Best anti-virus

[PennsyNut]

Hello Y'all the experts. I have tried and used several free anti-virus in lieu of Windows Defender. Reading that some are "supposed" to be better. Avast, AVG, etc. Recently, I downloaded Kapersky free. After about a week or so, suddenly Thunderbirdv52.3.0 quit sending and receiving eMail. From what I could tell, Kapersky don't like Tb. So, I uninstalled K. Now what? Is Defender good enough for a home user. I do like to view movies/videos on Youtube. But most downloads are manuals/.pdf's, and whatever ;.exe's needed. Example is the anti-viruses, I uninstalled Avast and AVG, etc. and deleted the ".exe" files from my "downloads". What difference does that make? If I leave all the exe files on my PC, but "not installed", does that affect anything. Say, other than "space". Defender has never given me any problems. Comodo comes to mind. So as I'm asking. Is there a better anti-virus?

[PennsyNut]

I have in my profile a signature that don't appear. The Windows NT, etc. is wrong. I have Windows 10 64 bit, Comodo AV just installed, no SpyBot, no Malwarebytes, Firefox 55.0.2, Thunderbird 52.3.0.

[makaiguy]

Your signature DID show up in your second post.

The blue line in the lower right is not from the signature in your Mozillazine profile. It is the useragent string reported by your browser to the website when you post. So if what it is reporting is not correct, see: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Resetting_you ... in_default

And actually, Windows NT 10 IS Windows 10. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_M ... t_versions

[PennsyNut]

Thanks Doug. Probably just a typo. I might have forgot to "attach a signature". Just goes to show y'all what a dummy like me can do. LOL

[tanstaafl]

I use the free version of BitDefender. It works very well with Thunderbird because its not aware of email

I'm comfortable with that since my email provider(s) scans the email for malware anyways, and BitDefender gets automatically called whenever a file is opened. When you open an attachment Thunderbird creates a temporary file, whose path it passes to whatever utility displays it. That gives BitDefender a chance to scan it. I view opening attachments as my biggest risk with email.

[PennsyNut]

Well. Let me add to what I have and use. I just installed Comodo based upon a recommendation that it is compatible with Thunderbird. And the email is working. However, I use Gmail and Yahoo. i.e. I can go online and get messages in Google or Yahoo. But also have them on Thunderbird. Why doesn't Google or Yahoo allow you to sort messages to delete them with a certain "subject" or "sender"? Thunderbird allows you to sort your mail from any column. Hence, I can go to my "Save" file and every once in a while sort on subject and delete all mail from "motel reservations"/example at once. On Google or yahoo, you can not do that. You must scroll down through the hundreds or thousands in the particular file just to delete only the ones you want. You might want to do this from a person or company. I usually save messages from "AT&T"/example, but after a year or so, go back and delete them from "2015". I love Thunderbird in spite of the foibles. And dump Kapersky rather than change from Tb to ? something else. Now: even though I am trying Comodo, I am still open to suggestions. Thanks, tanstaafl, about BitDefender. But how can I find out what "google" or "yahoo" scans? I know they do because they have a spam/junk filter that moves messages to a separate file that I usually just visually scan subject or sender and delete immediately. But as we know, some times a legitimate message is tagged as spam/junk and we have to open it to see if it's worth saving or not.

[tanstaafl]

"But how can I find out what "google" or "yahoo" scans?"

Google has a excellent reputation for spam/virus/malware detection. I'd consider them the gold standard. They have bought several startup companies (for example Virustotal - it aggregates many antivirus products and online scan engines to check for viruses that the user's own antivirus may have missed and Postini - cloud computing services for filtering e-mail spam and malware) to integrate their software. They spent $625 million just to buy Postini.

Yahoo announced that they used Symantec anti-virus in 2000. I don't know if thats still true.

[PennsyNut]

Thanks tanstaafl. I've been using Google for years. In spite of people complaining about being tracked. But Google does a lot of things right. They are #1 in search engines. Yahoo, on the other hand, has it's Groups. So, I keep both for that reason. But as I stated, Thunderbird catches both for eMail messages and allows that sorting.

[Daifne]

Why doesn't Google or Yahoo allow you to sort messages to delete them with a certain "subject" or "sender"?

If you have Gmail and Yahoo mail setup as IMAP rather than POP3, you can do it all in Thunderbird rather than having to going to the webmail to clean it up. Just a thought.

[makaiguy]

Why doesn't Google or Yahoo allow you to sort messages to delete them with a certain "subject" or "sender"?

Sounds like a question for Google and Yahoo. Why ask it here?

[PennsyNut]

Sorry Doug. That was a rhetorical question. I'm through with this discussion.

[PennsyNut]

Thanks Daifne. That's what I do. When Tb works. LOL Again, I'm through with this discussion. Thanks to all for the help. This can be closed.