free antivirus & antispyware combo

Posted Nov 25, 2008 12:26am by BJhuayi08

Joined: Jun 17th, 2008
Posts: 82

this is a bit outside the forum's topic field I know...

my McAfee subscription has expired and i'm thinking instead of renewing it I'll just go with the following -

Free antivirus - AVG or Avast (or both)
Free antispyare - Spypot & Adaware (both already installed)
Firewall - Zonealarm

anyone have comments or can suggest other programs?

Also is there any point in keeping McAfee installed, since I can't update definitions? It seems to be quite a burden on the system

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Joined: Sep 6th, 2007
Posts: 1,381

Re: free antivirus & antispyware combo

Posted by: V on Nov 25, 2008 9:19am

I'd remove the McAfee cruft and stick with Avast + Spybot Search and Destroy. That has kept the critters out of my systems for the last few years.

And if there isn't anything you run that's Window's specific, just run one of the newer iterations of desktop Linux (Ubuntu or CentOS) and you needn't worry too much about virus/spyware (for now).

Cheers,

seabreeze98

Joined: Oct 25th, 2006
Posts: 4,213

Re: free antivirus & antispyware combo

Posted by: seabreeze98 on Nov 25, 2008 11:01am

I'm using AVG at the office and Avast at home.

For spyware you could try 360safe if your Chinese is up to it.

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badr

Joined: Jun 9th, 2005
Posts: 1,284

Re: free antivirus & antispyware combo

Posted by: badr on Nov 25, 2008 1:06pm

not a big fan of how 360safe works... It seems to generate many false positives and even gets flagged at malware every so often.

I second (or third) the AVG option. I really like Avira as well but it has all kind of issues updating.

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Joined: Sep 6th, 2007
Posts: 1,381

Re: free antivirus & antispyware combo

Posted by: V on Nov 26, 2008 6:04am

badr wrote:

I second (or third) the AVG option. I really like Avira as well but it has all kind of issues updating.

I used to like AVG, but the current version (version 8.mumble) has suffered quite a bit of bloat and Avast seems to be a bit more on the ball with catching some of the more funky stuff I've seen in China.

Cheers,