McAfee or AVG

Glenman

Hi all, not sure if I am posting this in the right forum or not. I recently bought a lap-top from Dell, it came with McAfee anti virus installed on it. Does anyone know whether or not McAfee is free? My friend suggested I uninstall McAfee and download AVG instead. Which would people recommend? Thanks

Joseph

AVG is the best free.

NOD32 is the best.

^ IMO

aidan_walsh

McAfee updates are at a cost of an annual subscription. AVG have a free version available here.

If its the McAfee Security Centre, you'll likely also be removing the firewall that comes with it. Now while XP and Vista have inbuilt firewalls, there are better alternatives out there.

You might also want to consider some of the other free alternatives listed in my sig below, and to take a look at getting some anti-malware (which includes spyware, adware, etc).

Donny5

If you don't mind paying for McAfee, then instead get the Internet Security package from AVG. It has everything you need, firewall, anti-spyware, etc, and it's not too expensive. It's on all my win machines, and I've yet to get an infection on them.

tuxy

Donny5 wrote: »

I've yet to get an infection on them.

How do you know?

mrDuke

I Put AVG on everything i have and it works fine, but the best way to prevent viruses is to be careful of what you download and what sites you visit, keep your firewall up and install all the microsoft, firewall, avg and web browser updates and dont use IE

Redisle

I use avg free on all my machines and I never have any problems, I just use the built in windows firewall but I would use something better if my router didn't have a built in firewall..
Actually take a look at this thread, you can get avg professional free there, not the security package though.

Donny5

tuxy wrote: »

How do you know?

Fair enough, I don't think I have had an infection yet. I'd hope I'd notice.

rrpc

Let me put it this way

AVG has spotted viruses for me that Norton and McAfee have walked right past. I've seen plenty of infected machines with Norton and McAfee on them, but very seldom have I seen an AVG machine with a virus and certainly not to the extent that Norton or McAfee machines have.

And it doesn't take two years to download the updates either :mad:

-annex-

rrpc wrote: »

AVG has spotted viruses for me that Norton and McAfee have walked right past. I've seen plenty of infected machines with Norton and McAfee on them, but very seldom have I seen an AVG machine with a virus and certainly not to the extent that Norton or McAfee machines have.

There's a reason for this. Most people with Norton or McAfee had either one pre-installed when they bought their pc with for example a three month subscription. When the subscription runs out a large amount of people won't even realise or won't care, and hence their definitions will be out of date leaving the door open for new viruses.

Even so I will agree that AVG has it's advantages over McAfee, it's free being the most obvious. However AVG isn't very good at detecting polymorphic viruses. It's tit for tat really, but in my opinion you'll be best off with AVG. McAfee is just bloatware. Saying that however, if you want the best protection available, and if you don't mind paying for it, go for NOD32.

Damien360

Sorry to hijack this thread, but....

I use AVG free, spybot 1.4 (1.5 not reliable...crashes and slow) and zonealarm free in combination on 2 PC's and they work nicely together in IE6 + OE6.

But, I am getting an awful lot of spam and would like to know if there is an application which runs with these or instead of any of these that can filter the spam out. Again it must be free.

Also, I was considering linking my 360 to the PC's but zonealarm free does not allow port forwarding. Is the windows firewall safe. I searched the net and all reports are pre-SP2 and early SP2 only.

Thanks

culabula88

mrDuke wrote: »

I Put AVG on everything i have and it works fine, but the best way to prevent viruses is to be careful of what you download and what sites you visit, keep your firewall up and install all the microsoft, firewall, avg and web browser updates and dont use IE

Why did you say not to use IE - will you get more viruses from IE than firefox??

Capt'n Midnight

culabula88 wrote: »

Why did you say not to use IE - will you get more viruses from IE than firefox??

Actually a default install of Opera is safer than a default install of Firefox. If you use firefox then add on noscript and adblock. Either are vastly more malware resistant than IE

IE suffers from the whole Active-X thing, drive by downloads, IE7 is way more secure than IE6 though.

