OT: Free Anti Virus Program

[Atrocities]

Panda Scan
SpyBot
Adware

Are these any good?

[se5a]

I dont know about panda, but the other two are not AV software, they are antispyware proggys.

AntiVir Personal is a good free antivirus
http://www.free-av.com/

[Atrocities]

Thanks.

I found a GAME PLANETED unknown trojan on my computer. After hours of investigating it was discovered to be the by product of Secure Rom and or Diablo's latest patch.

When Game, Music, and software companies secretly place adware, spyware, and trojans on your computer, they, in my honest opinion, are violating the Use At Own Risk laws that protect them.

[Fyron]

SpyBot and Adaware are absolutely crucial pieces of software. They each catch spyware that the other misses.

These days, it is not sufficient to just have an anti-virus program. You need a full suite of protection. Anti-virus, anti-trojan (the better AV programs can handle trojans decently, but will not always be able to eliminate a trojan), and anti-spyware. Using a non-garbage web browser (such as Mozilla Firefox) will prevent a lot of this crap from being able to install itself through web browsing (Internet Explorer is currently the main cause of virus/trojan/spyware infections, seconded by MS Outlook). Additionally, it is a good idea to run a firewall.

[Ed Kolis]

Avast (www.avast.com) is free for noncommercial use

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Anti-trojan? Where would I find one of those, perferably free? Why wouldn't mcafeee eliminate it?

[Arkcon]

I was using AVG for a while: http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php It's pretty good, I go download it whenever I find that someone doesn't have an Antivirus program. It was fully compatable from day 1 with Win XP SP2, which is nice.

But Spybot 1.3 is a must have. Its very good at purging junk from your hard drive.

[AgentZero]

Tell me about it. When I first got my internet connection, I grabbed a trial Version of Norton Internet Security. On I think day 13 of the 15 day trial I had to go away for work, but left the computer on since I'd just started downloading some big files. I come back, Norton has switched itself off 2 days ago and my poor computer is riddled with viruses and spyware. Don't even know how the spyware got in there but spybot found 251 'Entities'. Fortunately on the virus front a nice boot scan by Avast cleared things out nicely.

I think it's a sad reflection upon the state of internet society that we have to build these massive digital fortresses to keep ourselves safe. Anti-virus, spyware, firewalls, spam-guards, mail-filters....

[mac5732]

AT, with the problems I've had with viruses I know how you feel. I now use Norton Anti Virus, Panda, adware, Kerio Firewall and Hack this.

Kerio is free, adware is free, Panda half and half, hack this is free. I run them at least once a week. also Adware has caught viruses for me including a trojan that Norton didn't find... You want adware 6.0 and its updates.

my 2 cents

[Atrocities]

Mac I just used the Hack This and the security web site and it was they who suggested using the above three programs. Combined the two adware programs found 160 or more spyware, adware, trojans on my system that PestPatrol missed. Also the Panda AVP found a virus that Nortan Missed.

I am hopeful that when I reboot my system won't crash.

Any ways, great minds think alike.

The reason this is has become an issue for me is because I get, on average, about 40 or more virus emails a day through my three email accounts, not to mention the two other people who use this PC on occation have email accounts as well.

So this all adds up. I try to stay on top of it, but with this latest round of suspicious problems, I had felt it was time to ask for more help. I am glad I did provided my system does not die as a result of deleting all those pests.