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    Antivir and Ad-Aware Good?

    Discussion in 'Security and Anti-Virus Software' started by NotebookNeophyte, Feb 27, 2008.

  1. NotebookNeophyte

    NotebookNeophyte Notebook Evangelist

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    I need your opinions on my selections. If I put Antivir and Ad-Aware on my computer...will this be sufficient to protect against viruses and spyware? How good is Ad-Aware? Would you reccomend anything additional or different than the aforementioned? Thanks!
     
  2. mario666

    mario666 Notebook Consultant

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    I use AVG free and Windows Defender on my XP PC, and have never had any problems. I also use Spyware Blaster, which is a pre-emptive solution. Finally, I use Firefox, which cuts down on risks.

    Occasionally, I run Spybot and a rootkit detector, but I've never encountered anything nasty.

    I've only ever run freeware.
     
  3. Gintoki

    Gintoki Notebook Prophet

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    Antivir is the best choice for anti-virus, but Ad-aware is topped by Spybot Search&Destroy, and A-squared free. Get one of those instead of Ad-aware.
     
  4. coolguy

    coolguy Notebook Prophet

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    Ad-Aware free doesn't have real time spyware protection, which is pretty much useless in the real world.

    Antivir is good according to some reviews but haven't tried it personally.
    It's only disadvantages are high false positives, a pop up screen daily to upgrade to premium version.
     
  5. mario666

    mario666 Notebook Consultant

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    I just remembered why I stopped using the free version of Avira's Antivir: the nag screens. But if you can live with them, It's fine. I have read that it over-reports problems though, but as long as you are not a noobie, it's better than under-reporting.
     
  6. mario666

    mario666 Notebook Consultant

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    True, but real-time behavioural scanners are often quite resource intensive. As long as you've got a decent, up-to-date computer though, it should be okay. I haven't heard of ThreatFire before. I'll have to check it out.

    Also, Spybot has some real-time protection built in (the 'TeaTimer' app).
     
  7. crash

    crash NBR Assassin

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    The once-a-day advertisement pop-up is a really small price to pay for a better antivirus engine. It doesn't bother me, but I suppose it could bother others.

    As for the high false positives, I would rather it have some false positives than under-detect viruses for fear of detecting false positives. Also, the number of false positives that Antivir detects has gone down significantly over the past year.