Avira Free vs Microsoft Security Essentials

On Jan 9, 2:47*am, n o s p a m p l e a s e
wrote:
On Jan 9, 7:20*am, "RnR" wrote:

On Fri, 8 Jan 2010 14:23:32 -0800 (PST), n o s p a m p l e a s e

wrote:
What free antivirus would you like to install?

Neither.

Then which free one would you go for?

Avast supplemented with SpywareTerminator and MalwareBytes (and
Firefox).

bob

Hi!

If their download server is occasionally slow...it's only an
indication of how popular Avira is.

Perhaps that is true. I gave it a try on a Dimension L566cx and found
that not only was getting the program difficult (nigh unto impossible
with a multi-*byte* per second download speed), updates were finicky
as well.

In line with what another poster suggested, I seem to remember that
the Avira site said paying users would get better updates. Fine, fair
enough. The "freeloaders" should at least get some updates,
though. :-)

As for the ad **yawn** *it disappears with one click.

Whatever. Two things at work he

1. It's *my* computer. I don't agree with but can accept most web
advertising--and I don't attempt to block it unless it really begins
to tick me off.

I've got a real "thing" about the whole "my computer" business,
whether it's mine or someone else's system.

2. Sell your product by showing me well it works, not putting up a
flashy billboard that is supposed to impress me.

Small price to pay if you can't be bothered
to Google on how to disable it.

There is little to no point in doing so when one already has several
good choices from other vendors that work perfectly well.

William

On Sat, 9 Jan 2010 05:13:38 -0800 (PST), Bob Villa
wrote:

Neither.

Then which free one would you go for?

Avast supplemented with SpywareTerminator and MalwareBytes (and
Firefox).

I don't think it a good idea have more then one antivirus software on
a systems, since one will think other is a virus ad give you a false
alarm.

On Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:43:04 -0500, Louie Pham
wrote:

On Sat, 9 Jan 2010 05:13:38 -0800 (PST), Bob Villa
wrote:

Neither.

Then which free one would you go for?

Avast supplemented with SpywareTerminator and MalwareBytes (and
Firefox).

I don't think it a good idea have more then one antivirus software on
a systems, since one will think other is a virus ad give you a false
alarm.


In theory this is correct and I've read the same but from experience
and depending on the software, 2 or more can co-exist. It has to do
with which software and the settings. Right now I run 3 antivirus
software but 2 are not real time. I also run 3 malware and all 3 are
real time (and doing a "great" job). I've been doing this for at
least 1.5 months with no freezes or problems. However I do NOT
recommend this for the less pc oriented type people.

I don't think it a good idea have more then one antivirus software on
a systems, since one will think other is a virus ad give you a false
alarm.

SpywareTerminator (never heard of it) and MalwareBytes are _NOT_
antivirus programs, and will co-exist quite happily alongside an
antivirus in my experience.

Although the user might not see a difference in how their machine
becomes "infected", the attack vector varies - a virus typically needs
an infected file to be run, which will then remain resident on the PC
and infect any other executable files that are opened.

Malware / spyware is often introduced by use of insecure operating
systems leaving a "back door" available that doesn't need the user to
run anything.

The malicious "application(s)"* they install may look and feel like a
virus, but the method of infection is typically quite distinct.

*many use multi-component executables, and by closing any one, the
remaining components will notice the closure and restart it. They're
also often network aware on an indivual component basis and will fetch
the latest variant if an attempt to remove it is not completely
successful the first time around.