Tuesday, July 5, 2011

What kind of anti virus is right for me?

Thats a fair question.

One thing that should be understood before one goes and spends money on an anti virus/malware program is that there is no such thing as a perfect anti virus program. No I am serious. The way it works with anti virus programs is to do there best to stay on top of new viruses which are created daily (like hundreds of new viruses are released everyday) and the truth of it is no body is perfect and no program is perfect either. There is not one anti virus program out there that will catch EVERY virus EVERY time, its just not possible.

SO with that in persective the goal then is to find an anti virus program whichs blocks/stops more viruses than most! Now through out the years ive worked with many different types of anti virus programs. Such as Mcafee, Norton/Symantec, Trend Micro, Avast, and a few others including Spyware Doctor with anti-virus.

Idealy it would be nice to run more than one anti virus program at a time. that way if one program misses a virus, the other migth catch it and vice versa. But this however proves a little impractical as anti virus programs themselves take up a huge amount of system resources(system rescources are what your computer uses to function, its like computing power and it is measured in how much information your computer can process at once and how much it can think and stuff like that in laymens terms) and running an anti virus program requires your computer to think and process alot! so running two programs at a time is just not practical for most people unless you have a scathingly massive amount of system rescrouces =P

Now then out of all the anti virus programs i have worked with i recommend Spyware Doctor with anti-virus.
http://www.pctools.com/ Why? Well the main reason is that it has caught viruses that other programs could not even detect and that was 5-6 years ago. Thier techonology has come a long way and includes heuristic(heuristics is kind of like using intuition) approaches to solving a great deal of malware related stuff. Spyware-Doctor with anti-virus comes with an all inclusive package that handles browser defending(Internet Explorer only I beleive), inteligent protection of core system files, regular updates of course, and programming so smart that it can even block suspiscious activity even if it doesnt know what it is!(Alot of anti virus programs need to be told about the virus through an update before it knows to block it). Well it does a ton of things really. But not to discredit any other anti virus programs out there, I have only used spyware docotor with anti virus for many years now and the techonlogy of other anti virus programs would have certinly improved as well...

If you're like me then you dont like having your system resources used up all the time and you disable your anti-virus program and prevent it from running(bad idea i know...) and because of that I have regreted it more than once. But if you are hurting for system resrouces already and cant afford to run an anti virus program then there is hope for you! There is a program called "Housecall" which is created by Trend Micro and its a free browser based anti virus program which uses javascript to scan your computer and remove virus infections! What does all that mean!? It means that if you think you are infected with a virus or if you want to scan a file or program before running it or opening it, all you have to do is go to this website housecall.trendmicro.com and follow the step by step instructions to run thier program! Once again its free of charge and pretty darn effective. I use it from time to time when im bout to run a suspiscious looking file i just downloaded and that way I dont need to fire up my spyware docotor anti virus program all the time. Of course it only works if you can infact get on the internet and go to thier website. If you are infected with a virus then its possible that the virus would prevent you from visiting certain websites.

Well thats it for now folks I think I've covered everything needs be said.

9 comments:

  1. I've been using Avira for quite some time, the free version. Haven't had any troubles so far but then I'm generally careful when it comes to opening sites and downloading files.

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  2. ESET NOD32
    /article

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  3. I've found that with some safe browsing habits and malware bytes that I haven't had any problems for several years.

    I do have AVG installed and kept updated for emergencies, just hasnt come up yet.

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  4. I´m using norton works pretty well but this java based alternative you mentioned seems interesting

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  5. I use Avira, it has always done me well.

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  6. Having a Mac is my antivirus, Mac FTW!

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  7. This is great info! I use most of these programs already!!!

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  8. Hi,
    Thank you for your nice article on computer repair diy blog spot.
    I like for your good writing.

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete