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Reliable, Free Anti-Virus Software?
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Oct 25, 2008 04:22 PM
from the when's-it-positively-gotta-be-windows dept.
from the when's-it-positively-gotta-be-windows dept.
oahazmatt writes "Some time ago my wife was having severe issues on her laptop. (A Dell Inspiron, if that helps.) I eventually found the cause to be McAfee, which took about an hour to remove fully. I installed AVG on her system to replace McAfee, but we have since found that AVG is causing problems with her laptop's connection to our wireless network. She's not thrilled about a wired connection as the router is on the other end of the house. We're looking for some good, open-source or free personal editions of anti-virus software. So, who on Slashdot trusts what?" When school required a Windows laptop, I used Clam AV, and the machine seemed to do as well as most classmates'. What have you found that works?
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Avast (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.avast.com
Free for personal use.
avast the best free one with no lock down like avg (Score:5, Informative)
avast the best free one with no lock down like avg8
http://www.avast.com/ [avast.com]
Re:avast the best free one with no lock down like (Score:4, Interesting)
I would recommend Avira AntiVir [1]. It is free for personal use too. The was most impressed of the speed. I used Avira AntiVir all the time before I moved to Linux.
[1] http://www.free-av.de/en/index.html [free-av.de]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Most likely the console (the server that monitors and manages the clients) is scheduled to order a scan every once in a while. You should ask your admin to knock it off or reschedule it for a better time.
I'd go with Clam (Clam Win) (Score:4, Interesting)
Avast (Score:5, Informative)
I second the mention of ClamWin (Score:5, Insightful)
When school required a Windows laptop, I used Clam AV
I second the mention of ClamWin. The biggest missing feature in ClamWin is scanning every file on fopen(), and that's what usually causes the resource hogging behavior that some people believe to be typical of antivirus. In my experience, a computer user really doesn't need real-time operation unless he's looking at pr0n (erotic web sites), downloading w4r3z (infringing copies of proprietary commercial software), or doing something comparably dangerous. A weekly full scan is enough.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or setup the user to run as limited user. You wouldnt let your wife run as root 24/7 would you? Windows is the same way. Limited user + clamav (or no AV) is more than enough.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A weekly full scan? That's closing the barn door after the horses fled.
Not exactly. My copy of Firefox 3 detected ClamWin and set itself up to call ClamWin every time a download completes, whether it be from a software download site or from my web mail.
Try this: no antivirus (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm serious. Stop doing the things that put you at risk for viruses and you won't have to run anti-virus. I don't run anti-virus or anti-spyware software on my computer and I've never had a problem. Occasionally, just to verify that I'm doing the right thing, I boot from a BartPE [wikipedia.org] Windows CD and run anti-virus and anti-spyware tools against my hard drive. They never find anything bad. The last time I had a virus was in 1989 on my Amiga 500.
Re:Try this: no antivirus (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say that you're right, except that you're ignoring one source of problems: stupid people. Stupid people can't "stop doing things that put [them] at risk for viruses" because they aren't smart enough to understand the difference between risky behavior and safe behavior. Even if you explain it to them, they won't understand it, and they'll forget your instructions.
Ok, to be fair, it's not just stupid people. There are smart people who simply don't have the computer or security expertise necessary to be able to understand the difference between a safe download and a risky one. They don't understand, and they have other things to do besides spending all their time learning, investigating, and figuring it out.
For those people, it helps to secure the system through various methods, one of which might be an AV program.
Parent
Free for personal use (Score:4, Informative)
I use Avira AV [free-av.com] on the WinDOZE systems at my house.
It's free for personal use, and companies have to get a site license...
No antivirus catches everything. (Score:5, Informative)
The most effective methods I've seen is the behavioral and heuristic based systems in Kaspersky and Norton AV 2009's SONAR. SONAR may not catch it on execution but it catches registry entries and it's caught 99% of the bot samples I have when they try to call home. The new versions are also fairly light on system resources.
It may not be the popular opinion but if you really don't want to worry about malware then look at OS X or Linux. Yes there is some malware out there but in comparison it's a minute fraction of a percent of the number for Windows based systems.
