Anti Virus Recommendations

Young Blood

I've been with mcafee for around 4 years now and my subscription is up today. Just wondering are there cheaper anti viruses out there which are just as good?

The problem I seem to face with mcafee is that when I reset my laptop I have to contact mcafee customer service to have it reinstalled which is a pain.

Any recommendations would be great.

KungPao

Young Blood wrote: »

I've been with mcafee for around 4 years now and my subscription is up today. Just wondering are there cheaper anti viruses out there which are just as good?

The problem I seem to face with mcafee is that when I reset my laptop I have to contact mcafee customer service to have it reinstalled which is a pain.

Any recommendations would be great.

MS's free one does a grand job for your average user. No need to pay for AV in that case imo.

Keplar240B

KungPao wrote: »

MS's free one does a grand job for your average user. No need to pay for AV in that case imo.

Is there a link for that?
Ta

jos22

Keplar240B wrote: »

Is there a link for that?
Ta

windows 10 it comes preinstalled

other wise see
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-IE/windows/security-essentials-download

for information

bpb101

Ms essential is grand to be fair.
For the love of god make sure you uninstall mcafee

Lord it's actually wrost than a virus. . Apparently it stops you going on the web because for security reasons (except their ultra secure site where you buy their anti virus licences)

Bongalongherb

Remove that Mc Afee asap as it shouldn't even be classed as a security software program, it's absolutely dire and never should be used as software protection. Microsoft essentials is useless. Microsoft themselves even tell you to use a third party antivirus as essentials is worthless in these times.

I find it astonishing here that folk think it is acceptable to use these worthless programs for virus protection. Just like AVG a while back, that was terrible protection. If folk continue to use free antivirus software they will not be protected enough when it comes to infection and the removal of infection and traces left over.

I'm not going to name the best antivirus and firewall protection here, but a simple google and a bit of research will give you the information that is needed. The days are gone with using useless free virus protection.

Bongalongherb

Keep far away from Norton as well unless you want everything on your system to malfunction. Use the Mc Afee uninstall tool for your Mc Afee product to uninstall it properly. If a person wants at least decent security and antivirus protection then you have to face the fact that you need to purchase it and it's cheap as well on ebay for a years license key, there should never be an excuse to use crap free security as they just don't do the job and never will. A good firewall is a must as well.

maki

Bongalongherb wrote: »

Keep far away from Norton as well unless you want everything on your system to malfunction. Use the Mc Afee uninstall tool for your Mc Afee product to uninstall it properly. If a person wants at least decent security and antivirus protection then you have to face the fact that you need to purchase it and it's cheap as well on ebay for a years license key, there should never be an excuse to use crap free security as they just don't do the job and never will. A good firewall is a must as well.

Since pretty much everyone is behind NAT these days, a software firewall is just a layer of redundancy in case something gets through your hardware firewall. Most of the time it won't really be doing anything.

Windows firewall is perfectly fine anyway, especially if you just care about incoming. I would have recommended something like Comodo a few years back, but it's nothing but bloat now.
If you want more fine-tuned control of Windows Firewall or want an easy way to monitor for outgoing connections grab Windows Firewall Control.

mass_debater

Bongalongherb wrote: »

Keep far away from Norton as well unless you want everything on your system to malfunction. Use the Mc Afee uninstall tool for your Mc Afee product to uninstall it properly. If a person wants at least decent security and antivirus protection then you have to face the fact that you need to purchase it and it's cheap as well on ebay for a years license key, there should never be an excuse to use crap free security as they just don't do the job and never will. A good firewall is a must as well.

Wrong. Norton internet security is now one of the best antivirus packages (not the bloated full package). And this comes from someone who practically made a living removing old versions of Norton. You can get a years serial on eBay for 13 quid
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=281898995606&alt=web

davo2001

Bongalongherb wrote: »

Microsoft essentials is useless. Microsoft themselves even tell you to use a third party antivirus as essentials is worthless in these times.

Got a link for this? Or just another "my cousin who know everything about computers says....."

maki

davo2001 wrote: »

Got a link for this? Or just another "my cousin who know everything about computers says....."

Can't find the original link, but here's one reporting on it. Microsoft later released a statement refuting the original statement.

However that doesn't change the fact that MSE (usually) comes dead last in tests from AV-Test and AV-Comparatives.

PropJoe10

I'd rather have a virus than McAfee on my machine. As previous people said, MS Essentials/Defender is fine - outside of that, Avast is a decent free third-party alternative.

aphex™

Sophos home is free now. Haven't tried it yet myself tho

coylemj

MSE suffers from the perennial problem that people don't place a value on something they get for nothing.

Far too many people operate on the principle that: 'If you're don't pay for AV protection, you're not properly protected'. That suits the AV industry just fine. I used to use AVG but have been on MSE for several years now on Win7, I do frequent scans with the free version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and I'm doing just fine, thanks.

PropJoe10

Its more important to run Malwarebytes these days than have an antivirus anyway. Malware and spyware are much more of an issue than actual old-school viruses.

