New computer coming soon; need antivirus advice

[RickBulow74]

As most of you know, I always experienced lag with this computer whether in the rooms and also with IM's/ I had been telling my mom (who is also my financial advisor or representative payee because I am on social Security and also SSI) that I needed more memory for my computer/ she said she is going to buy me a whole new computer with a Pentium Core I5 system, 1 tera of Hard Drive, 8 gig of RAM.

Now, she said that with an email address from Comcast (the cable and internet company we use) then I am entitled to Norton. I groaned at Norton considering as how some people said it did not work. I also mentioned that McAfee (which I have now) also does not work well or not many people swear by it. Which virus protection (FREE) is good to use?

These are the specs I got in an email from mom:

Intel Core i5 processor
3.2 GHZ processor speed
8 GB RAM
1 TB hard drive

She also said she does not want to pay too much for it either. In fact, she was looking at one for about $700 a while back as it was on sale. Tomorrow we are going to hit the sales papers and find one that fits the specs designated

[Taryn]

Avast is the one I use and have no issues with and is free... There is also AVG, which is also free that I would recommend... I am sure there might be others, but those two are the only ones I have used in the past and present and haven't checked into any others... But Norton and McAfee are considered virii by former users, and I am most definitely one of them... Cost hubby his job and almost cost us both our computers...

[RickBulow74]

We looked in the paper last Sunday and could not find the comp that matches the right specs, so we decided to look in today's paper and if not then mom was going to go and procure one at the price mentioned. There is one from Asus with the exact specificities mentioned that costs $799.98 (including the monitor) that mom said she will pick up on Tuesday, so I am this much closer to getting a new system indeed.

[RickBulow74]

OK, so I got the computer on Tuesday and it is up and running real good. It is a Windows 7 and I monkeyed with the toolbar and a few other things and liked the setup almost as much as XP and INFINITELY better than Vista

HOWEVER, the bad news is the place I wanted to put it in is not capable of hooking up both TV and Internet, so I chose to forego the TV especially since I catch a good part of everything on the internet anyhow. only problem is that the cable running from the TV which we were going to put into the modem is not strong enough, so what we are going to do is sqitch computer places. This computer (which has most of the things on here and I am going to be saving anyhow) will be in my room until I remove everything from it then mom will take it and reclaim it as her own while my new computer will be at this desk. I am looking at tomorrow for it to happen.

[RickBulow74]

Avast is the one I use and have no issues with and is free... There is also AVG, which is also free that I would recommend... I am sure there might be others, but those two are the only ones I have used in the past and present and haven't checked into any others... But Norton and McAfee are considered virii by former users, and I am most definitely one of them... Cost hubby his job and almost cost us both our computers...

Please elaborate on it for me in a pm on the board. mom swears by it and said she has no problems with it. Especially since I had tried to download Kaspersky and had a hard time with accessing the internet with it but could with Norton after mom downloaded it.

And thta happened on the 4th and I was without internet until she came over today and gave me a haircut and downloaded Norton.

[Taryn]

Will get back to you when I get my laptop back in a few days... Also depends on whether or not I can handle being online right now.... There's an explanation on our boards about what is going on wtith mer right now... Talk to you  alterr

[Raziel]

Allow me to help you on this one.  Kapersky...get rid of it.  AVG has a hole in its internet firewall.  Norton's leaves .dat and .bin files behind when you try to get rid of it.  McAfee has issues with spam blocker.  I do the security system for all the work computers here at my job as well as have the same setup at my house for my computers and lure's computer.  If you want free, then pay attention, cuz Im the king of free or cracked software...hehehe....

Advanced SystemCare Free
Avira AntiVir Personal Free
Avast! Antivirus Free Edition
SUPERAntiSpyware Free
BitDefender

All of these can be downloaded from http://www.download.com
The Advanced SystemCare, keeps your computer running fast and maintains performance.  The rest are internet firewall, virus protection, spam blocker, virus scanner etc.  Set yourself a schedule to use the advanced system care...Bitdefender can run on its own as well as Avira...schedule the rest.

