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Comparing Free Anti-Virus Software


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Comparing Free Anti-Virus Software

  #61 (permalink)
 
jerbersoft's Avatar
 jerbersoft 
Manila, Philippines
 
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Fat Tails View Post
-- but it offesr the worst protection of all AV solutions tested here



Why not install a free solution that offers higher detection rates and faster updates?

so far, i didn't have problems with Windows Defender. maybe it's just because i practice caution when visiting sites or clicking links and even downloading. i always thrive to get resources from legit websites. i tried installing Avira and Avast free editions but i just feel that any of them slows down my PC.

until now, i only use Windows Defender and i'm happy so far.

TIP: if you guys decide to install 3rd party AVS from any provider, i suggest you also disable Windows Defender so that your PC won't suffer from processing files using both AV which would use a great deal of resources. just my 2 cents.

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  #62 (permalink)
daVinci
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Ever since I had both my computers infected with a nasty virus back in 2001 and that none of the then available anti-whatever was able to find it I've been sceptical about the value of these programs.

After a month I finally got those machines to work again and I made changes to my web behaviour and network setup.

I am using 64 bit exclusively, use SIF and NAT and have turned off file and printer sharing . I avoid storing passwords natively and clean the browser with CCLeaner before and after using a password and useTruecrypt for an encrypted virtual drive that only is mounted when I need something (and make a backup) and then gets dismounted again. I am staying far away from storing data in the cloud.

Whenever in the past something suspicious happened I rebooted in OS X and restored the Windows partition from backup after wiping the computer - this is why I have got a Mac mini with two drives internally - one OS X with Windows backups and the other plain Windows 8.1. But I cannot remember when I had to do this last. I normally restore a partition every 6 months just to have a clean slate.

I've used MSE which is very light in overheads and worked fine in the past. In Windows' 8 Defender this has been improved upon.

I have not overlooked infections. I first started professionaly with computers in 1984 when a PC was the cost of a car and a 5Mb (yes Mega) HDD was in the low 4 figures and double 5.25" floppy height.

All these anti-whatever are left overs from the days there were no firewalls and no anti-whatever built in and MSN was a bully and did not pay attention to security. The studies presented earlier are in my opinion marketing ploys (spread Fear Uncertainty and Doubt , or FUD for short). MSN most certainly knows what they are doing - just think about it: 32.6% of the web servers in 2013 were Microsoft servers which was not the case in the days of Windows NT 3.51.

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  #63 (permalink)
Rory
 
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Zondor View Post
I had used both Avast and Avira in the past, but they were having very bad interactions with Ninjatrader and Chrome. That was three or four years ago.

Anyone currently using them with Ninjatrader? I would be glad to hear if they now get along better with Ninjatrader.

@Zondor Regrettably Avast still has issues on latest NT7 - .26 x64, not seen an issues with Chrome though. I'm surprised others have not encountered below but it could be just me (on three 7x64 local systems..).

1. Though both Ninja's USER and Program files (x86) folders were fully excluded from real time scan, multi-instrument (possibly single) complex workspaces get stuck on 'loading data' sometimes in the past three weeks (NT hang/timeout). Fix is to disable Avast temporarily from it's control panel and they load no problem. Had me foxed for a while as I figured excluded was sufficient so did not make the connection.

2. More serious and an annoyance for 6 months.. Until I discovered above fix yesterday I was getting fairly regular NT app crashes, typically after placing live orders (Win7 x64 error below) but sometimes when doing nothing.

NT support and I came to the begrudged conclusion it was caused by NT's known connection sensitivity i.e. excessive lost packets en-route between my Irish ISP and Chicago (Continuum). I have ~75Mb down 17Mb up fibre broadband. I had no alternative ISP but tried Kinetick also however still crashes, problem seemed to be to the Continuum ordering servers not data feed itself. PathPing.exe showed no packet loss within Europe but heavy(ish.. not awful) dropped packets down the line on my ISP's route from home via NYC > Chicago. I worked around this by always keeping my Chicago VPS available to exit trades but annoying of course.

I have now disabled Avast (my favourite for years sadly) and will see how it goes but no NT crashes yet after 22 live orders yesterday and today.

I'm not inclined to exclude NTDLL.DLL as its a historically vulnerable system DLL (for non techies, 'NT' in name is a coincidence, its not referring to NinjaTrader but MS New Technology) so going to try an alternative to Avast. It may be heuristic behaviour scanning or such causing a mal-interaction. Can't pinpoint anything in ProcMon so far but not spending much time on that.

Related NT app crash error:
Faulting application name: NinjaTrader.exe, version: 7.0.1000.26, time stamp: 0x543d3b02
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7601.18247, time stamp: 0x521eaf24
Exception code: 0xc0000374
Fault offset: 0x00000000000c4102
Faulting process id: 0xa60
Faulting application start time: 0x01d045692a13a3a9
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\NinjaTrader 7\bin64\NinjaTrader.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 876bc69d-b208-11e4-b1cb-a41731b65cea

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  #64 (permalink)
 
madLyfe's Avatar
 madLyfe 
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ive heard avast is the best free option right now, but you have to customize it so its not so damn annoying. i just have bitdefender installed and its very easy going like MSE was.

dont believe anything you hear and only half of what you see

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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  #65 (permalink)
 Underexposed 
Calgary Alberta/Canada
 
Posts: 934 since Feb 2014

I have used Norton Anti-virus for several years but I don't like it anymore at all.