Best AV/App-Watch/Firewall for 64 Bit Windows? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm trying to move from 32-bit XP to 64-bit vista, and one of the things keeping me from making the switch is trying to find a good 64-bit virus program.
I'm using ZoneAlarm on XP and one of the things I like most about it is the applications watching and firewall.
Having it authorize net access and system access is a feature I find very nice to have.
Unfortunately, it looks like ZoneAlarm is not in the 64-bit game.
Correction: They were beta testing a 64-bit windows version sometime ago but have dropped it completely with no apparent mention of trying again.
Currently for firewall on Vista, I use the built-in firewall with full deny by default and then configure applications to go through on a one-by-one basis.
But I really liked being notified when apps tried to do any potentially dangerous activities like run each time the system is loaded or modify the hosts file, etc.
So anybody got a good replacement on 64-bit Vista for paranoid users like myself?
Thanks in advance for any replies.
Observations: AVG vs Avast (Score:5, Informative)
AVG good stuff:
AVG bad stuff
---
Avast good stuff:
Avast bad stuff:
---
At the end of the day, I went with Avast. Stability and low performance impact is more important to me than a fancy GUI. Clueless end-users disagree though, and actually want AVG back inspite of the stability issues. So the GUI really made a difference for them. They simply felt more "at home" with AVG.
Direct links for both products:
AVG Antivirus Free Version Download [avg.com] and Wikipedia Description [wikipedia.org].
Avast Antivirus Free version download [avast.com] and Wikipedia description [wikipedia.org].
brgds
- Jesper
(Experience is from: 3x Vista computers with reasonable hardware specs, and 2 older Windows XP computers)
Decompile (Score:4, Funny)
Wireless printer? (Score:4, Interesting)
This might be coming from left field, but your question struck me because I was having exactly the same issue (with exactly the same person, my wife).
Turns out the problem was our HP wireless printer. The drivers were causing network traffic that was causing my wifes computer to slow down. she also has a dell inspiron, but hers is a little old (1gb memory and 1.2ghz cpu).
The hp drivers were causing network traffic over her linksys wireless card, which in turn was using cpu cycles to support the wireless network traffic.
The problem was corrected by turning off the HP printer.
So, if you have a wireless printer, try turning it off.
Re:You could use (Score:4, Funny)
Linux. Someone had to say it.
Yeah. Frankly though, all I'm thinking about at the moment (this being Saturday night and all) as that free Linux beer you guys are always talking about. How does it stack up against the other imports?
Parent
Re:You could use (Score:5, Insightful)
In case you wanted an ACTUAL answer,and not just a bunch of geeks shouting Linux I would suggest either Comodo [comodo.com] if you would like one with a built in firewall,or AntiVir [free-av.com] if you just need AV. As a Windows repairman I have used both on many customers machines and they work quite well.
I know that shouting "Linux" is a great way to Karma whore here,but the simple fact is I'm sure he asked about Windows Av for a reason. Sometimes Linux simply isn't the right tool for the job,as anyone who has tried to get those damned Lexmark all in ones to work or run into one of the bazillion SMBs that have custom VB apps that are mission critical can tell you.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
> I have used both on many customers machines and they work quite well.
Isn't that bad for business though?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No, and besides being open source, ClamAV is rather unobtrusive, which is a feature I like. It doesn't get in the way. If I want it to scan something on-demand, it will through the shell extension it installs. I don't want something scanning every damn executable I click on.
Re:Clam AV (Score:5, Insightful)
ClamAV, as it stands, does not do on-access scanning. I quite dislike the way the Win32 version (ClamWin) installs a little Clam icon into the system tray, as a false sense of security is worse than no security at all.
MoonSecure is a scanner/heuristics engine that uses Clam's signatures and does perform on-access scanning but, when I last tried it, it had "issues".
Avast is my current recommendation of the freebies for personal use, followed by Avira, if you can stand the constant nagging about upgrading to paid versions. Avira's detection rate, last I looked, was slightly better than Avast's but the nag screens are a bone of contention. Also have a look at Comodo's offerings. Note that none of these are free software, just free to use. MoonSecure is GPL'd and may have become a little better since I tried it, so it may be worth a shot if freedom matters to you.
Parent
Re:Clam AV (Score:4, Interesting)
I NEVER run background scanning on a virus program. It's a needless system overhead. When I get something new that might be suspicious, I simply run it on that specific program.
Only time I ever got a virus on the PC was about nine years ago when the virus program I used was running in the background, and let the CIH virus through.
Not to mention the many MANY issues virus programs cause with games. First thing any support message will tell you is make sure your anti-virus is disabled.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PEBKAC (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. When I run MS Windows (not very often if I can help it), I never use anti-virus. Indeed, I consider it a waste of time and money (not to mention system resources).
Of course, you should always make sure you have a working firewall before connecting to the Internet. I find that the built in MS Windows firewall works well enough, so long as it is enabled.
Then, make sure not to run MSIE (at all except on sites you control, and even then...), instead run an alternative (Firefox is popular for some reason, Opera I've heard is good, not that I use it). Another email client (instead of MS Outlook Express or MS Outlook) is also a must if you are using POP or IMAP.
As also mentioned, don't download and run random programs from the web. You have to know how to evaluate the trustworthiness or otherwise of the website. (One thing I love about Ubuntu is that there are so many programs in the repositories, I haven't downloaded a program from a website in over a year. Want a game, fire up Synaptic and browse the hundreds of free games available. Want a MUD client, there are at least five available. Etc.) Knowing how to evaluate the trustworthiness or otherwise of a website is a mix of common sense and understanding of security. It maybe better to ask your local computer geek before downloading random programs.
So, to sum up:
Considering that most people I know don't do much more with their computers then surf the Web, check their email and use some office software, you don't need much more than what I outlined above.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Easy (Score:4, Funny)
Wow, I just tried it and not only did it get rid of my virus problem, but it made my computer run faster and more reliably.
Thanks again, anonymous coward!
Parent
For perverse definitions of Easy (Score:3, Insightful)
Although I do applaud people moving to, say, Ubuntu (I'm playing with the Live CD and loving it), I don't think this is a Funny -or- Insightful reply any time the topic of viruses/trojans/etc. comes up (and this being Slashdot, it does seem to come up quite often).
Ignoring for a moment that Linux -has- its share of malware ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_computer_viruses [wikipedia.org] , cue "wikipedia is unreliable" and "all of those holes are already patched" and "but it's still much less than on M$ Winblow
Re:For perverse definitions of Easy (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
No Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, "Switch to Ubuntu" (or some other linux distribution) may be the perfect answers for this woman, and that would be great - but let's be realistic here and not label that as an easy solution.
Obviously if MS were "easy", this guy would not be posting a question to the this web site. Apparently neither he nor this woman know what to do about MS's glaring security holes.
I do not think that the parent post is saying Ubuntu will be easy. It was just easy for him to think of a solution.
Parent
Re:No Easy (Score:4, Funny)
Thank you for the sexual objectification of one of the parties as "that woman".
Parent
Re:No Easy (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:For perverse definitions of Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignoring for a moment that Linux -has- its share of malware
There has not yet been a single widespread Linux malware threat of the type that Microsoft Windows software currently faces
Oh, I don't think that Wikipedia's all that bad. *grin*
Honestly, though, I do agree with you. As much as running Linux may be an answer to the "problem", it's not the answer. I've tried converting people over to Linux, and it takes a lot of effort to get their mindset shifted over from Windows to Linux. I've found that if they're apathetic to Windows, they're not going to switch... it takes actual desire on their part to move to something better.
Parent
Re:For perverse definitions of Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only does it take actual desire on their part to move to something better, it takes actual realization that for a lot of people, Linux does not qualify as "better" for their particular usage. It may just be a matter of going into a support forum (something linux users seem to know alot about) and getting some answers as to why AVG is interfering with the wireless connection in the first place. Perhaps submitting a support request with a bug report would be enough to get the problem fixed with the next program update.
What I resent most is a linux junkie who tells a user that "ubuntu is better, therefore thou must switch to my better OS" with no regard for the hassle it is for that user to get acclimated to new software, find software to replace existing software, and get used to an entirely new interface, even if the interface is judged to be better and more intuitive by said linux junkie, and then still having to dual-boot windows on the machine to run games.
Parent
Re:For perverse definitions of Easy (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd rather not have to deal with the quirks of Linux on someone else's hardware. I liken Linux and Windows to different levels of programming languages. Sure, you can write great code in C and in Java, but there are just so many more ways to shoot yourself in the foot with one that a lot of developers would rather use the other, even if it's slower.
It's not a perfect analogy, but damn, I hate dealing with the quirks of Linux on -my own- machines. I don't want to spend eight hours staring at a terminal entering esoteric commands to fix someone else's.
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:4, Insightful)
"Posts like this lead to another, very important point. "
Fixing the problems of an operating system sold by a bitter opponent of Open and Free software is not a wise choice for a proponent of Open or Free software.
Capturing market share for applications like Firefox helps grab mindshare, and developing alternate operating systems gives that mindshare somewhere to go post-Windows.
Doing for Redmond what Redmond does not do for itself while not getting paid is arguably stupid.
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the guy who posted the original question about anitivirus should have restated the question a bit, as in:
"I am a music producer who uses Sonar/Ableton Live/Cubase/ProTools/Gigasampler/take your pick of pro audio software. There is absolutely no pro audio software available for Linux that is anywhere near ready for professional work, nor are there stable drivers for professional audio hardware that are ready for prime time (without workarounds like Jack). Since I've used Gigasampler for a decade, a Mac is not an option for me.
NOW does anyone know of a free antivirus software that is dependable and relatively trouble-free? etc etc."
Now I like Linux quite a bit and I use it extensively in my work for off-loading effects and rendering cycles (Reaper does this very nicely) and for storage and many other important duties. But sometimes, there simply isn't a viable option to non-Linux operating system. Maybe it won't always be so. I try every new version of Ubuntu Studio and brave the frustration of using Jack.
The guy made a simple and sincere request, and the constant refrains of "you'd be better off if you used Linux" are not only unhelpful, but rude and wrong.
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:4, Insightful)
""I am a music producer who uses Sonar/Ableton Live/Cubase/ProTools/Gigasampler/take your pick of pro audio software."
For which he surely paid well, which begs the question of why he is asking for a FREE recommendation instead of one for professional AV software. After all, he has his livelihood riding on the performance of his systems.
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:5, Interesting)
This is my personal opinion, but the computer that runs the pro audio software should not be used for general computing use, and should never be connected directly to the Internet. If you can, have two OS partitions, one for normal computing use, and one dedicated to the music applications.
There are several reasons for this:
First, latency. AV software sucks CPU cycles, which adds latency. This is one of the musician's worst enemies. You want just the OS and the music software if possible. One single swap to disk may screw up a long mix you are working on. This is also why you want to load a music workstation with as much RAM as you possibly can.
Second, music programs are prone to crashing, especially with use of a lot of plugins. You want as few things that can go wrong as possible. Some programs not just work with tons of plugins, but bring with it a metric ton of DRM code, from CD-ROM copy protection, to USB dongles and the drivers those require. All this can conflict with A/V software.
Last, music programs do a lot of I/O. An AV program that hooks onto the system and scans every bit flying by a pipe in real time is going to put a crimp on matters.
For the music partition, if possible it should never touch the Internet directly... connect through another machine with internet file sharing, or best of all, a hardware firewall.
Another reason to have two partitions. You can boot the normal computing one, and A/V scan the one dedicated to the music apps which has a higher chance of detecting rootkits if any are installed.
I personally even recommend using a different operating system than normal for the OS partition with the music apps. If you have the volume license, WinFLP is recommended, as well as XP 64. If you need Vista compatibility, consider Windows Server 2008 which installs almost nothing by default.
This is why I wish more music companies would write commercial stuff for Linux. Linux is extremely low latency. Plus, its not like it doesn't exist. The Korg Oasys, their flagship $8500 keyboard uses Linux as its base OS.
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly enough, it's related a problem we're going to have to start dealing with. Let me explain. I tend to promote OSS to students, largely because they are too poor to afford anything better. Many have MSWorks and NOT MSOffice on their computers or other limitations. So I recommend products like OpenOffice.org or VLC player (among others dependent on the need). Some of these folks, instead of following my links to the real websites, Google OpenOffice and are finding third party knock-offs, that they claim are installing viruses/spyware on their machines.
