Anti virus

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SheriffNZ

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#177607 8-Aug-2015 20:33

Hi all

I'm running an old laptop I purchased in 2010. It's pretty slow and doesn't have much disk space left. Also, we're running a blue tooth keyboard from it as my daughter spilt liquid on it and it doesn't work well anymore. I primarily turn it on to sync my photos down from or up to the cloud and then they get backed up to an external drive.

I've a subscription to Norton 360 for $100 per year. Given my uses of this computer, I'm not sure I'm really getting value for money. What other cheaper options are there given my usage?

Thanks very much.

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#1361282 8-Aug-2015 20:36

Yes, use the free antivirus from Microsoft.

Microsoft Security Essentials http://windows.microsoft.com/en-nz/windows/security-essentials-download

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#1361290 8-Aug-2015 20:46

The Best Free Antivirus for 2015

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lNomNoml

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#1361323 9-Aug-2015 00:02

ESET NOD32 Anti-virus, we resell them for $91+gst for a 2 year license for 1 device.

You can download a free trial here.

I would however only recommend this if you are using it as a main PC and/or using it for Internet Banking, if you are not doing any of that and only what you said in your original post then maybe a free alternative would be good, not as good as a paid one but better than nothing.

I would recommend either Avast Free Anti-virus: http://download.cnet.com/Avast-Free-Antivirus-2015/3000-2239_4-10019223.html?part=dl-85737&subj=dl&tag=button if that link doesn't work try going to their main page and looking for the download link: https://www.avast.com/en-nz/index

Or Microsoft Security Essentials

andrewNZ

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#1361384 9-Aug-2015 07:06

I stopped using Avast when they started including scareware/scamware in it.

I don't know what Norton is like now, but in the past if you'd have said "my pc is slow", I'd have pointed at Norton straight away. It was bloated sluggish crap.

nakedmolerat

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#1361385 9-Aug-2015 07:11

andrewNZ: I stopped using Avast when they started including scareware/scamware in it.

I don't know what Norton is like now, but in the past if you'd have said "my pc is slow", I'd have pointed at Norton straight away. It was bloated sluggish crap.

Norton is actually light and fast nowadays.

freitasm

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#1361394 9-Aug-2015 08:16

North is one of the best paid AV, with ESET and Kaspersky. If you want free, use MS Security Essentials.

Uninstall whatever you have before installing something else. Never run two AV at same time. And download (not instal) the new one before u installing the old one.

xpd

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#1361396 9-Aug-2015 08:24

andrewNZ: I stopped using Avast when they started including scareware/scamware in it.

When/where was this ?

Been running it for a couple of years now on multiple machines and never had anything go wrong.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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scuwp

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#1361401 9-Aug-2015 08:46

Is the laptop able to be updated to Win10? Might speed it up a bit and comes with Defender built in

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

Rikkitic

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#1361404 9-Aug-2015 09:02

Malwarebytes has a good reputation.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

xpd

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#1361408 9-Aug-2015 09:27

Rikkitic: Malwarebytes has a good reputation.

Its not a full AV solution tho - that and an AV solution is the way to go :)

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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#1361668 9-Aug-2015 18:52

I run Norton 360, MalwareBytes and Microsoft EMET. Plus Account UAC turned on.

networkn

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#1361696 9-Aug-2015 19:50

I can tell you that we have sold Norton for 15 years, Eset for 5, and recently we evaluated Webroot. We also have some clients using the MS AV.

In the past Norton has been the Gold Standard even catching Cryptolocker with 8 month out of date definitions on a customers computer (Eset has never caught cryptolocker zero day), however the very last 3 cryptolocker variants have gone through all of those and they didn't do a thing. Once we cleaned up, we sent the virus file to virustotal and from 48 scanners, only 2 had the slightest idea what it was, neither of which I'd ever heard of before. Our submissions to Virus Total have shown MS is alarmingly slow to catch on to viruses, probably due to it's relatively low market penetration.

The latest variants of Cryptolocker are no longer able to be blocked with group policies stopping execution of .exe in the temp directory which is how over 95% of spyware, malware, ransomware or virus infect a machine, as it creates a directory on the root and runs like that.

For the time being, common sense and Backups are about all the protection you can truly rely on.

freitasm

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#1361709 9-Aug-2015 20:15

Hence UAC turned on - but that rely on users not being dumb about what they allow to install on their machines.

SheriffNZ

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#1361723 9-Aug-2015 20:59

Thanks for all the comments guys. I've elected to simply go for the Microsoft version. With my usage that should be sufficient. When I upgrade my laptop or start using it more, I'll invest in a better solution.

SCUWP - my laptop is capable of being upgraded to Windows 10, however I don't have enough free disk space.

networkn

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#1361778 9-Aug-2015 22:06

freitasm: Hence UAC turned on - but that rely on users not being dumb about what they allow to install on their machines.

Problem with UAC is that people have tired of it so much they click yes now for everything that presents. For it to be effective it would need to block the app and you would need to go into a control panel and unlock it.

Maybe not for YOU, but for most people.

One of the customers who got cryptolocker was warned by Symantec it was a dangerous file, but it couldn't identify what, and the customer clicked open anyway!

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