I had a severe cyber attack about a year ago that completely disabled my computer and Norton did nothing to stop it. Also it could not clean up the mess and I was flooded with stupid "pup's" (Potentially Useless Programs) which slowed down my computer to a crawl.

I am not an expert at cleaning a registry but I tracked down all the problems (in the process losing the ability to install MSFT software (sigh) which I still haven't figured out how to fix that...but the computer now performs well enough now without it on existing software.

Recently my license for Norton expired and I did not buy a replacement.

I installed the basic free version of AVG and I must say I am very happy with the result so far. It is unobtrusive and is there but not interfering with the operation of the computer and when it does a scan it does a complete scan in a decent amount of time where the Norton scan would get hung up looking for some file (perhaps it is not as comprehensive as Norton...I have no idea.)

I also use FireFox as my browser and there is an Add-on that I really like called "Ghostery" ... this add-on blocks advertising, widget, analytic and other cookies but does not bother the cookies from the site you are on. I hate being tracked by things like "Double-click". It is amazing as to how many trackers are out there. Ghostery shows you how many are potentially there and clicking on the Ghostery icon reveals whether or not they are blocked or not...If they aren't and you don't want to be tracked you just click on the slider and that tracker is blocked on all sites.

I used to always do a scan for viruses and find 3 tracking cookies that would be removed.... but not now.. they never appear any more.

Anyway.... I like AVG... I am also careful about the sites I go to but in my research on a stock I can be lead to a bad place (not porn...just a trap of some kind).

If you have FireFox.... check out Ghostery...

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  #66 (permalink)
Rory
 
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madLyfe View Post
ive heard avast is the best free option right now, but you have to customize it so its not so damn annoying. i just have bitdefender installed and its very easy going like MSE was.

Avast is very good (even the free, everyone has an individual preference from experience naturally) but I'd expect you will normally need to exclude NT related folders on antivirus products with active/heuristic scanning to prevent slowdown. Probably just a lot less noticeable on SSD drives or single-instrument small workspaces.

In any case I have solved the issue by removing AV (firewall running though) and not browsing using my production system directly, just presenting Chrome via 2x/RDC from another machine.

I was an IT consultant and would have eaten my clients without salt had I seen them doing as I was anyway, surfing on a valued production system.. naughty.. lesson learned

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  #67 (permalink)
Rory
 
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Underexposed View Post

I am not an expert at cleaning a registry but I tracked down all the problems (in the process losing the ability to install MSFT software (sigh) which I still haven't figured out how to fix that...but the computer now performs well enough now without it on existing software.

I am (or was) an expert in application re-packaging and such until I 'retired early', mostly forgotten already thankfully You may have tried these Fixit shotgun reg/util fix tools from Microsoft support? If not they generally work pretty neatly to repair the MSI installer subsystem etc. but do of course make a fresh System Restore point first just in case.

Apps not installing:
https://support.microsoft.com/mats/Program_Install_and_Uninstall/en-us

and if Windows updates not working:
Troubleshoot problems with installing updates - Windows Help

I would generally run sfc /scannow e.g. https://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833 in the first instance to check fingers and toes before running above utils. This might take a while on slow or bloated systems.

I've seen virus infections do some pretty advanced damage that took me a while to bash out (above are ok for 'civilians' and usually work but Windows is always repairable if time allows.

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  #68 (permalink)
 skoa 
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daVinci View Post
Ever since I had both my computers infected with a nasty virus back in 2001 and that none of the then available anti-whatever was able to find it I've been sceptical about the value of these programs.
[...]
All these anti-whatever are left overs from the days there were no firewalls and no anti-whatever built in and MSN was a bully and did not pay attention to security. The studies presented earlier are in my opinion marketing ploys (spread Fear Uncertainty and Doubt , or FUD for short). MSN most certainly knows what they are doing - just think about it: 32.6% of the web servers in 2013 were Microsoft servers which was not the case in the days of Windows NT 3.51.

I had a similar experience, anti-virus packages never stopped any infections and only introduced new problems. I used to re-format and do a complete new install once a year, just because the computer got too full of crap. I have depended on MSE and Firefox+NoScript+AdBlock for several years now and have never had any problems or infections.

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  #69 (permalink)
 
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 Fat Tails 
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Rated by protection for Windows 7 are below the results for different anti-virus software as tested in December 2014.

From the free packages

-> Panda Antivirus 15.0 is rated first
-> Avast Antivirus 2015 comes second

The other ones do not offer appropriate protection.

Here is the link for more information.

Test antivirus software for Windows 7 - December 2014 | AV-TEST

I personally use AVAST and have not experienced any problems recently.

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  #70 (permalink)
 
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 Silvester17 
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an excellent option is also the new Malwarebytes 3.0

now they offer 4 malware-fighting modules:

- Anti-malware
- Anti-ransomware
- Anti-exploit
- Malicious website protection


that means you don't need an antivirus software anymore. there's still a free version, but to have full real time protection, the premium version makes more sense.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/

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