Best antivirus protection to go for
Dec 17, 2014, 11:30 am
#136
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: LGA - JFK
Programs: UA, AA, DL, B6, CX, KE, Latitude, VIFP, Crown & Anchor, etc.
Posts: 2,589
On private/home use and small business running various Windows platforms ( 50+ computers since I'm the defacto IT support for extended families, friends & coworkers, etc. - standalone & networked mode) we've been using AVAST and AVG for years with very minimal to no major infections on most of them, only a few run on MSE, for antivirus protection - coupled with good/strong firewall protection (i.e. wireless modes for laptop/netbook, etc.)
AVG is better with less "active" user input on a regular basis (upgrade/update, etc.) once configured/automated whereas AVAST can be a pain for the casual user with its frequent prompts - all their email "ads" for the registered account purposes go into a filtered account so it doesn't clutter up my smartphone "InBox". I do leave $S's Windows Defender installed & running as a fallback, as it's installed by default for the OS anyway.
Even with no virus alerts, I do run full scan things with Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and CCleaner at least once or twice a year - and while doing so, quick look at the PC's installed programs and startup, etc. As for Norton products, ditched them 15+ years ago (Win 98/2000 days) & never looked back (still got those old boxed 3.5" floppies, LOL) Off-topic, Linux Mint OS are my favorite for browsing as they run nicely on older hardware & easy on resources, skipping over the Chromebook for now (dual-booting on my home server)
AVG is better with less "active" user input on a regular basis (upgrade/update, etc.) once configured/automated whereas AVAST can be a pain for the casual user with its frequent prompts - all their email "ads" for the registered account purposes go into a filtered account so it doesn't clutter up my smartphone "InBox". I do leave $S's Windows Defender installed & running as a fallback, as it's installed by default for the OS anyway.
Even with no virus alerts, I do run full scan things with Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and CCleaner at least once or twice a year - and while doing so, quick look at the PC's installed programs and startup, etc. As for Norton products, ditched them 15+ years ago (Win 98/2000 days) & never looked back (still got those old boxed 3.5" floppies, LOL) Off-topic, Linux Mint OS are my favorite for browsing as they run nicely on older hardware & easy on resources, skipping over the Chromebook for now (dual-booting on my home server)
Oct 20, 2015, 11:17 am
#137
Join Date: Feb 1999
Location: T82
Programs: AA Gold, HH Gold
Posts: 2,845
What should I go for between a basic Ant-Virus, an "Internet Security" suite, and something like an all around suite like Norton 360?
And does anyone have some reviews of the following?:
ESET
F-Secure
Panda
Trend Micro
Webroot
Vipre
I don't plan to go back to Avast, AVG or Norton. Avast and AVG were just hard for me to navigate through. Too many menus I couldn't understand.
And does anyone have some reviews of the following?:
ESET
F-Secure
Panda
Trend Micro
Webroot
Vipre
I don't plan to go back to Avast, AVG or Norton. Avast and AVG were just hard for me to navigate through. Too many menus I couldn't understand.
Oct 20, 2015, 1:24 pm
#138
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Exclusively OMNI/PR, for Reasons
Posts: 4,188
I had eset last year and it let a virus through on both mine and husband's computers. So this year when eset was done on my computer, I got Kaspersky. Up until two weeks ago it was fine. Then we went away for 10 days and computer was off. When I turned it back on, the CPU runs at about 80-95% and is exceedingly slow. I called Kaspersky and their "fix" is to turn off the anti-banner button. It didn't help. Not happy with them at all now and I understand they're having problems with Windows 10...I'm still on Windows 7. I am also now looking for a new a/v.
My only other gripe with Kaspersky is their rootkit scan, which kicks off at something like 10am Eastern. It impacts performance enough to fire up the fan on my Lenovo T420, but it's not noticeable when I'm working on something. It also suspends operation when the laptop is running on battery so it shouldn't be a power drain. I would prefer that the start time be adjustable, though, thus my gripe.
Oct 21, 2015, 4:27 pm
#139
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 1,684
Honestly, go with none. Anything new enough to be contageous won't be caught by it anyways and they don't protect against or remove trojans typically. The Antivirus has the net effect of making you take risky behavior. That video of obama admitting he's a martian from kenya or angelina jolies private videos are just something you shoudln't click on in your email. Either that or just change to a mac.