Raz

[-Sarant'satstral-]

.........Spybot.....you got it made adware wise

do NOT download Avast. It mutates into a virus.... period.

[Raziel]

.........Spybot.....you got it made adware wise

do NOT download Avast. It mutates into a virus.... period.

Please check the reviews from the CNET editors on download.com before the mutation virus opinion.

http://download.cnet.com/Avast-Free-Antivirus/3000-2239_4-10019223.html

If there is a "mutation" into a virus, it is usually a coverup/trojan already in the system that hides behind other .exe programs that makes it appear that way as can be found out by Malware Antimalware or in the logs of HiJack This.  I have been using that combination of softwares for well over a year.

Raz

[Taryn]

As I have been using Avast since 2000 or possibly 2001, I have never had an issue with Avast... Now Norton on the other hand, that was a nightmare and a half... Told us the virus definitions were updated and that it would be able to catch the NIMDA virus if it tried to slip into our system again... They LIED! Not only did it slip through my system, it went through our networked line and attacked Ray's computer for the second time, and this time he spent 24 hours literally manually removing the virus from his computer, with the hopes of not corrupting the website he was building at the time... Luckily he only lost a handful of files that weren't too important and wouldn't cost him another 24+ hours to reprogram again...

Once the computers were virus free, we went to work on removing Norton.. Needless to say, we never did get rid of it fully until we removed the hard drive and replaced it with a new one, as that seemed to be one of two ways to remove that program from your computer, the other was to reformat the hard drive... I went to various sites to learn how to remove this "virus" that was disguised as an anti-virus program, including Windows, though back then they didn't have much really to help get rid of the program, but I found an awesome site which at the time was my bible for anything computer software wise, and it's still around... DSL Reports or Broadband Reports http://www.dslreports.com/ they had a bunch of things that helped with my search to find a new anti-virus after "getting rid" of Norton, there I found out that Norton would always be on my computer unless I did the above to the hard drive... There are other very good websites out there that I would also recommend, and one of them is Cnet's site...

Good luck with your new computer ~smiles and huggles~

[Shoko]

I stand by hijack this, its a free program from trend micro, and it works wonders! I would suggest saving a log and let someone who knows computer lingo help you out with understanding what to get rid of, but ive been using it for a while and its saved me.

helped me take a nasty virus off my computer

[Taryn]

hijack this is a diagnose type of program, for those who had a virus and now need to try and fix their registry, but it is NOT an anti-virus program... You need to seriously get an anti-virus program otherwise the next time you encounter a virus, "hijack this" won't be worth the code that it's written with... But then again, you might be one of those who thinks they don't need one, not with all the "free" virus scans online...

[Raziel]

hijack this is a diagnose type of program, for those who had a virus and now need to try and fix their registry, but it is NOT an anti-virus program... You need to seriously get an anti-virus program otherwise the next time you encounter a virus, "hijack this" won't be worth the code that it's written with... But then again, you might be one of those who thinks they don't need one, not with all the "free" virus scans online...

Do note Shoko's post Taryn.  She did not say it was an anti-virus just a scan where you save a log and let someone who knows computers to help what to get rid of.

Raz

[Shoko]

If there is a "mutation" into a virus, it is usually a coverup/trojan already in the system that hides behind other .exe programs that makes it appear that way as can be found out by Malware Antimalware or in the logs of HiJack This.  I have been using that combination of softwares for well over a year.

Raz

I have recently used Malware antimalware!! I have to admit, if you already have a virus, or infected files it works wonders to erase them, I seriously loaded the program onto a flash drive and popped it into my bf's comp and it worked wonders to clear the last bits of a nasty virus that had taken hold of his system.

its also user frendly!

[Taryn]

Yeah, I understood that, but there are those out there who will think that is all they will need for their computer... Trust me, Ray and I have had to deal with people who think thus, which is why I put up what I did...