Antivirus choices

Discuss various technical topics not related to Mozilla.
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c627627
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Antivirus choices

Post by c627627 »

It's not necessary to pay for an antivirus program, but there is only one free program with good definitions and that's Avira.
The others from Avast to AVG to MS Essentials cannot compete with definitions.
I have no blind loyalty to it, I would abandon Avira if/when something better comes along. But it hasn't for many years now.
Any criticism of Avira is usually not from experienced users who know what their doing. I also see some criticism of it from publications who take advertising dollars from competitors.
The worse advice is from people saying "well I've used XYZ and nuthin' ever happened to me."
But that's not a measurement of quality of definitions.

Years ago, a Senior Member at one of the oldest computer hardware forums in the world setup some rigs with latest virii and malware he had access to, just to test all major anti virus programs.
That was a while ago but it was an interesting project, I still keep the table of his rankings which he did privately, not for a magazine or site. I noticed that it closely corresponded to what I was reading on computer forums about actual anti virus programs performance, over the years (more than 10 years.)

It seem to me that Avira will catch whatever anti-ransomware would and whatever antiexploit would and better, so I would not install anything other than Avira *except* a Firewall.
Because a good one intercepts phone home attempts *from* your computer - not just coming in. So Avira in combo with Firewall freeware, not in combo with anything else is what I would use.

Avira doesn't advertise a full download setup, but this is the address, I like to use this one instead of the web based setup:
http install.avira-update.com/package/antivirus/win/en-us/avira_antivirus_en-us

Goes without saying, uninstall *any* other antivirus / anti-malware engine you installed on your computer first and reboot.
Last edited by LIMPET235 on November 30th, 2017, 3:22 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Split from previous thread as totally off topic to that discussion. Link killed.
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lovemyfoxy
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Re: Norton claim that Mozilla forcing change in add-on behav

Post by lovemyfoxy »

c627627 wrote:...
Years ago, a Senior Member at one of the oldest computer hardware forums in the world setup some rigs with latest virii and malware he had access to, just to test all major anti virus programs.
That was a while ago but it was an interesting project, I still keep the table of his rankings which he did privately, not for a magazine or site. I noticed that it closely corresponded to what I was reading on computer forums about actual anti virus programs performance, over the years (more than 10 years.)...
I don't look at reviews on mags that take advertising. The quality of programs goes up and down over the years, esp. if the company is sold, i.e. AVG and Norton. And I have a recent article here that muddies the topic:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/s ... icrosofts/

Have you followed all the listed programs for 10 years? And I'm curious what came in 2nd behind that.
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c627627
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Re: Norton claim that Mozilla forcing change in add-on behav

Post by c627627 »

Yes, I followed it, because it's not like I was 100% happy with Avira. I would ditch them if there is an alternative.
But I have no excuse or justification to ditch Avira. What I would really like is for Avira to let through a virus or any kind of malware.
If I could isolate it like I did more than 10 years ago when another program allowed a virus to get in undetected on my system, I would then test all major programs to see how log it takes their definitions to identify it, that would be how I would stop using Avira. That's how I confirmed Avira was good, 10+ years ago.
But the fact that it's free and and competes with most pay-for programs, it's hard to top that.

As for your link, to take an extreme argument, it happens that people recommend not using any kind of protection at all.
There's nothing you can say to that, we should respect people's decision not to use anything if they don't want to, but that's crazy talk to me. Real question (for me) is just what the best program is to use. *Of course* I'm going to use protection.

If it's pay-for - then why the money is worth it?
If it's freeware - then is it better than Avira and why?
That's the only real constructive discussion.

Mozilla Engineer from your link makes excellent points when he lists why many AV programmers introduce nightmare scenarios for their users...
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jamo2
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Re: Antivirus choices

Post by jamo2 »

Avira is not a good choice .. 360 total securit is a lot better.
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lovemyfoxy
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Re: Antivirus choices

Post by lovemyfoxy »

jamo2 wrote:Avira is not a good choice .. 360 total securit is a lot better.
Is that Norton?
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c627627
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Re: Antivirus choices

Post by c627627 »

No, that's not Norton, 360 is actually partly Avira.
We should post why something is better, otherwise we're just having a discussion about what "feels" good and that's not constructive.

There are a few reasons why 360 is not as good. First and foremost: it actually LICENCES Avira Technology so that's your first clue as to which program is senior. Second, I remember reading a PC Magazine article being puzzled as to why 360 didn't detect as much malware as Avira even though 360 licenses Avira technology.
Apparently tests also showed 360 to be a resource hog when compared to Avira.
People should use what they think is best, but I am still looking for reasons to leave Avira and finding none.

Did you know that 360 doesn't scan files until they're about to execute?
That's crazy, since what if 360 antivirus crashes?
People should immediately switch protection mode settings on 360 from Balanced to Security which would make it scan any time a file is saved, just like Avira default setting does.
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Re: Antivirus choices

Post by mightyglydd »

c627627 wrote:I am still looking for reasons to leave Avira and finding none.

Look no further. I don't see Avira doing TV ads, so they can't be any good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2J7V-TSnDk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFn5TQY8djo
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lovemyfoxy
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Re: Antivirus choices

Post by lovemyfoxy »

incredible... Comparable only to ads for erectile dysfunction.

This will be especially important for us because some of us might not go past the ESR track or FF 54 next year. I'm convinced about Avira.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Antivirus choices

Post by tanstaafl »

https://www.ghacks.net/2017/11/29/av-te ... t-the-top/

"While that did not make it the worst rated product in the test, this honor goes to Qihoo 360 Total Security (Default Engine) with a protective rating of 1/6, only three products in total got worse protective ratings than Windows Defender."

I went back to BitDefender after trying Avira for a while and getting tired of the frequent popup ads. The free version of BitDefender doesn't do anything that annoys me and seems to consistently get high ratings. That is good enough. IMHO what anti-malware software I use is more critical.
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Re: Antivirus choices

Post by Grumpus »

Windows AV users may want to consider this, a little early for the alarmists but certainly worth a look see.
Google Chrome Antivirus Shutout
How long before this occurs with Firefox?
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