Any way get some anti-mal ware stuff too, spybot spywareblaster and update weekly

icom

Glenman wrote: »

Hi all, not sure if I am posting this in the right forum or not. I recently bought a lap-top from Dell, it came with McAfee anti virus installed on it. Does anyone know whether or not McAfee is free? My friend suggested I uninstall McAfee and download AVG instead. Which would people recommend? Thanks

Decrap the Dell. (Google it)
Install AVG free.
Ad-Aware 2007 free.
SPAMfighter free.

Keep all of the above updated, and run Ad-Aware on a regular basis.

Problem solved.:)

ActorSeeksJob

i run a full time computer support businness and remove all protection and install avg, warn them to avoid the above,

This is a really terrible idea and bad practice by a computer support business. Even if users follow your steps concerning warez and porn there are many other ways they can get infected. Running a program like SpywareGuard uses barely any memory and will stop so many infections. Same goes for Comodo. Boggles the mind somebody in a computer support business advocating running absolutely no protection except for AVG.

and if they dont they can pay me to fix it everytime until they learn

Why should they pay you to fix it when you are the one telling them to not to use a firewall or real-time anti-spyware protection ? Sounds like your business is rather dubious...

rrpc

Damien360 wrote: »

Sorry to hijack this thread, but....

I use AVG free, spybot 1.4 (1.5 not reliable...crashes and slow) and zonealarm free in combination on 2 PC's and they work nicely together in IE6 + OE6.

But, I am getting an awful lot of spam and would like to know if there is an application which runs with these or instead of any of these that can filter the spam out. Again it must be free.

Also, I was considering linking my 360 to the PC's but zonealarm free does not allow port forwarding. Is the windows firewall safe. I searched the net and all reports are pre-SP2 and early SP2 only.

Thanks

Spamfighter. www.spamfighter.com, free and very very good.

-annex-

Damien360 wrote: »

Sorry to hijack this thread, but....

I use AVG free, spybot 1.4 (1.5 not reliable...crashes and slow) and zonealarm free in combination on 2 PC's and they work nicely together in IE6 + OE6.

But, I am getting an awful lot of spam and would like to know if there is an application which runs with these or instead of any of these that can filter the spam out. Again it must be free.

Also, I was considering linking my 360 to the PC's but zonealarm free does not allow port forwarding. Is the windows firewall safe. I searched the net and all reports are pre-SP2 and early SP2 only.

Thanks

Pre SP2 there was no Windows Firewall. Zonealarm free does (I think) allow port forwarding. Guide here:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial128.html

rrpc

-annex- wrote: »

There's a reason for this. Most people with Norton or McAfee had either one pre-installed when they bought their pc with for example a three month subscription. When the subscription runs out a large amount of people won't even realise or won't care, and hence their definitions will be out of date leaving the door open for new viruses.

I'm talking about fully updated versions of Norton and McAfee, not expired ones. The main problem with both of those is that the software has built in cripples to turn them off if you haven't paid your sub. This is an open door for viruses to cripple them and work their nastiness.

Another problem is that you must have the latest versions to deal with the latest threats. A fully updated Norton 2006 is not as effective as a fully updated Norton 2007.

Having said that, I've seen fully updated latest version Norton walk past viruses that AVG spotted.

rrpc

ComputerNerd wrote: »

are you still drunk? this guys pc is running slow because of a mcaffe bug

No, but I think you must be

I was replying to this paragraph:

Damien360 wrote:

But, I am getting an awful lot of spam and would like to know if there is an application which runs with these or instead of any of these that can filter the spam out. Again it must be free.

Nothing in his post about McAfee....

-annex-

Damien360 wrote: »

Sorry to hijack this thread, but....

I use AVG free, spybot 1.4 (1.5 not reliable...crashes and slow) and zonealarm free in combination on 2 PC's and they work nicely together in IE6 + OE6.

