at the time to find it but this was a nasty virus and Norton's at the time did not even acknowledge it!

That was kind of radical. Why not just reformat the computer and start over?

Kaspersky is very good!!!

 

[NikitaZee]

Norton was a total nightmare for us also - took forever to get a refund, found out that had us on 'automatic renewal' on our credit card, and had hidden files that had to be removed even after it was uninstalled. Not to mention how slow it made our computer run.

We have Kaspersky now and it's worked like a charm.

 

[Blue.Fairy2]

That was kind of radical. Why not just reformat the computer and start over?

Kaspersky is very good!!!

tried that several times actually...once it had this virus all hardware started to fail and it was cheaper to just replace the desktop than to replace the failing hardware.

I am not a computer illiterate so I did try all options before trashing the computer.