[zergpc208]

Why do many IT people frown on AVG,adware and spybot?And it is not just that but other free removal utilities?

Many say just get one good program like Norton and pay the $$

Or are they just trying to boost the program that cost $$

[bearone2]

it's a good product unless you pig it up with nsw or nis.

i've used norton/symantec for years and am a big supporter.

[jonmcc33]

AVG is bad in itself anyway. In regards to Norton, the major AV programs like that work better over corporate environments.

[valis]

I'm an IT person, and I can't stand Norton. I use AVG on my home network, and have for over 2 years, and at work we use TrendMicro. Symantec is the very first thing we remove from all new builds; the thing is an absolute hog on resources. When Peter Norton ran it, it was cool; Symantec took it over and tried to make it the end-all, be-all app that does everything from clean your registry (bad idea in the first place), to disk defragmenter.

Now it's got so damn many options and is so pervasive that Symantec actually puts out a removal tool to assist in the removal of the app itself, as just unloading it from the add/remove applet doesn't even BEGIN to clean up the system from it.

[jonmcc33]

Originally Posted by valis

Now it's got so damn many options and is so pervasive that Symantec actually puts out a removal tool to assist in the removal of the app itself, as just unloading it from the add/remove applet doesn't even BEGIN to clean up the system from it.

I know the nightmares as well. When we switched from Norton to McAfee (ugh) it was a pain to get it off of all of our systems. Even then it still sometimes shows up as a plug-in in Outlook.

[zergpc208]

So Norton can remove more and find more than AVG or adware and spybot.

But Norton is a big hog on resources?

[jonmcc33]

Originally Posted by zergpc208

But Norton is a big hog on resources?

I never really thought so myself. I think it was between 10-20MB for the process IIRC.

[valis]

Originally Posted by jonmcc33

I know the nightmares as well. When we switched from Norton to McAfee (ugh) it was a pain to get it off of all of our systems. Even then it still sometimes shows up as a plug-in in Outlook.

McAfee is another one that was great back in the day, when all they did was A/V....now that they've branched out, their A/V has suffered greatly. TrendAV does only A/V, and it does a fairly good job of it; again, though, the only problem is how pervasive it is. That's one of the reasons I advocate AVG or Avast; both have small footprints and are pretty effective at what they do.

If you are working in a corporation, you are pretty much dictated by what they suggest. If you are at home, you have your own choices to make. As long as you have a good a/v and a good firewall, and scan regularly for malware, you should be fine.

FWIW, I was going to let my symantec expire in in 12/05, but it let in a couple hundred thousand trojans one night, so once I got that mess cleaned up, dumped symantec and went with AVG, and have had zero issues to date.

[valis]

Originally Posted by zergpc208

So Norton can remove more and find more than AVG or adware and spybot.

Nope. It can't. For that matter, I've dumped a virus into my vm box, and avg picked it up, and our work A/V, TrendMicro, did not.

Originally Posted by zergpc208

But Norton is a big hog on resources?

Extremely so. Especially if you are running an older rig with limited hardware resources, such as a P3 or some such. I know of several members in this forum that are running on that setup.

[jonmcc33]

Originally Posted by valis

Extremely so. Especially if you are running an older rig with limited hardware resources, such as a P3 or some such. I know of several members in this forum that are running on that setup.

Ouch! Can they even browse the web with that setup?

[bearone2]

Originally Posted by valis

Nope. It can't. For that matter, I've dumped a virus into my vm box, and avg picked it up, and our work A/V, TrendMicro, did not.



Extremely so. Especially if you are running an older rig with limited hardware resources, such as a P3 or some such. I know of several members in this forum that are running on that setup.

have you ever used the eicar test file?

[valis]

Originally Posted by bearone2

have you ever used the eicar test file?

yes I have. TM at work totally missed it. AVG at home didn't, good enough for me.

Matter of fact, I twigged my boss to it at work, but that's sort of a moot point. We are behind so many firewalls that anything that DID get through would go through just about anything we have on the indy workstation in about nothing flat, so it's a moot point.

Our global gateway looks like the death star with all it's orbiting protection.

[valis]

Originally Posted by jonmcc33

Ouch! Can they even browse the web with that setup?

as I said, I know many of them through here, so I'm assuming that's a 'yes'.

[jonmcc33]

Originally Posted by valis

as I said, I know many of them through here, so I'm assuming that's a 'yes'.

Wow, I have a Dell Precision 340 with a 2.4GHz Pentium 4B and 1GB RDRAM just sitting here unused. Even has a Quadro video card in it too. If someone wanted to pay shipping I'd send it to them to end their misery.

[~Candy~]

Originally Posted by jonmcc33

Wow, I have a Dell Precision 340 with a 2.4GHz Pentium 4B and 1GB RDRAM just sitting here unused. Even has a Quadro video card in it too. If someone wanted to pay shipping I'd send it to them to end their misery.

Can you give me an estimate on the shipping? Sounds like a good offer