Or else just be cool and use Linux!

Cordell

The best antivirus is your own common sense, if you use it you'll be perfectly fine with the default MS antivirus. Which is not stellar, but not crap either. I've been virus free for the past 10 years.
Don't "buy" games from torrents
Be careful when "researching" nudity sites, don't download anything, don't execute anything if tricked into downloading something
Keep your system updated, ditch windows XP for the latest Win 10 or 8.1
Some file repository sites will trick you into downloading other stuff than the one you're looking for, be careful

mass_debater

The most important thing is an adblocker on your browser

200motels

mass_debater wrote: »

The most important thing is an adblocker on your browser

Not really, as a poster said earlier the user is either the best defence or bad defence, I use Emsisoft Anti Malware and it's excellent of course all the while using common sense.


https://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/antimalware/

Cordell

No, he's right. A good adblocker (like adblock plus) also works as a popup blocker, malware blocker etc.

mass_debater

Cordell wrote: »

No, he's right. A good adblocker (like adblock plus) also works as a popup blocker, malware blocker etc.

Adblock plus are now allowing sponsored ads, ublock origin is now the best adblock

Cordell

Adblock plus allows customization, it has a default whitelist indeed, but it can be disabled. You can block anything you want by subscribing to the proper list and adding your own.

mass_debater

Cordell wrote: »

Adblock plus allows customization, it has a default whitelist indeed, but it can be disabled. You can block anything you want by subscribing to the proper list and adding your own.

If you're going to customise go the full hog, can't recommend doing this highly enough
http://jacobsalmela.com/block-millions-ads-network-wide-with-a-raspberry-pi-hole-2-0/

Cordell

The only problem is that it will only work on your home network, adblockers work in any network. The manual DNS setup (also mentioned in your link) will work in any network, but you need to manually configure it for every network you use.
Cool name though, Pi-hole

PropJoe10

mass_debater wrote: »

Adblock plus are now allowing sponsored ads, ublock origin is now the best adblock

Ublock Origin is great. Not if you're using RTE Player, though, which is almost unusable these days. Can't have an adblocker in your browser at all, and if you open it without an adblocker, you've to sit through about two minutes of ads before anything will play. Disgrace.

Sorry, just needed to have a rant about that!:D

riclad

Use firefox for rte.ie ,
chrome with adblock for normal browsing.
You can mute audio for ads.

andekwarhola

I use Panda AV and just run Malwarebytes, Trend Micro House Call and SuperAntiSpyware periodically.

Apart from that, I keep windows updated, use common sense and I also removed Java from the computer as nothing I use requires it.

Browser is chrome with ublock and ghostery extensions.

_Tombstone_

I don't use Antivirus at all, if I think something might be dodgy - a site/download or whatever I run it through Virustotal. They can tell you if you're firmware is infected now to.

Trend Micro flaw could have allowed attacker to steal all passwords
Antivirus Software Could Make Your Company More Vulnerable
AVG Forcibly Installs Vulnerable Chrome Extension That Exposes Users' Browsing History
Kaspersky Antivirus Fixes Bug That Allowed Attackers to Block Windows Update and Others Services
AVG Proudly Announces It Will Sell Your Browsing History to Online Advertisers
AVG, McAfee, Kaspersky Fix Common Vulnerability in Their Antivirus Products

Look at that ^^^, Their's lots more, you'd be mad to have them around the place.


Adblocker is your No1 - that's a main attack vector/that and google images, watch where pics link to - And if a site won't let you in without turning off the blocker then click on by to another site or you'll get sh1t like this.

Google cleaned up 780m 'bad ads' last year

Is that alot? Who knows, they don't give a Toss though obviously as things have got so bad.


Malwarebytes is good, but it's not that long since they butchered every Windows Install that ran a bad update one day.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2262248/flawed-malwarebytes-security-update-wipes-out-thousands-of-computers

Thats just careless.

200motels

Cordell wrote: »

No, he's right. A good adblocker (like adblock plus) also works as a popup blocker, malware blocker etc.

Addblockers will not stop viruses, Trojans, worms etc etc, you still need a good anti virus/malware and of course common sense while browsing and a addblocker is not going to stop dodgy applications when you run them with pups and malware inside these applications.

bpb101

people are saying there about rte.

Just allow adds on rte, refresh and quickly block again. At most you only see one advert

Cordell

200motels wrote: »

Addblockers will not stop viruses, Trojans, worms etc etc, you still need a good anti virus/malware and of course common sense while browsing and a addblocker is not going to stop dodgy applications when you run them with pups and malware inside these applications.

No, indeed, it will not stop them. What it will stop is popups and redirects that will get you to sites where you can pick up malware.

Keplar240B

not an expert on the matter

Just got a new Second hand computer windows 10.
Ran Windows defender on it.
Nothing found
I then installed AVG right after that (I have a one computer license transfered over from old PC (~40 Euro))

It found a trojan horse.

that's my story.