Posted on 09/13/2015 6:42:44 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Just purchased a brand new ASUS desktop computer to replace my aging Gateway that I had for six years.
Looking for advice for the best antivirus software to use. Currently (on my existing POS Gateway computer), I have Avast! Free Antivirus and Malwarebytes Premium installed. I've been hearing good things about Bitdefender, however, and want to know if I should just go with Bitdefender Internet Security, or keep the free Avast (or go with Avira) and keep using Malwarebytes.
Please advise, thanks (Please no "Get a Mac!" responses ROFL).
Use the built in Microsoft Defender.
Ghostery for the browser....
Please. I'd rather just not have anything instead of using Defender.
Keyloggers are the most likely danger you face. A keylogger can get your URL, username and password to any account you have, like your bank account, for instance.
Even keeping all your passwords in a text file and copy-and-pasting them when you need one will go a long way to protecting you from online identity theft.
If you want a password program, KeePass is free and works well.
Also, do not go online with Windows logged into an administrative account. Always use a user account with non-administrative privileges, otherwise things can be installed without your being aware.
geek squad uses malwarebytes and ccleaner...
add avast and ya got what most us seasoned pro’s use...LOL
You mean the Asus does weird things seemingly without prompting?
Ghostery indeed on this one.
I use both McAfee and Symantec (Norton) at home and Sophos at the office. They all pretty much do the job but I prefer McAfee.
I use Trend Micro and their customer support feature. They fix problems remotely. Good and they keep fixing it until it is done. Had a pop up intermittent music virus that took a while to find, but they did it.
Lot of my life and work is on the computer so worth the cost about 70 a year.
We have used Avast on all of our devices for years.
I’m not qualified to recommend which to use, but really, I think that you should use an “internet security” which includes an antivirus. I do recommend that you look on Amazon.com, I think that they have some of the most competitive prices.
FWIW, I asked my company’s IT guy what he uses, and he recommended one called Vipre. I’ve been using it for three years or so and have no complaints and no viruses or malware.
I had to get something else after becoming totally frustrated with McAfee, which allowed a virus to infect my XP machine (this was back in 2008) for which there was no “antidote” and no repair possible; the machine was basically bricked.
The machine I replaced it (an IBM Think Pad) had Avast pre-loaded. It wasn’t bad, but I didn’t like it that much. Unfortunately, I can’t remember exactly what it was that bothered me about it, because I upgraded to Vipre when I got my next laptop, and have since added it to my tower.
As always, YMMV. Vipre is (I think) about $90 for two years
for a license that will protect up to (IIRC) ten computers on a home network. In my house we have six.
Most broadband providers are now providing antivirus software for free. Check with yours. XFinity uses Norton Defender and mine works exceptionally well.
Format the hard drive of your old computer.
Install fresh copy of windows. That will remove any viruses.
Access only your sensitive web sites only on the old computer. Such as banks, brokers etc.
Use the new computer for all other browsing without anti-virus. It will run faster! If it catches a virus, no big deal, you got nothing sensitive on it.
Good advice, thanks. I will discontinue doing this.
It's impressive how far Linux has come.
The machine had Vista "Ultimate" and was getting bogged down with who knows what exactly and there was no way I was going to Win10. I'm impressed with the machine's new function.
The company I work for ran comparisons on Microsoft Defender, Norton AV and McAfee. The result after 6 months was no difference between them. They all found the same malware. The MS Defender is free. After the company’s tests I took McAfee off my machine and replaced it with Defender.
Most antivirus programs, however, only look for viruses that are less than about 3 years old. They’d interfere too much if they did more. I do like Trend Micro’s free “house call” though. It looks for the normal stuff but also contagions that are many years old. Go to the Trend Micro site and run the house call. It downloads a small kernel and a set of virus profiles and then proceeds to scan for everything under the sun. It’s amazing that it finds stuff the big 3 miss. I go there and run it about every 2 months or so.
Anti-virus stuff is serious stuff and you should not be without it.
I have used Avast and Advanced System Care ( both free) for years, and have had zero serious problems on multiple machines.
I’m not going to do that, that means I have to switch computers every other half hour.
Oh, I remember one thing that bothered me a little. Avast is headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic.
GFI Software, the company that makes Vipre, is headquartered in Durham, North Carolina.
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