It is free and open source. I does not delete virii, but identifies them so the user can delet them. It also has a version the runs on Linux that I use.
Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
Posted on 09/22/2015 4:58:57 AM PDT by MarchonDC09122009
I have the paid version. I wonder if that will be affected?
Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
Thanks! Looking into the Linux.
You’re welcome.
Unfortunately, the current data privacy crisis is one of our own making.
Data brokers have no decency.
Lawmakers on both aisles accepting Millions from high tech donors, have sold us all out.
There’s not much momentum to fight this at the moment.
EPIC.org, and EFF.org are doing their best.
Phone and email offending companies letting them know you’re cancelling subscription to their offending service or product. That’s all we can practically do.
Offending high tech billionaires told us how much they regard your privacy:
“We seem to be following the advice of Scott McNealy, chairman of Sun Microsystems, who in 1999 said, “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” And the observation by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison: “The privacy you’re concerned about is largely an illusion. All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy.”
These comments could be dismissed as technology executives trying to minimize complaints about technology. But whatever we say about how much we value privacy, a close look at our actual behavior suggests we have gotten over it.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121962391804567765
Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
Losing AVG. Sorry guys. This makes AVG a virus.
Excellent! Thanks.
We use System Center Endpoint Protection, which is a licensed MS product. It seems pretty good here at work. I might pop for it and buy it.
System Center is a Microsoft suite of products that includes System Center Operations Manager, System Center Configuration Manager, and a raft of other products. I don’t think it’s a standalone install you can purchase, but I could be wrong.
MS Security Essentials is really as good as it gets for Microsoft home users, IMO. It’s lightweight and works with existing services on your machine. There’s almost zero bloat from it.
FYI: more on AVG selling user’s web history to data brokers.
Takeaway: Users must read the privacy terms and conditions carefully, and assume many companies obscure practices in legalese.
Please assume that many company’s free or paid software Apps running on your PC, laptop, phone, and tablet App now mine your:
Contacts, files, texts, photos, and some reserve the right to turn on your mic and camera for even more invasiveness.
You can use F-secure on your phone to identify, approve and deny an App’s access permissions.
Privacy advocates are trying to keep up with dizzying amount of clever ways your data is being harvested.
Will update as issues and solutions develop.
Thanks
https://iapp.org/news/a/on-the-paradox-of-the-simple-privacy-policy/
On the Paradox of the Simple Privacy Policy
Jedidiah Bracy
Jedidiah Bracy, CIPP/E, CIPP/US
Privacy Perspectives | Sep 22, 2015
On the Paradox of the Simple Privacy Policy
Sometimes you’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t.
That’s how it seems after watching the media react to changes in some companies’ privacy policies over the course of the last couple of weeks.
The latest controversy revolves around a bold move from anti-virus software maker AVG. On September 14, AVG issued a press release touting its new one-page privacy policy as a user-friendly statement that’s “simpler, clearer and more transparent,” according to AVG’s Chief Legal Officer Harvey Anderson. The move was a follow up to a promise made earlier in the year by the company’s CEO Gary Kovacs while keynoting the Mobile World Congress 2015. During that speech, Kovacs promised a simple privacy policy that users could understand.
On top of this bold move, AVG went a step further and challenged other companies to do the same.
Sounds good, right? Avoid the long, droning legalese of traditional privacy policies, where companies are criticized for trying to hide what they’re doing, and make something that consumers, and the media, can get behind. Increase transparency and bolster trust.
Well, that’s not exactly what’s happened so far.
Last week, PCWorld published a column with the headline, “AVG’s new privacy policy is uncomfortably honest about tracking users.” Columnist Jared Newman explains, “in making its privacy policy easier to understand, AVG has also opened itself up to a backlash.” The main concern is that AVG’s antivirus software tracks users’ web behavior. To wit: a post about the new privacy policy on Reddit received nearly 1,600 upvotes (as of last week) and a boatload of user comments—and though the comments were mostly from the paranoid, comments like these may be of concern to AVG: “Time to look for a new antivirus.”