Oct 21, 2015, 5:57 pm
#140
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Denver, CO, USA
Programs: Sometimes known as [ARG:6 UNDEFINED]
Posts: 26,694
I've used Avast for years and am quite happy, with two niggles: It likes to (I assume) false alarm on aa.com web pages sporadically; and it likes to push up little popups from time to time from the bottom of the screen to tell me how dangerous it is not to use all their pay-for features. It's free, so I can live with that.
Oct 27, 2015, 10:23 pm
#145
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Singapore, Warsaw, Surfers Paradise
Programs: KrisFlyer Gold>>>Silver>>>Blue, Finnair Silver, Royal Caribbean Diamond
Posts: 5,174
As for Norton products, ditched them 15+ years ago (Win 98/2000 days) & never looked back (still got those old boxed 3.5" floppies, LOL) Off-topic, Linux Mint OS are my favorite for browsing as they run nicely on older hardware & easy on resources, skipping over the Chromebook for now (dual-booting on my home server)
And now I'm using a Chromebook that is so secure there are no viruses or antiviruses. Lovin' it.
Feb 11, 2016, 5:05 pm
#148
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Somewhere In The Five Eyes
Posts: 228
At best, anti-virus products are ~20% solutions. Some of them are deceitful. I consider others unnecessarily risky.
Anti-virus from the ... file: Trend Micro Anti-virus - UNinstall it now
Includes an unsecured back-door that permits anyone esle with network access to remotely run commands on your system. The integral password vault will also reveal your passwords. The architecture is so fundamentally flawed that this will not be an easy fix. Again: Uninstall this product. Really.
Anti-Virus Product as Spyware: AVG (Free edition)
AVG has updated the ToS for their free product. If you clicked "I Accept," they will begin harvesting & selling your internet usage & appl usage: "We collect non-personal data to make money from our free offerings so we can keep them free, including:
Advertising ID associated with your device; Browsing and search history, including meta-data; Internet service provider or mobile network you use to connect to our products; and Information regarding other applications you may have on your device and how they are used. Sometimes browsing history or search history contains terms that might identify you. If we become aware that part of your browsing history might identify you, we will treat that portion of your history as personal data, and will anonymize this information."
Anti-virus products that unnecessarily increase risk: Avast, ESET & Kaspersky Labs
All are capable of cracking HTTPS encryption via MiTM. They screw-up their TLS/SSL connection:decryption:scan:RE-ENCRYPTION ... and that's a VERY bad thing. For me, this architecture lowers the bar too far, considering the increased risk that accompanies it. There are ways to accomplish this task, without the unnecessary risks.
Once out'd, all three issued mea culpas and promised fixes. But did they reform their thinking? What the heck else might they be hiding? Beats me. All three are dead to me.
Avast: By default intercepts all encrypted traffic; except from sites using EV certs.
Kaspersky: By default intercepts traffic to certain important websites (ecommerce, banking, etc); except sites using EV certs.
ESET: By default doesn’t intercept any traffic unless the user enables this
option; except sites using EV certs.
The problems with anti-virus products:
ESET: Does not support TLS 1.2 and therefore uses a less secure encryption
algorithm. Nor do they support OCSP stapling.
Kaspersky: Enables the insecure TLS compression feature that will make a user vulnerable to the "CRIME" exploit. Also accepts nonsensical params for Diffie Hellman key exchanges.
Avast: Bundles the Google Chrome browser (excellent TLS/SSL features) ... then immediately lowers Chrome's default security while display a "Secure" (not!) label.
What anti-virus products can be trusted? Beats me. I have not researched
Microsoft's Windows Defender or MalwareBytes.
Anti-virus from the ... file: Trend Micro Anti-virus - UNinstall it now
Includes an unsecured back-door that permits anyone esle with network access to remotely run commands on your system. The integral password vault will also reveal your passwords. The architecture is so fundamentally flawed that this will not be an easy fix. Again: Uninstall this product. Really.
