Anti virus program

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by cromag

On my Windows XP desktop:

Avast! free antivirus
ZoneAlarm free firewall
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware professional


plus:

HostsMan Hosts file manager
NoScript addon for Firefox
Cookie Whitelist for Firefox

Originally Posted by RZetlin

I use Avast.

I've heard good things about Avast.

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I used to run AVG free. That was until they did something to it to cause it to noticeably slow down the computer. I gave it up in favor of Comodo.

I've always had good luck with AVG in the past. I think it is getting too bloated lately.

[sadievan]

An update. I went into msconfig and disabled a few startup programs that I think may have been causing problems. Seems to have stopped the freezing. Will see how it does.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

[Joseph R]

My antivirus : OS X Mountain lion

[gmw]

I find Microsoft Security Essentials a good solution for Windows 7, I combine this with Comodo firewall (turning off their Defense+ crap and being careful not to install their Geek Buddy stuff).

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by gmw

I find Microsoft Security Essentials a good solution for Windows 7, I combine this with Comodo firewall (turning off their Defense+ crap and being careful not to install their Geek Buddy stuff).

Heard good things about MS Security Essentials also.

[SteveEisenberg]

Windows 8 - default configuration which includes Microsoft anti-virus

Linux - none

I don't use an anti-virus program.

Originally Posted by Joseph R

My antivirus : OS X Mountain lion

Macs are not immune to viruses. It's a (less and less common) huge misconception.

[mrscoach]

Originally Posted by elea

I don't use an anti-virus program.



Macs are not immune to viruses. It's a (less and less common) huge misconception.

My son, a computer nerd, has had every one of his friends using Apple computing devices come to him crying about their device not working. Each one had gotten a virus. They had all ignored his advice to get a good anti-virus.

[elcreative]

Nobody says they're immune (that is a huge misconception still dominant amongst Apple squishers ) but they just don't get targeted like PCs... now Trojans, Worms etc have had a number of exploits demonstrated as proof of concepts but basically very little in the wild and closer analysis points to social engineering being the biggest threat to Mac OS X... and you can't inoculate users against stupidity... and I do recommend the use of AV/Security software...

[Xanthe]

Norton Internet Security ever since they rewrote the whole program in 2009. Prior to that I had been a NOD32 user. Since I believe in a layered approach, I also have some other security programs running resident that don't conflict with NIS.

[Apache]

I too have been using Norton since they reworked it. It is not bloated anymore and has been getting some of the highest ratings since then.
I also am very careful about my internet usage and my email accounts.
Apache

[jmilica]

Originally Posted by mrscoach

My son, a computer nerd, has had every one of his friends using Apple computing devices come to him crying about their device not working. Each one had gotten a virus. They had all ignored his advice to get a good anti-virus.

What would be a good antivirus for Mac?

[MickiTee]

Norton for over a decade.

Are you sure its your anti-virus slowing your PC down? If you've had the AV for a while then its probably not the cause of your problem. If its a new version go back to the previous version and see if things improve.

A slow down can be caused by many things. If your disk is on the full side and fragmented as a result this will cause a slow down. A little housekeeping using Microsoft's Disk Cleanup or a something like CCleaner (free) will delete your cookies, temporary internet files, items in the Recycle Bin etc. Once this has been done you need to run a Defrag programme - more than once. If the disk hasn't been defragged for a while it WILL take three passes to fully defrag the disk.

Another possibility is new software that you may have installed recently. Some programmes eat resources so check how much memory is being used. Close things you're not using.

[Darqref]

Originally Posted by sadievan

An update. I went into msconfig and disabled a few startup programs that I think may have been causing problems. Seems to have stopped the freezing. Will see how it does.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

A couple of months ago, I discovered that AVG (free version) was writing to a log file on my C: drive, and it was up to about 50GB. Deleting that, and the file was immediately re-created, and started building again, reaching MB within minutes.

I've since changed to AVAST, but I'm not really happy (just lazy enough that I haven't found yet something else.