Number #1 son opened an attachment to an email sent to him by a friend this afternoon. You guessed it, the email was not knowingly sent by a friend, and the attachment of course was a virus. Here's the rub, the virus (W32.Beagle.BH@mm) is 6 months old. Norton Antivirus, with current definitions on the PC did not detect it, and the built in Norton on Yahoo did not detect it!

After spending almost 2 hours tonight fighting the virus (and winning!), I'm ready to toss Norton on its ....

Does anyone have any antivirus/firewall recommendations?

I'm not a huge McAfee fan

I've heard good things about Avast Antivirus . I tested Avast on the offending email (which is still in his yahoo email), it did catch it. Does anyone use Avast? Happy with it?

Thanks!

I use Trend Micro's PC-cillin, and so far I like it. It does everything that Norton does, but does not annyo me as much as Norton (such as no subcription fees). The 2002 version I have is regullarly updated which is a plus, and it always caught whatever virus came my way. I like the fact that you can send a report to Trend Micro about a quartined virus, and they will email you back rather quickly about how you can remove it.

Ive cant say much about McAffee, since ive always have had issues with their products. There is also AVG Antivirus, which is the best free antivirus available (I think updates are every other day).

Long time AVG fan.

I don't use a firewall as I trust my Linksys with Sveasoft to do that for me. I do run Microsoft spyware scanner.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/Get+AVG+FREE/lng/us/tpl/v5

Norton is way too bloated anyway, major resource hog.

I just dumped Norton AntiVirus and Firewall on my desktop yesterday for AVG antivirus and firewall. Norton was causing problems, difficult to configure, and for some reason the LiveUpdate wouldn't complete.

I use free AVG on my kids computer and once all the licenses for Norton are over everymachine in the house will be changed to AVG.

second that.

AVG has been working great, like the newer intereface, easier to use than the previous version.

I've been subscribed to McAfee for over three years. Never been infected.

Dump your PC. Get yourself a Mac!
Cheers
A.
PS Ready to be flamed!

I use Norton 2002. I bought updated CDs twice but was unable to get them to work with my computer. Evidently there is some sort of incompatibility with their more recent versions and Compac/Millenium. Or at least with MY computer and Norton 2004, etc.

But I was considerably more displeased with McAfee, which I bought after the dysfunctional Norton, about a year ago (think it was about a year? not sure). Problem was updating virus definitions with McAfee. In order to update virus definitions, I had to accept cookies from advertisers, including Doubleclick. That really annoyed me, since I use virus/firewall/spyware protection to avoid that sort of tracking.

May give AVG a try. Interesting information on ability to detect viruses. Thanks.

I dumbed Norton for Zone Alarm -- it takes a bit of work to set it up and seems to update it's virus definitions daily, but it's worked fine for me.

I've kept the Norton Utilities part on my PC

Bob H

I hate Norton, with its pop-ups and reminders and the way it blocks certain legit downloads, etc.

Based upon the recs here, I think I'll completely uninstall Norton and try AVG.

I have been very happy with Anti-Vir

Free for personal use.

It has caught things that Mcafee/Norton didn't.

http://www.free-av.com/

Another happy AVG user.

As all my Norton licenses expire at home and at the office, I switch over. Just too much agravation with Norton.

My corporate laptop has Norton. My desktops at home have AVG & Avast, along with Zone Alarm. Can't complain about any of them.

If you do plan to use Zone Alarm, do not update it whenever it bugs you to. I'd wait for a week or so to make sure it doesn't break anything. Zone Alarm has been known to cause an occasional crash while updating

I tried McAfee and will never, ever use it again.