The Gang of Five
Beyond the Mysterious Beyond => Hobbies and Recreation => Computer and Electronics => Topic started by: landbeforetimelover on September 11, 2007, 07:19:28 AM
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Okay, we all know about viruses and have sufficient virus protection and the hackers and bad guys know it. Spyware has become a bigger concern over the past few months for the most experienced computer users. I have tested many spyware applications and all of them (including AVG) have some sort of piece of crap protection program that slows down startup by up to 2 minutes on some of my older machines. These programs include Spyware doctor, espy pro, spyblaster, and many others that I can't remember. All of these applications took a long time to scan and they took up around 70% cpu at startup on computers I have with 2ghz and below. The best one I've found so far that doesn't do that that costs money is ashampoo antispyware 2.01. It was very efficient. Then I went on to go find some freeware applications to install on clients computers that were free(I don't wanna install either trials or illegal software on clients computers!). The best free one I could find was spybot search and destroy. It isn't as good as ashampoo, but it's free. It really makes startup slower by maybe 3 seconds. It's not that bad at all. I was just wondering what everyone else uses for spyware protection if any. I'm sure many of us are unprotected because when most people think of a computer having problems, their minds jump straight to viruses. Spyware is also a very big concern. It wasn't so bad a few years ago, but it's getting worse and worse... :(
So, what do you guys use?
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Norton 2005 that what I been using all the time. no other anti-virus software. My Laptop runs fine with it and keep my computer very well protected, plus it came with the Laptop as a preprogram when I got it after the accient with the last laptop getting drunk with tea. :lol
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I use Norton 2006.
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Spybot, but I don't use it because the last time I did I erased everyone's favorites. o.O
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Spybot, but I don't use it because the last time I did I erased everyone's favorites. o.O
Wait a minute! You use Spybot, but you don't use it? I'm confused. :wacko:
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I should rephrase. I used it once. And it's actually one of two anti-spyware programs we have. The other is AOL. I don't actually use it myself, though dad (or Clint) has it set on automatic scan or something.
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Norton 2005 that what I been using all the time. no other anti-virus software.
I use Norton 2006
I'm talking about anti-spyware applications not anti-virus! There's another thread by me about that. Or does norton have spyware protection now too? I wouldn't know for sure. I've stuck away from norton after it's screwed up so many computers of mine and it slows down your computer to crap. Not to mention that it never has up to date definitions. Even when you update, the updates are like a week old cuz all norton does is take the definitions from other anti-virus software after they've figured them out. Having a computer with a anti-virus system that's a week old is almost as bad as having none at all. <_<
Bottom line: stick away from norton. Even if your computer came with it for 2 years free, kill it. It sucks and you'll get infected for sure. AVG free edition is the best. :D
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I'm just pointing out that in my professional opinion, Norton is an unnecessary risk, especially when you can get AVG for free. It would be one thing if Norton was the cheapest or something, but it's far from that and it's very dangerous to use, especially if you do a lot of downloading.
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Norton has survived so long because they sell their program for about $2 to computer companies like Dell, Compaq, Emachines, and a whole lot of other computer companies and they install them on their computers before you buy them. If it wasn't for that, norton would be dead by now. Back in 1999, they got heavily sued by creating and sending out a virus to their customers just so they could cure it to make money. Norton has smart people working for it, but sadly, they don't put that intelligence into creating their software, the invest it into making a lot of money for themselves while screwing their customers over. <_<
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Dear mercy. I've used Norton since I've ever had an internet connection. It has never messed up a computer and it has always wiped out viruses and spyware. I simply don't get the beef on why you don't like it. And where did you hear that they steal updates from other software and that other scam you posted? This is really surprising, since Norton has served me well over the years.
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I'll tell ya what. I'll send ya about maybe 20 harmless viruses that just came out a week ago and we'll just see how good norton handles it. I'll send them to you in a compressed archive. I'll bet ya that Norton might detect 1-3 of them. then go download avg free. It will detect all of them.