Anti-Virus Product as Spyware: AVG (Free edition)
AVG has updated the ToS for their free product. If you clicked "I Accept," they will begin harvesting & selling your internet usage & appl usage: "We collect non-personal data to make money from our free offerings so we can keep them free, including:
Advertising ID associated with your device; Browsing and search history, including meta-data; Internet service provider or mobile network you use to connect to our products; and Information regarding other applications you may have on your device and how they are used. Sometimes browsing history or search history contains terms that might identify you. If we become aware that part of your browsing history might identify you, we will treat that portion of your history as personal data, and will anonymize this information."
Anti-virus products that unnecessarily increase risk: Avast, ESET & Kaspersky Labs
All are capable of cracking HTTPS encryption via MiTM. They screw-up their TLS/SSL connection:decryption:scan:RE-ENCRYPTION ... and that's a VERY bad thing. For me, this architecture lowers the bar too far, considering the increased risk that accompanies it. There are ways to accomplish this task, without the unnecessary risks.
Once out'd, all three issued mea culpas and promised fixes. But did they reform their thinking? What the heck else might they be hiding? Beats me. All three are dead to me.
Avast: By default intercepts all encrypted traffic; except from sites using EV certs.
Kaspersky: By default intercepts traffic to certain important websites (ecommerce, banking, etc); except sites using EV certs.
ESET: By default doesn’t intercept any traffic unless the user enables this
option; except sites using EV certs.
The problems with anti-virus products:
ESET: Does not support TLS 1.2 and therefore uses a less secure encryption
algorithm. Nor do they support OCSP stapling.
Kaspersky: Enables the insecure TLS compression feature that will make a user vulnerable to the "CRIME" exploit. Also accepts nonsensical params for Diffie Hellman key exchanges.
Avast: Bundles the Google Chrome browser (excellent TLS/SSL features) ... then immediately lowers Chrome's default security while display a "Secure" (not!) label.
What anti-virus products can be trusted? Beats me. I have not researched
Microsoft's Windows Defender or MalwareBytes.
Feb 12, 2016, 3:59 am
#149
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: ORD
Programs: AA, UA, GE
Posts: 5,123
At best, anti-virus products are ~20% solutions. Some of them are deceitful. I consider others unnecessarily risky.
Anti-virus from the ... file: Trend Micro Anti-virus - UNinstall it now
Includes an unsecured back-door that permits anyone esle with network access to remotely run commands on your system. The integral password vault will also reveal your passwords. The architecture is so fundamentally flawed that this will not be an easy fix. Again: Uninstall this product. Really.
Anti-Virus Product as Spyware: AVG (Free edition)
AVG has updated the ToS for their free product. If you clicked "I Accept," they will begin harvesting & selling your internet usage & appl usage: "We collect non-personal data to make money from our free offerings so we can keep them free, including:
Advertising ID associated with your device; Browsing and search history, including meta-data; Internet service provider or mobile network you use to connect to our products; and Information regarding other applications you may have on your device and how they are used. Sometimes browsing history or search history contains terms that might identify you. If we become aware that part of your browsing history might identify you, we will treat that portion of your history as personal data, and will anonymize this information."
Anti-virus products that unnecessarily increase risk: Avast, ESET & Kaspersky Labs
All are capable of cracking HTTPS encryption via MiTM. They screw-up their TLS/SSL connection:decryption:scan:RE-ENCRYPTION ... and that's a VERY bad thing. For me, this architecture lowers the bar too far, considering the increased risk that accompanies it. There are ways to accomplish this task, without the unnecessary risks.
Once out'd, all three issued mea culpas and promised fixes. But did they reform their thinking? What the heck else might they be hiding? Beats me. All three are dead to me.
Avast: By default intercepts all encrypted traffic; except from sites using EV certs.
Kaspersky: By default intercepts traffic to certain important websites (ecommerce, banking, etc); except sites using EV certs.
ESET: By default doesn’t intercept any traffic unless the user enables this
option; except sites using EV certs.
The problems with anti-virus products:
ESET: Does not support TLS 1.2 and therefore uses a less secure encryption
algorithm. Nor do they support OCSP stapling.