So the free-software community's problem is that while we generally tell people to take our source code and do *whatever* with it, some malware writers (on Windows, at least), have noted that this provides an opportunity to them. Is a good anti-virus a fix? Probably not. Rather, there needs to be a way for non-discriminating users to tell that they don't have the original distribution. I can't think of how to do this off the top of my head, but suspect it may mean that code is cryptographically certified before it can be considered to be secure. And of course, this opens up a huge can of worms.
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Err, no. MD5/SHA checks provide no security. They only let you verify that a file wasn't corrupted in transit. Such things are generally freak accidents and very uncommon, and are mainly useful for checking things like that yep, that CD image was indeed 300MB in size and nothing got cut off anywhere.
If you find a shady site, and download a .rpm or .deb from there, nothing stops them from providing the matching checksum.
Proper security is attained by GPG signatures.
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:5, Informative)
Have you actually tried googling for "Open Office"? The first sponsored link points to exactly what he was talking about - a third-party knock-off which requests personal info in order to let you download. I haven't tried signing up, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they had all sorts of crapware bundled with it.
The problem isn't that his students are not careful, the problem is that:
1. Most people will click the first link on the page
and
2. Many people assume that sponsored links are guaranteed to be legitimate ("if its not legit, why would google let them advertise?").
Now, you could argue that such assumptions are dumb or ignorant - and I'd even agree with you - but blaming students from low-income families for not knowing the fine-points of internet use doesn't really solve the problem.
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:4, Informative)
AV software takes a lot cash. You have to pay major cash to get FIPS, Common Criteria, ICSA, and other certifications. These take cash for independent validation.
AV software also takes a lot of research, from honeypots to catch stuff that is happening, to getting people to submit possible zero day variants.
AV software takes a lot of bandwidth. Virus definitions are updated daily (if not more often) by the larger AV vendors, so one needs to have the not just the bandwidth for thousands of definition requests at a time, but a high bandwidth cap because the requests will be hitting 24/7. Not many F/OSS projects have this bandwidth.
Finally, AV software needs to be secured. You have to get a code signing certificate, then make sure your signing key is in a secure hardware container so it can't be hacked. You not just have to sign your code signing certificates with a HSM, but you have to sign your virus definitions so if your virus definition download site gets compromised, the definitions can't be tampered with.
All the above makes AV by noncommercial entity a highly daunting task, especially the bandwidth and the independent vendor certifications.
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does a retarded answer like this get moderated 4, insightful rather than -1, off-topic?
I doubt she gives a shit about Ubuntu or wants to use it.
ScrewMaster was correct [slashdot.org], a fast lame first post which don't offer any insight or a solution.
What's the purpose of having useless posts like this in the thread? It won't help her.
My suggestion is avira [free-av.com]. It's good at its purpose and uses few resources.
I like comodo firewall to and they have an anti-virus called "anti-virus 2" I believe but it's beta and I don't know how good it actually is.
Comodo got plenty of free totally usable products.
Parent
Re:Trite answer, but on-topic (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux is not completely virus-proof. Where do you figure the term rootkit came from? Linux viruses are far more rare and often quite limited in what they can do, but they do exist.
Re:Easy (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, if you're going to use Windows then Avira's AntiVir is pretty good for a freebie. You don't need email scanning as anything going to be opened is already scanned and the same applies to their web scanning engine which is just as silly as files are already scanned when opened. Avira does make a free Linux version as well.
The only drawback is on Windows systems it tends to flash an ad up once a day or less to try to get people to buy the product. At the price, effectiveness, and seemingly good responses from AV-COMPARATIVES makes it worth looking into even to buy in my opinion.
Anyhow, the answer to this question isn't switch OSes IMHO. Let 'em use what they want and give them actual answers to the question.
It is sort of like... Well...
"I have a flat tire and need help fixing it, could you?" Asks the article.
"Get a Honda." Replies the FP.
Though, well, 'twas funny.
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, once I figured out the voices were OUTSIDE my head, I turned them off. There's also an option to not bother with popups while running anything DirectX. Avast is not annoying now.
Parent