I already ran this test just yesterday and Norton detected 1/20 viruses. OUCH! That means that if Norton's you're only protection, you'd have 19 viruses running free in your system! :o
Norton will eventually detect them, but it takes as much as a week after they come out. That's pretty useless unless GOF is your only online activity. <_<
This is really surprising, since Norton has served me well over the years.
that depends on how lucky you are and what you do online. I personally have terrible luck and I download gigabytes a day. I get over 25 viruses a day easy and avg takes care of them all. I had norton for about a month. It said I had no viruses. then I got avg for the first time. 114 viruses! :o
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Sending viruses is illegal no matter how harmless they are.
That's not correct. So long as you have permission, it's okay. Did you know that most freeware applications technically install harmless spyware, adware, and viruses onto your system? Firefox is a good example of this. It's in their user agreement when you go to install it. Once you say that you agree, they install the program and the virus/spyware
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I'm not going to download any viruses.
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No, sending viruses is *never* legal. Never.
Well, if that were the case, all the makers these freeware programs would be in the slammer. A virus is nothing but a simple program that tells your computer to do something. They're really not that complex as so many of us think. :^.^:
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I might try to use Spybot again, though I'm a bit apprehensive to do so. I'm not even sure how I deleted favorites the last time. o.O I got into so much trouble for that.
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The viruses by the freeware apps are harmless. they just send reports of like browsing history and crap, but the only difference between firefox's virus and a hackers virus is the fact that the hacker uses it to get fake ID's and to do other illegal activity. The programs are almost identical.
With spybot, you have to make sure you read what the thing is before you delete it. It's that simple.
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Oh, and to make a backup of favorites, go into the C:\Documents and Settings\User\Favorites directory and backup all favorites. They're only around 2k each.
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Good security cost money, but lose a valuable information is worse. There is good antivirus and anti-spywares that will help you very good and it not cost a lot. Panda Antivirus 2008 is one of them, is one of the best and trusted antivirus/antispyware in the market. At difference of Norton and Avast it doesn’t need to take a lot of resources to run, at difference of Norton that uses a lot of resources and makes your computer slow.
Another good one is Zone Alarm, antivirus, firewall and antispyware all you need to have the best protection.
I tried AVG the paid version in the store and was a deception I have to give a refund to every person I sold it. The computers were contaminated so easily, was a nightmare. And don’t ask me for the free version. Nothing free works correctly there is no business on it.
I sell Panda in my store $39.00 one year of updates 2 licenses (you can install it in two PCs) If you see is not expensive at all. Zone Alarm is a bit expensive $43.00 but works great. I have reduced considerably the quantity of machines affected with virus.
There is other different antivirus in the market but I recommend one of those I use.
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I'll admit it. AVG anti-spyware has really screwed up some of my computers and it is the second worst spyware program I've ever used. The antivirus is awesome though so long as you remember to manually update it. It's auto updates never work properly. :(
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All these "post removed"'s can't be a good thing.
For anti-spyware I use four (count them four) freeware ones
Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE Personal
Spybot Search and Destroy
AVG Anti-Spyware
a-squared anti spyware
Very rarely do any of these find anything. I don't visit the sites that would install anything in the first place. Yeah I know, if I paid for them, perhaps I'd get some results or even false positives to make it appear something is working, but also, it does largely depend on what sites you go to. I stick away from shady ones, no torrents, and that's probably why this computer is clean.
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All these "post removed"'s can't be a good thing.
I dunno why she did that... :unsure:
To Petire: Why don't you go into the CTRL+ALT+DEL menu and look at the processes tab. How much cpu and ram is the "guard.exe" program taking up? I'll bet it's a lot. -_-
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All these "post removed"'s can't be a good thing.
I dunno why she did that... :unsure:
Because a friend of mine, who was reading the topic, made me feel guilty about them. ^^;
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All these "post removed"'s can't be a good thing.
To Petire: Why don't you go into the CTRL+ALT+DEL menu and look at the processes tab. How much cpu and ram is the "guard.exe" program taking up? I'll bet it's a lot. -_-
1.3 mb is a lot? :P:
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Really? When I used the free edition of AVGAS, It took up nearly 2.8ghz and 3gb ram :blink: It wasn't my computer cuz it was just formatted. Maybe I downloaded a corrupted version or something. :huh: