how to get rid of 99.9% of viruses

[monty73741]

get norton
keep ur virus strings updated
& download your microsoft updates

[Talon_66]

Im not trying to bash you. But I worked tech support up until recently. I was under 2 Different contracts. Ive found that Norton/McAfee both REALLY suck when it comes to viruses. We never endorsed either. We ALWAYS recommended a customer use www.trendmicro.com. Way better then Norton, doesnt use up system resources like the power hungry Norton's does. And its FREE!

And on another Note, most Firewalls (Norton, McAfee, ZoneAlarm, etc) are just a big joke!

[perhapsadingo8yerbaby]

Yah, trendmicro is very good and does use less sys resources. Course, using the free version means getting popups buggin ya to register for the paid version but if someone doesn't mind that, then it's no big prob. I run Norton and Trendmicro concurrently/together though. I've seen cases where Norton missed a virus that was caught by Trendmicro and other cases where Trendmicro missed a virus that was caught by Norton.

[Talon_66]

Pop-ups on Trendmicro?! Really? I have no pop up blocker on my computer or Firewall, and I have never gotten a pop up while using it. Weird.

[perhapsadingo8yerbaby]

Yah, every hour or so I get a small popup near the system tray asking if I wanna register my serial number. If I click yes, it takes me to a "purchase version" Website of Trendmicro's. I just close it when it happens although their paid version is very reasonable-only like 30-$40. Maybe this is something something recent from them? I'm using their free download "trial PC-Cillin" product (which gives me auto scheduled scans & auto-live updates like Norton) and only started running it alongside Norton maybe a month or so ago.

[MX3-Freak]

I own the paid version, and I have for the past two years. I have personally used both paid versions of norton and TrendMicro, and I can honestly say TrendMicro is a far superior product. It is able to detect the same viruses as norton and is far less intrusive on everthing you do. Ie. the needless Norton Ghost and pop-up blocker (I use netscape, no need for one).

In a nutshell, if you are going to buy a full version, I would get Trend Micro. My $.02

Dingo, how stable is that dual program set-up you have? Seems like the two would conflict with eachother in some way. Then again, computer software confuses the hell out of me (im a hardware guy )

[Talon_66]

Like I said. I did tech support up until recently for a 2 letter computer company (unable to reveal contracts ) I worked with people of all walks of life at that job. I worked with a guy who once gave a presentation on software to Bill Gates, and has programmed many servers, and lots of other things I never paid attention too. Many computer programmers, etc. The list goes on. Not one of them would touch Norton or McAfee with a 10ft pole. After using both I would have to agree, its a far superior product then Norton ever will be. Plus if it can't remove a virus it gives u a walk-through on how to remove them.

[perhapsadingo8yerbaby]

Originally posted by MX3-Freak:
...how stable is that dual program set-up you have? Seems like the two would conflict with eachother in some way. Then again, computer software confuses the hell out of me (im a hardware guy )

No stability probs whatsoever on my end & no conflicts either. I've read user reviews claiming performance issues (crashes) from a few Trendmicro users and of course Norton uses a lot of sys resources that can slow down a PC. I run with 1GB RAM on my desktop PC and 512K RAM on my laptop so that likely helps keep performance from degrading. I'm also not a gamer so no real hi-intensity hi-res graphics compete for resources either.

[jordan69]

download AVG antivirus, this program is amazing, it found over 11 different viruses/worms/trojans in one shot that norton could not pick up, norton sucks. and also this program is free.

[monty73741]

u see...
i personally like norton b/c that what i use @ work b/c it is so intrusive.......
i cant tell u how many times people open mails that have virus (even if it says virus)
I can turn my mail off & we dont use a mail server b/c in my office each agent is responsible for there own email

[Nd4SpdSe]

Trend-Micro's PC-Cillin Internet Security 2004...I've worked at a local (and very well known) computer store for over 2 years and i've never seen such a great anti-virus. In the time I've been there, I've only seen 2 machines have a virus squeeze through an upto date PC-Cillin. It catches almost every virus and updates way more often than Norton, actually by default it check and updates every 3 hours. Unfortunately i see at least 1 pc a week with an upto date Norton have an virus get through, absolutely disgusting. And Every few weeks Norton seems to cause some sort of headaches, either it can't be installed, can't be uninstalled or causes the whole system to get f*cked up and needs a format re-install. Norton is a major system resource hog, especially at startup. McAfee isn't as popular at Norton, but seems to do a better job and cause less problems than Norton, but funny enough, McAfee uses Norton's scan engine. A local car GM car dealership bought a multi-user license of Norton and upon installing it, it basically took down their whole network. They switched to McAfee and no problems since...i don't know why they didnt go PC-Cillin, or the whole story, it was my boss that took case of it.

As for free AV's. AVG is a joke. Ask the old couple we cleaned slightly over 6000 instances of the NetSky virus off their pc over easter weekend. We are currently giving Avast! 4 Home a trial run, so far not bad, it let a vew viruses onto my machine that i needed to use Pc-Cillin to clean up recently(and btw, never run 2 anti-viruses a at the same time on a pc)

<small>[ July 05, 2004, 08:28 PM: Message edited by: Nd4SpdSe ]</small>

[perhapsadingo8yerbaby]

Yeah, gotta say I'm pretty impressed with the PC-Cillin from Trendmicro. Been running the eval version for awhile now as well as Norton which I've used for a few years. My Norton license expires soon so I plan on going with the registered autoupdated (paid) release of Cillin. Thanks for your experience-based POV too!

[angelo]

I downloaded the Anti Virus Program of the recomended one and I must admit that it is working very good. I also am running MC Afee firewall and having no conflicts with the 2 together..

Thanks for the info...

Angelo

[Andrew_Pakula]

In addition to Anti-Virus programs and using Microsofts windowsupdate, I highly recommend running some anti-spyware programs like Spybot - Search and Destroy:

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

If you have never run any anti-spyware program then you'll be suprised how much junk programs that are probably on your system wasting your system resources and internet connection.

Well worth the time of downloading and running this program.

[perhapsadingo8yerbaby]

Originally posted by Andrew_Pakula:
In addition to Anti-Virus programs and using Microsofts windowsupdate, I highly recommend running some anti-spyware programs like Spybot - Search and Destroy:

Well worth the time of downloading and running this program.

Agreed. I use Spybot-Search and Destroy + Lavasoft Ad-aware and they catch an amazing amt. of "secret" stuff on the PC that ya would't know about otherwise... at least until your browser home-page was changed without your knowledge and a dozen (or dozens) of browser windows and ads greeted you every time yaopened a browser window.