BYYB Forums

When I bought my computer 3 years ago McAfee antivirus program was included. The subscription is up and it cost $69 to renew for one year. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a cheaper (or free) one.

Thanks, joel

http://tinyurl.com/a3ma6d

There's AVGFree, Avast, BitDefender, and Clamwin, among many others.

I'd also recommend CCleaner, MalwareBytes, and Spybot for other "stuff".

Peace,
Roland

PS: ;-)

I've had excellent coverage for years with Avira AntiVir. Totally free, easy to use and configure for the kind of protection you want, and free updates too!  http://www.free-av.com/

You should also stop using Microsoft products on your computer as they are nothing but a collection of virus delivery mechanisms. 

Use a Mac instead.  Or, if you are really advenurous, try a Linux variant (redhat, suse, Knoppix, ubantu, debian etc.)

If you must use a Windows based PC, then at least stop using Internet Explorer as a browser and Outlook as a mail client.  Both are evil.  They pretty much ignore the standards about document types, mime types, and generally what servers tell them they are sending in the data stream.  Instead, they try to guess what the document type is by examining the first 200 or so bytes of the actual data stream and interpreting what is there.  The excuse was that in the early days of the internet people frequently misconfigured web servers and then wondered why things didn't work.  So Microsoft decided it was better to "help out stupid people" than to adhere to standards.  Unfortunately, today it means that I can stuff a virus into a text file or the comment and EXIF fields of a .jpg image file and then mail it to you and the Microsoft products will execute that code because "they know better".  According to Microsoft, you must have a misconfigured web or mail server because you are sending me code and calling it an image file.  Argh!  Honestly, they are the ones who should be prosecuted in virus cases.  Virusi would not exist without Microsoft !!!

Use the Firefox web browser instead.  Or the Opera web browser.

Use Thunderbird as an E-mail client.

Both are available at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

Seriously, I have an Windows 2000 box behind a hardware router/firewall without virus protection that is virus free after years of internet surfing ... but I use Firefox and Thunderbird. 

Check with your Internet Service Provider, as you might be able to get good virus protection for "free".  I have Comcast high speed cable access and the monthly charge includes free McAffee virus protection.  The ISPs do have an incentive here as virusi tend to eat their bandwidth wich makes it more expensive for them to provide you service.

Cheers,
Tom

While I don't agree with everything tombayus has said, he has good advice on the ISPs providing free or discounted versions of good antivirus products.  Please check them out.  Also, check with where you work.  Sometimes companies have licenses for their employees (or retired members) to take copies of software home for free or reduced costs (this includes more than just Anti-Virus Software).

If you are using browsers other than IE, DO NOT BELIEVE you are safe.  I'm in IT induistry and I get posts from our security groups regarding the other browsers as well as IE on a fairly regular basis.  MS products are more notorious because more people use them, thus more effort is put into hacking them.  They ALL get hacked eventually.  Yes - even Firefox browser or Macs OS.  Have a devil of a time with people who thought they were safe and weren't and then suddenly strange things happen on their "safe" Macs.

Best thing you can do is is to keep checking that your Operating System and Web Browsers have the latest patches.  I recommended that you check once a month.  Most modern Operating Systems have an Auto-Update feature that will "phone home" to see if there's been anything changed.  Remember, they ALL want your system to run as well as possible (even Microsoft). 

You should be checking for new Anti-Virus Pattern updates (signature files, etc) on your virus software at least once a day (better yet, if the software is capable of it, have it check automatically once every hour or two just in case you forget to check). Please - make sure the "real-time scan" is enabled or it's like having a safe with the door left wide open...

Even though you may have Anti-Virus software running all the time, you should run a manual, full scan regularly (once a week is usually good).  This is because pattern updates only catch known viruses.  It is possible to be hit by a virus before the software company is aware of it and writes the detection into the pattern file.  You will then not catch it unless you do a manual scan.  You should also run a program like AdAware or Spybot once a week as well.  (If you are ultra-paranoid, you can try to find two Anti-Virus programs that will co-exist on a single machine.  Every AV program works slightly different and sometimes one method works better on some virus than others.)

And number one rule: DON'T SAVE YOUR PASSWORDS IN THE BROWSER!!!  It may be inconvenient, but that's what most hacks are looking for.  If it's not there, they cannot steal it.

