What Kind of Antivirus to Use
May 31, 2007 Posted by Liz in : Tips , trackback,
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Norton Antivirus will not protect you.Â
MacAfee Security Suite will not protect you.Â
Antivirus programs that come free with your internet service provider will not protect you.
You do need antivirus, I don’t care what you do online, you still need it.Â
You need Spyware protection, Virus Protection and a Firewall, you cannot get by with just one.Â
That said, here’s my review of the various programs I use to disinfect the people’s computers who did not understand the message above.
PC Tools Products
Spyware Doctor and Registry Mechanic are excelent tools. They are the programs I always run first, and the ones I run last to ensure the computer is actually clean and fixed. Use them. Use them to protect you and pay attention to the prompts. Even the starter edition offered in Google pack is more robust than Norton, MacAfee or even Trend Micro’s suite.
The main advantage is that there are only two processes that runs in the background and two services to start when your computer does, yet the protection it yields are second to none.
Webroot Products
Webroot Spysweeper, Webroot Spysweeper with Antivirus and Window Washer, as well as Child Safe are mostly all fantastic tools for not only removal, but are good enough to entrust your children to.
Child Safe can provide reports on what your kids are doing, saying, emailing to each other, looking at, and how long they are doing it for. It will also stop them from doing any of those things, if need be.
Window Washer is useless. It is a 20 dollar temp file cleaner. Don’t buy it, it’s pointless. Also, has a service and two processes for the GUI you don’t need.
Webroot Spysweeper is robust antivirus protection that an 8 year old can understand. It uses small words and language your kids will grasp, as well as protect them unquestioningly. This is also good for the elderly who are not “up” on technology. It’s removal tools are fantastic, almost on par with Spyware doctor.
With Antivirus, not as light, a little more resource heavy, and sadly, not adequate protection against viruses. Most of the time, this does not even detect obvious test infections let alone remove them.
Kapersky
The security suite provides protection better than anything I have ever seen. I have never once seen a computer, protected by Kapersky that was infected. Their removal tools are terrible however, so once infected(say, if you purposely download something that turns out to be a virus) you will need to turn to others to remove the infection. It is a bit brutal on the language and the GUI is not as friendly as most. Not suited for small children or those who are not computer savvy, Kapersky is among the elite, for those of us who need a higher level of virus protection.
Trend Micro Products
Trend Micro Antivirus is fantastic at not only removals, but is great as an antivirus and firewall. They tend to update daily, if not twice a day, and this product can even remove the dreaded Antivermins virus in some of its incarnations. It’s got big pretty buttons and is gentle to new users, but provides nice functionality for those of us who need to tweak it. Also very light on the system, with only 2 running processes and 3 services.
Trend Micro Antispyware (Venus spy trap)
Sucks. It catches almost nothing, has the shield ability of a wet paper bag, and the GUI of a first time programmer’s nightmare. Don’t use it. Nuff’ said.
Trend Micro CWS Shredder (Cool Web Search)
Cool Web Search(located at 5220 Spring Valley Rd.Dallas, TX 75254, they offered me employment at one time) is a notorious search bar that tends to bog down your system, add an annoying search bar that causes popups for anything typed there, oh yes, and steals credit card info. Trend Micro released this tool that searches out and kills any variant of this product. Pretty cool, run it once every 3 or so months.
Symmantec Products
Norton Security Suite of any year, or Norton 360.
This blows, hands down. It protects you from next to nothing (like, a plank length away from nothing) and removes even less (which, by the laws of physics, is actually impossible). Aside from that, it has Seventeen running processes and 19 Services. To remove it, you can’t just simply uninstall, no. That’d be too easy. No no, you must search out and find the Norton Removal Tool to get rid of it (Google Symnrt) and run it, reboot, then run it again to make sure it got it all. There are Ninety-Eight Registry keys that are untouched by the uninstallation and I think your computer may suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome, as after Norton has been “removed” you may experience game crashes in World of Warcraft, any Battlefield game, and Titan Quest. Others I have not experimented with.  The way to fix this is to uninstall and reinstall the games, but you will have to start over as your saves have been corrupted in the case of one-player games.
Put simply, stay away. Far away.
Symmantec Corporate Edition
Astoundingly, this product, while built by the same people, takes up little resources, has few running processes, and provides an impeccable level of protection. Why this product is unavailable to the public, I do not know.
SBC Yahoo Online Security
This is just Norton Firewall, with the effectiveness taken out, and the pain-in-the-ass pills provided free of charge. This “protection” is annoying at best, damaging to the end user at worse. But then we all knew SBCYahooAT&T AOLTimeWarnerComcastMSNBCDisney FoxClearchanne was evil.
MacAfee Products
MacAfee Security Center
This sucks for protection, bloated at 5 services and 3 running processes(large ones). It will bog your computer down as a general rule and will also offer protection akin to a sunblock of spf5 on the sun. It comes with a pretty user interface, and is preloaded on a lot of computers these days, fortunately removing it through add/remove programs is sufficient and it does not cause damage to your system.
AOL Security Center
Yep, this one is made by MacAfee, has more running processes, and is actually watered down from it’s original suckage. This is just SecurityCenter, redone. Same shit, diffrent package. And because it’s from AOL, you know their brand of spyware is whitelisted.
This sucker takes out more viruses and spyware than I can count but has crap for active protection. Generally a removal tool more than anything, I like it when working but not for home use.
Counterspy
Not great for removals or protection, hogs system resources while scanning, I generally turn to this only when the ugliest of infections strikes.
The eTrust Internet Security Suite works. It just plain works. It updates frequently, it downloads and scans without hassle, it finds and destroys malware of all types, It’s pretty and friendly to use, It loves children and animals and always votes libertarian. It never questions why you want to do something, just makes sure you’re paying attention, and loves your mom. For removals, its unbeatable. For protection, it’s unchallenged. For price, it’s usually only like 40 bucks. Everywhere you see that “Verisign Secured” sign, that’s them. They do the security for the Internet. You can’t beat that. They’re like the Hell’s Angels of security, tends to be overkill but you usually won’t find any ruffians willing to voice that. Also, light on the system. Not too light, with 4 running processes and 4 services, but the processes and services take up minimal cycles so it’s not that big of a debit on your system.
All in all, I’m not asking for your faith or trust. I’m telling you to just do it. Use the antimalware programs I reccomended, don’t use the ones I didn’t.
Thanks,
Liz
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Comments»
I recommend Trend to all my customers in combinations with Spybot Search and Destroy. Always have. Those Germans know their stuff!
what do you reckon to antivir? this is a free anti virus which seems very effective.
What do you think of Stopzilla and PCSecurityShield, both of which I have installed on one of my computers?
Can I install PCTools over Norton 05, not updated, or do I have to clean all of the Norton junk out first?
And, where the heck were you last week, when I needed help?
I use the AOL version of McAfee Security …I actually like it…works very nicely with other programs AND so far so good on the protection.
It updates daily and …gives all appearances that it is doing a good job. I have a feeling the program is “watered down” The program is 15 mb That’s all !! so who knows …it’s free
Might switch to CA . Although , Mary Landesman (spelling) at ”
About.com” says The CA works smoothly because it’s not doing anything ?? Duh ! She said CA has a history of being terrible . Hummmmm who’s she working for ?
Any advice ? Thanks
Rich