But, I am getting an awful lot of spam and would like to know if there is an application which runs with these or instead of any of these that can filter the spam out. Again it must be free.

Also, I was considering linking my 360 to the PC's but zonealarm free does not allow port forwarding. Is the windows firewall safe. I searched the net and all reports are pre-SP2 and early SP2 only.

Thanks

ComputerNerd wrote: »

are you still drunk? this guys pc is running slow because of a mcaffe bug

The poster didn't even mention McAfee, I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion.

ComputerNerd

yeah deleted my post, thread hijacks can get confusing , espicially when your hung over

rrpc

ComputerNerd wrote: »

yeah deleted my post, thread hijacks can get confusing , espicially when your hung over

And you were accusing me of being drunk?

pot meet kettle

ComputerNerd

rrpc wrote: »

And you were accusing me of being drunk?

pot meet kettle

ah i wasnt accusing you, more sympathising with ya, its hard to get the tone of voice accross in text

,8,1

This is a really terrible idea and bad practice by a computer support business. Even if users follow your steps concerning warez and porn there are many other ways they can get infected. Running a program like SpywareGuard uses barely any memory and will stop so many infections. Same goes for Comodo.

No, the tech support guy's advice is fine, but if you're not a techie you won't understand why. On a system such as Windows XP or Vista you do not need a virus scanner. For the most part all they do is suck up CPU cycles and RAM. They make a pale and futile attempt to patch up errors in Windows and Word (e.g. macros). So if you don't have an ineffective virus scanner running, more system resources are available for the software you want to run.

You say that "there are many other ways they can get infected" other than warez and porn. There has to be an entry point somewhere and I'd say 90% of the time it's someone clicking on attachments or visiting dubious porn/warez sites. Even the latter you are safe from if you use Firefox or Opera instead of IE. Sometimes it will be a network vulnerability a la the Blaster worm - but Microsoft will release an update to fix that.

A firewall, on the other hand, is absolutely necessary.

Why should they pay you to fix it when you are the one telling them to not to use a firewall or real-time anti-spyware protection ? Sounds like your business is rather dubious...

No, it's just that they don't take his advice.

ComputerNerd

thread has totally gone off topic

thanks 8,1 for taking my side

but...
ASJ is a god when it comes to malware (and probably many other issues), and i am sure what he is saying is the best way to do it, i wish i could read those logs like he can


I have deleted the post that ASJ was questioning as it might have been bad for businness



but i do think for a businness point of view, all a costomer wants is for their pcs to work properly and as fast as possibal . also having less programs running on a pc will make it more reliable (obviously unless it gets infected, which as ASJ righty points out- is more likely)

until the day a costomer's issue proves me wrong i will continue with just AVG and the xp (and routers) firewall


as for ASJ's "business is rather dubious..." comment....

[joke]....think of me as a doctor who charges everytime someone comes in with an STD and then tells them how to avoid one again [/joke]

Capt'n Midnight

A firewall is absoutely essential. If you are tempted to pay for a commercial firewall spend your money on a router instead, even one with just NAT, it will work 24/7. A software firewall may crash or not load in safe mode or have other failure modes, but good to have. Without some form of a firewall XP service pack 1 will get taken over within a few minutes, fastest I heard of from a reputible site is 8 seconds. While vista is much better a typical new PC will need the guts of 100MB of patches to be downloaded and installed before it's resonably up to date. And a lot of holes are still unplugged.

Malware is a far greater risk than viruses. AV's as a general rule won't clean much malware without a separate subscription. You can have different ones running, more bites of the cherry.

You do need an anti-virus program.
You don't however, need one of several commercial AV's that take up to 30% cpu time though, go for personal recomendations not what gets most advertising or is preinstalled on your system.
AVG can be painfully slow if you tell it to do a full scan on startup, any AV would be the same - just turn off the option. Check the options in your AV program. you can set it to run at a lower priority or to only check outgoing files.

wheres me jumpa

AVG anit virus and Sygate firewall for me.