Finally - BACKUP YOUR DATA OFTEN!  Even if you burn it onto CDs or DVDs with a virus embedded, you can still recover most of your data.  You may need help, but in the end, someone should be able to help you.

Good Luck!

Greetings Bruce,

Sorry Bruce, but you must have misunderstood what I wrote.  I was not talking about taking advantage of bad coding habits and outright mistakes.  Bad programmers are everywhere.  Most of the ones I work with can't program their way out of a wet paper bag.  So there will always be opportunities.  You cannot prove the absence of bugs ... Alan Turing.

What I was talking about was a deliberate decision by Microsoft to IGNORE the very standards that they had a hand in creating.  In my humble opinion, their behavior is criminal.

For example, let's test the browser you are using right now.  When you connect to a web site, your browser and the web server exchange a fair amount of information about each other.  Your browser says, hi, I would like the file that matches this URL, and then supplies a list of file formats that it will actually accept, ... text, text/html, images, etc.  The server then finds the file that both matches the URL and is listed as one of the file types that your browser will accept.  The server then says to your browser ... here's the file you requested ... and it happens to be of type whatever ... and here it comes.  A MicroSoft browser will IGNORE what the server says about the file types and will try to interpret the data as it comes from the web server, possibly executing code if it is possible.  Argh.  This is evil.

Now for a real test.  Click on each of the following links.  (I promise, no virus delivered, just a simple demonstration)

http://home.comcast.net/~tomsweekender/test.html

http://home.comcast.net/~tomsweekender/test.txt

The files are identical and contain the same text, a cut down index page from my very lame weekender web site.  However, the Comcast web server hosting the pages will be telling your browser that the first link returns a file of data type text/html, while the second is just plain text.  Web browsers like Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc will try to interpret the first link as a web page, and will display the second link as plain text, because that is what they were instructed to do.  MicroSoft's Internet Exploder will interpret BOTH.  So if the MicroSoft browser was explicitly told that it was getting plain text, why did it display it as a web page?  It did something it should not have done.  Had the file contained javascript, the code would have executed in Internet Explorer.  This "I know better" attitude from MicroSoft is the biggest exploited virus delivery mechanism out there.  MicroSoft products are a whole order of magnitude more dangerous because of this conscious design decision.  And it's in everything they make ... browsers, e-mail clients, word processors, etc.

Use something else and you will be much safer.

If you really wanted to be safe, you would surf the internet as a non-privileged user running a Mozilla variant on an OpenVMS system as the hardware and OS enforce security standards and close up all of those bad programming holes.  It's impossible to write a virus for VMS.  But hey, most people can't spell VMS, and cannot appreciate the difference.

But, Yes, I absolutely agree, just because you use non-MicroSoft software on x86 hardware doesn't mean you are safe, just safer.  You still have to do virus scans and keep your software up to date. 

All of your recommendations are spot on.

Good backups are a must.  Once a month I boot my Windoze laptop from a Knoppix Linux CD and rip a copy of the C: drive to a 1/2 terrabyte USB hard drive, boot blocks and all.  Very fast, and easier to recover than a normal windoze backup.

Cheers,
Tom

Thanks for all the input guys. I downloaded the free versions of Avira and Adaware from the CNET site. There is a dizzying array of these types of products available, all claiming to do the best job. I guess this is why most casual computer users like myself just buy a well known product like McaFee. 

I am using gmail for all my email now and I really like it. I get zero spam. My main browser is firefox but I am also trying Chrome which seems to be working nicely.

Any thoughts on firewalls?

joel

Hi Joel.

Agreed - a firewall is also a good idea!  (I'm slapping myself for forgetting to mention it!)  :-\

I'm using combined hardware and software on my machines.  Hardware in the form of one of those ethernet switches designed for home use and a corperate software firewall that we're allowed to take home.  Suggest you check with your ISP or where you work to see if they have a free software solution as well.  Even the MS Firewall is better than nothing.

Many Antivirus suites come with a built-in or seperate firewall as well.  These are nice because they are designed to work WITH the virus scanner.  I'm not so familiar with the various free virus scanners, but if you've chosen one, check and see what they have.  Also, check with local area experts to see what they recommend.  If you get into trouble - they're probably the ones who you'll go to for help.  The can help more easily with something they are familiar with than some new strange product.

Again - check for updates to both (hardware and software) once a month.

Hi Tom.

