Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Anti-Virus software suggestions

After picking up a nasty virus that was untrackable and kept replicating itself (stupid PC) and having to do a wipe and reload, my local computer store recommended I dump the McAfee that I had and get either Panda or Trend PCCyllin.
I know we have computer folks here on the board that know what works. I'm open to suggestions

Scott

I use this and have never had a problem. AVG plus its free.

I use Avast (free), but I also do very little on my home PC other than play games.

I second AVG, never had a problem.

I use Zone Alarm Anti-virus. It's both a firewall and anti-virus in one. Never had any problems since I started using it several years ago.

In addition to the fine recommendations already given, use Firefox as your default browser. Although IE7 is far more secure than IE6 was, Firefox keeps you even safer from hidden threats.

Some other tips, regardless of your browser choice:

• Always use the popup blocking feature.
• Never click OK or Yes to a dialog box that pops up while browsing unless you have explicitly clicked on something to cause the dialog box to appear, or you are trying to download something.
• Don't open email attachments unless you are expecting them -- even if it is from someone you know. Double-check with the source if you're unsure.

I second Peters recommendation on Foxfire. I also use the free version of AVG.

I've got Firefox and Safari on our Mac, but viruses don't seem to be an issue with these things. Hence the comment "Stupid PC". My wife and I are a mixed marriage, of sorts. She's a Mac person and I'm more of a PC person. Anytime something goes wrong with my lap top, her first response is "Stupid PC". Likewise, on the rare occasion when something doesn't work right on the Mac, I jokingly throw out "Stupid Mac". Somehow it doesn't quite have the same punch.

Scott

I'be been in IT for many years, and myself and most of my buddies use AVG from Grisoft, which is free for personal use. I also have Spybot on my machine as well, which is also free.

After reading your original posting about StupidpC I did a quick search to see what sort of viruses have been found for the Mac, virtually none for the OSX, there seems to be a debate as to why. Some feel it has to do with the user base being more computer savy/programmers that would be able to make counter measures at will, the fact that the Mac has less than 10% of the market so where is the fun in annoying only 10% and still others believe it is due to the open source/ better, more secure O/S or any combination of the above.

I personally favor the notion viruses are made just to prove a point to MS out of sheer hatered towards them. And then Apple goes spouting off about how there are no virus problems for them and poof a few pop up just like that back in 2006

Actually Jason, I think a lot of the hacking these days falls into two categories: Those who are highly organized and out to make money, those who like to play with toys easily available on the internet to cause mayham.

Either way, windoz makes a much more appealing target because there are so many poorly protected machines out there. Its a numbers game.

I did a bunch of reading on av software 6 months back and its hard to get a good read on what works and what doesn’t. Many of the tests have bias built into them.

Strangely, Norton is getting good marks, not just for detection rates, but also for the very low numbers of false positives.

Computer savvy Mac users? I could see that being a reason not to write a Linux virus... but Mac users? Nothing against the Mac-types here, but... Mac users are so far removed from anything tech-related to do with their OS or hardware that I find that an odd, odd hypothesis.

I would say much more likely that with a bigger install base of Windows machines, that makes them a more likely target. Like if you had to create hardware to allow you to steal cars, would you build it to steal the more plentiful gas engine or the less plentiful diesel?

Bren R.

I think that might be a fair evaluation about 5, 10 years ago. But now we have a *NIX OS, and a horde of propeller heads to go with it. Not to mention some of us Mac geeks that have evolved to be *NIX geeks.

Funny, years ago when I worked for a Nix-head company the brightest developer (in a very bright bunch) loved to write code on his mac because it had a vastly superior development environment.

Its funny how Unix variants are cropping up in the oddest places; on Macs, on cellphones...

What, they still using OS 9 up in Canada?

I've been a Unix sysadmin for 20 years. I've been using an OS X desktop for the last 5 for several reasons:

o Sun stopped being even remotely competitive bang/buck on desktop systems
o I tired of the effort required to maintain desktop-y tools for Solaris, as the stuff Sun ships tends to be old, bloated, and poorly-chosen
o ... so I want my desktop these days to Just Work. OS X gives me that, but on a Unix platform with a real shell that lets me do what I need to do.