Media criticism didn’t stop there and continues into this week. In a column for Slate on Tuesday with the headline, “When Anti-Virus Software Is Really Spyware,” Lily Hay Newman says the situation is “concerning” because essentially “the same product that is protecting people from adware, spyware and malware, might be exactly that.” She does give AVG credit for “being more up front about what it might do with user data, but that doesn’t mean the business model isn’t creepy.”
But is that business model any different from the way other anti-virus companies work? Or are they just more straight with how they’re explaining it and drawing attention to themselves by releasing a new, plain-language privacy policy? Who knows? It’s not discussed in Newman’s article, that’s for sure.
So, AVG goes against the grain and publishes a simple privacy policy and gets two weeks, and counting, of media flak. It doesn’t really seem like they’re getting much benefit for being up-front and transparent.
But is it better than the alternative?
Take, for another example, the media uproar surrounding Spotify’s recent privacy policy changes, which were delivered more in the old style of comprehensive legalese. Once it dropped, Wired reported on the music-streaming service’s “eerie” policy, one that “you can’t do squat about.” The column points out that Spotify “wants to go through your phone,” “be your Facebook friend,” and if you don’t like it, don’t use the service.
Since the language wasn’t plain, journalists were left to re-cast it, sometimes in a disparaging light.
The fallout was so bad, Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek released a statement apologizing to users for being vague in its new privacy policy. “We are in the middle of rolling out new terms and conditions and privacy policy and they’ve caused a lot of confusion about what kind of information we access and what we do with it. We apologize for that. We should have done a better job in communicating what these policies mean and how any information you choose to share will—and will not—be used.”
He then goes on record to “clear things up.” It’s true, he notes, that Spotify may ask permission to access photos, location, voice or contacts, but users will be asked for their express permission first. Ek also stated the company would revamp its privacy policy to be more clear about its changes. By early September, Spotify released a new, “plain language” privacy policy.
So, are privacy pros damned if they do write simple privacy policies, and damned if they don’t? Perhaps, but I think there’s good reason to argue for “simple is better.”
It’s true that some on Reddit said they won’t use AVG any longer, and, yes, Slate likens its anti-virus software to spyware. But they likely would have reacted to that information in the policy anyway, as they did with Spotify’s. Ultimately, I’m confident being honest with your customers will prevail. Yes, Slate’s Newman said, their business model is creepy, but she also conceded that at least they’re being up front with their consumers. And that’s a start. Giving them contextual notice and usable controls are likely the next.
PCWorld’s Jared Newman takes a similar sentiment. “AVG’s new policy illustrates exactly why companies tend to drown their data collection practices in legalese. There’s no penalty for doing so, and being transparent only invites more outrage. In that sense, AVG at least deserves credit for helping users make informed decisions.”
Yes, maybe being up front with your customers may invite outrage if you’re doing something they think is outrageous, but if you then provide controls to ameliorate the user concerns, trust can be cultivated. And what company doesn’t want the trust of its users?
Avira for it’s Heuristic anti-virus scanning.
Malware Bytes for relatively quick and surprisingly good scan and removal of malware and viri.
Norton’s anti-virus is pretty weak, but it’s Internet Security firewall is better than the default Windows one.
Kasperski is probably best paid, non-MS anti-virus product out there.
I used essentials for about two years, but when I started surfing in some rather dangerous locations, it allowed some stuff in, the stuff proliferated via windows restore system backups and to make a long story short, I had to reformat and reinstall..
I saved most of my data, but even so, it was infected in various locations. It kept popping up and each time I would delete because it would not repair.
AVAST was the best freebee I tried out. They have a sandbox that is pretty cool, and a startup scan, but it had some issues with my little bug that I picked up (in China),,,I was never sure I was cleaned up....
The fix I used after much experimentation was to buy Kaspersky.
That was a few years ago..I have never had a issue since.
AVG’s sucked too severely to use for years for other reasons anyway.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.