I didn't misunderstand you at all.  I've been in the great MS debates (Pro and Against - mostly neutral) since DOS 4.0.  Your post is anti-MS and I can respect that.  From your writing, you have made an intelligent decision based on experience and skill level.  The problem with your first post was a rookie could have taken your stated view as gospel and assume he (or she) was safe without using best practices.  Hence my post.  I don't recommend solutions to anyone without sitting down and working with them a bit to become familiar with what they do or how they do it.

FWIW, myself and everyone I work with have IE on our machines as well as other browser(s) for one simple reason.  Some sites and online tools won't work with anything else.  I have MAC friends who are frustrated to no end as a result.

So to everyone:
- check out your local experts (local computing club, trustworthy stores, the local Geek, etc)
- talk out your problems, questions and get their recommendations.  Get them to demonstrate if they will.
- TEST and see if you can access or do whatever work you do on those systems/products.
- EXPECT a learning curve - things will be slower as you learn new products.
- If you can swing it, get a "spare" system that you can experiment with. 
- be prepared to have to rebuild you system several times while you experiment. BACKUP YOUR DATA OFTEN!

Ultimately - someone online telling you to what to use is useless if you cannot get in touch with us for assistance when it all hits the FAN!  You NEED a local body you can trust in the worst case scenarios.  If you can't find anyone using LINUX or MACs, then they're probably not the best solutions for you.  If you can find someone who can demonstrate them - PLEASE try to explore the alternatives.  You may find a better solution or eventually go back to Windows because you can't. 

DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR HELP!  (Even WINDOWS experts!)

Good Luck and Safe Surfing in the New Year!

dont ever pay for virus protection.  clean your computer off with malwarebytes and then install microsoft security essentials and be done with it.

I use a hardware firewall and a bit of common sense.  I have 6 computers networked and hooked to the internet and none have ever contracted a virus.  The 3 I use for internet access have gotten hit with spyware on occasion.  I use Adaware and pestpatrol for spyware and malware concerns.

The common sense I spoke of is:
1- Never open anything with an attachement unless the person sending it has contacted me previously with an email that tells me they are going to send an email with an attachment and clearly identifies them as the sender and not just their email address as the sender.  I have them put key words and phrases in the email subject line that a virus infecting their computer and sending out emails to people in their address book would not know to include.
2- I do not accept or receive email that I don't preapprove.  It is called white listing.  If you send me an email and I have not preapproved you it is held up at the isp server as junk mail.  It does prevent long lost friends from contacting me but I am willing to live with that.
3- Shut off any automatic email functions.  Things like auto downloading email every # minutes, auto sending email after you have written it and especially the preview features in email clients.  Leave preview on and it opens the last email you have received displaying the contents in a preview window.  This also opens or activates any virus included in the email (doesn not open attachments).  This should be obvious but I still find it on friends computers so it is worth mentioning.
4- This is as much curtesy as safety but I don't forward emails I receive.  I Either cut and past the parts out that I think should be referred to someone or type them over in my own words if a direct quote is not needed.  Forwarding things that you get, especially if you are on a group list, includes everyone's name on the group and can be inconsiderate or even dangerous.  One example was a friend who sent and received emails from a group that included about 7 people of arabic heritage.  After 911 my friend started noticing his incomming and out going emails were being delayed so I traced their travel for him and sure enough they were all being routed through an AT&T server in San Francisco.  He could send an email to someone on his own isp and it would still go through that AT&T server.  They were being sniffed/examined by our government.  If you follow the thought process on this all he has to do is forward a joke or other email, either received from the group or going to you as well as that group, and you are now on a watch list.

I have always felt that if it is important enough that I think you should see it I should at least think enough of you to send you a personal private email.  It only takes seconds to cut and paste the part I want to send you into a new email.

I am not trying to sound high horse or down play virus infections or spyware.  They are a very real problem and my solutions only work because no one with any skill wants to mess with me.  I know a couple of different guys that could hack you no matter what platform, hardware fire wall or virus protection you use.  They don't do it but are capable.  They are not even in the same league with professional hackers so no system is truely safe.

According the the CIA the number one nation in the world for illegal hacking is Russia followed by Isreal.  You probably thought it was on of the far eastern nations but it is not.  Russia is as much run by the mob as it is the kgb and whatever form of government they put up for show.  Isreal suffers from a very real problem of highly educated young people that spend at least 2 years in military service and get out to find very few legitamate work opportunities.  That is a situation that can nudge people in to doing things they shouldn't.