Kaspersky: Enables the insecure TLS compression feature that will make a user vulnerable to the "CRIME" exploit. Also accepts nonsensical params for Diffie Hellman key exchanges.
Avast: Bundles the Google Chrome browser (excellent TLS/SSL features) ... then immediately lowers Chrome's default security while display a "Secure" (not!) label.
What anti-virus products can be trusted? Beats me. I have not researched
Microsoft's Windows Defender or MalwareBytes.
Anti-virus from the ... file: Trend Micro Anti-virus - UNinstall it now
Includes an unsecured back-door that permits anyone esle with network access to remotely run commands on your system. The integral password vault will also reveal your passwords. The architecture is so fundamentally flawed that this will not be an easy fix. Again: Uninstall this product. Really.
Anti-Virus Product as Spyware: AVG (Free edition)
AVG has updated the ToS for their free product. If you clicked "I Accept," they will begin harvesting & selling your internet usage & appl usage: "We collect non-personal data to make money from our free offerings so we can keep them free, including:
Advertising ID associated with your device; Browsing and search history, including meta-data; Internet service provider or mobile network you use to connect to our products; and Information regarding other applications you may have on your device and how they are used. Sometimes browsing history or search history contains terms that might identify you. If we become aware that part of your browsing history might identify you, we will treat that portion of your history as personal data, and will anonymize this information."
Anti-virus products that unnecessarily increase risk: Avast, ESET & Kaspersky Labs
All are capable of cracking HTTPS encryption via MiTM. They screw-up their TLS/SSL connection:decryption:scan:RE-ENCRYPTION ... and that's a VERY bad thing. For me, this architecture lowers the bar too far, considering the increased risk that accompanies it. There are ways to accomplish this task, without the unnecessary risks.
Once out'd, all three issued mea culpas and promised fixes. But did they reform their thinking? What the heck else might they be hiding? Beats me. All three are dead to me.
Avast: By default intercepts all encrypted traffic; except from sites using EV certs.
Kaspersky: By default intercepts traffic to certain important websites (ecommerce, banking, etc); except sites using EV certs.
ESET: By default doesn’t intercept any traffic unless the user enables this
option; except sites using EV certs.
The problems with anti-virus products:
ESET: Does not support TLS 1.2 and therefore uses a less secure encryption
algorithm. Nor do they support OCSP stapling.
Kaspersky: Enables the insecure TLS compression feature that will make a user vulnerable to the "CRIME" exploit. Also accepts nonsensical params for Diffie Hellman key exchanges.
Avast: Bundles the Google Chrome browser (excellent TLS/SSL features) ... then immediately lowers Chrome's default security while display a "Secure" (not!) label.
What anti-virus products can be trusted? Beats me. I have not researched
Microsoft's Windows Defender or MalwareBytes.
Feb 12, 2016, 4:33 am
#150
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Somewhere In The Five Eyes
Posts: 228
> Comodo?
I have not studied Comodo's anti-virus. But Comodo does have a poor track record when it comes to security and privacy.
Their web browser is something to definitely avoid. A wolf dressed as a sheep. Google's analysis:
https://code.google.com/p/google-sec.../detail?id=704
Comodo partners with malware firms - the CEO of Comodo is also the CEO of a malvertising firm.
IIRC, Their technology was behind the the Superfish and PrivDog privacy busting exploits.
Me? I do not trust Comodo. You get to make your own decisions.
Vendors of security products should do no harm, but it seems that many of them indeed choose to act in undisclosed ways that increase risk.
I have not studied Comodo's anti-virus. But Comodo does have a poor track record when it comes to security and privacy.
Their web browser is something to definitely avoid. A wolf dressed as a sheep. Google's analysis:
https://code.google.com/p/google-sec.../detail?id=704
Comodo partners with malware firms - the CEO of Comodo is also the CEO of a malvertising firm.
IIRC, Their technology was behind the the Superfish and PrivDog privacy busting exploits.
Me? I do not trust Comodo. You get to make your own decisions.
Vendors of security products should do no harm, but it seems that many of them indeed choose to act in undisclosed ways that increase risk.
Last edited by gqZJzU4vusf0Z2,$d7; Feb 12, 2016 at 4:57 am