[claude2]

We are all anxious, of the protection of our computer, here is my inquiry. No Virus detecté in VIEWER SL, however to remain careful.

[claude2]

Here is my Antivirus, it is formidable, it works intituivement, by the presence of very intrusion, is pages, mail, tchat, etc!! It has no problem it in SL, even at the level of downloading. But lately, My antivirus, discovered reallusion Iclone, a Virus, in the installation, of, it automatically interrupted the download.

[claude2]

My other one, AntiSpyware, shone, discerns dispatches in depth, all intrusions, by Internet, it information, to the waiter, he makes an urgent update, and destroys intrusion immediately.

It is free, or, buy, commercialized, in the united states, it is still not known in Europe, but really very efficient, it is necessary, for the stability of the sytème, against pages slow, pages infected, etc.

[Art]

TWO other really good programs that you should run are SPYBOT SEARCH & DESTROY and ADAWARE.

They work well and sometimes one finds things that the other one might miss and vice versa.

Both are FREE!!  Google them.

[Data]

The Brain is a good antivirus, use it in conjunction with the plug-in “common sense”, it aids the user greatly at keeping away from dodgy sites and software. 

However try to keep away from the plug-in “paranoia” it can slow your PC down as it can make the Brain unsure of itself and go hunting for multiple antivirus systems.

The first warning sign of the paranoia plug-in at work is when the amount of antivirus applications on your PC exceeds the number one.

Just my take.   

[Freddy]

Agreed 

[claude2]

Lol!! DataHopa, Me I takes some syrup of eucalyptus for my brain, it is a good AntiRootKit ARFF

[Data]

Glad you found “my take” amusing Freddy and Claude 

As I was writing it I was laughing to myself  , but tried really hard to make it sound serious.

[photostill]

That was too good, Datahopa. Gotta admit you got a smile outta me with the reading.

I very much agree that having two different (at least) programs looking for malware increases your chances of finding stuff. I do this myself, with a dedicated A/V program as well as a software firewall containing another A/V. Most of the time A/Vs do not willing share a computer but will instead either inert one of them or develop a conflict stopping both. It's rare to find a dual set of A/Vs that play fair together.

This is why I use Antivir and COMODO firewall with A/V. I get both of them to work on the same scan. The firewall does the scan, the Antivir looks over it's shoulder while it is doing it's thing. Both respond as they see things and they are not always the same items. Both of them work in conjunction with each other at the same scan, saving cpu time.

[Data]

Glad you found it amusing photostill   

To my mind It comes down to this:
At what point do you feel happy with the security on your system?

I have heard people recommending plenty of them, they feel happy that they are protected, so happy they recommend it to others, me included.

Personally It wouldn’t really worry me if I didn’t have any AV, I keep away from sites I shouldn’t go to, and have trained myself to spot the tell tell signs of something being up, normally you can rip them out of the system, or a windows install is about what? 2 hours work.

The thing that annoys me most about this is the memory hogging, pc slow downing effect of AV, there’s nothing nicer than a clean install of windows, no AV of any kind, just fast at booting and operating.

The closest I have found to that is MSE. I’m happy  and I know you are too with yours 

[photostill]

Much agree that in the end it comes down to being happy with what you have and are comfortable with. There is no one solution that does the job without side issues.

I'm afraid I always find it humorous when I see the post asking for "What is the best A/V". It always comes down to a popularity contest and not truly what the seeker is looking for.

Again in agreement, there is nothing like the fresh install for that missing speed. Hidden logs and record keeping soon jam it up again with seek time to see if there is more needed to be added, once again leaving the user in the waiting room.

However, I do hate to do a fresh install. It always takes me a tremendous amount of time to resettle the computer back in to my useful mode.

[Art]

Even with a recent system backup I still need to dedicate days to getting everything back to a decent operational condition like serial numbers, passwords for programs, user's, email lost. Gmail IS a great idea because one doesn't lose any of their previous emails or contacts. I use it now and then but it does have it's advantages.

The backup thing has always plagued most users because rarely will backup software backup everything on a computer. There are systems files and entries that will obviously change (registry...) so one never gets a true mirror image of their computer.

I think Norton has a program called Ghost which most people said, really worked well and came the closest to a complete restore. One could always go with a RAID system for redundancy but for some, that's overkill.

To each their own.

[DaveMorton]

@DH:

The last time I spent only 2 hours on a fresh OS install was back with 98! My biggest time consuming task with an OS install is in forcing the separation of the OS (on it's own physical drive) with applications (on a second drive) and data files (e.g. "My Documents", web server folders, music, downloads directory, etc - All on a third drive, with multiple partitions). Not including program re-installation, which is it's own nightmare, a full, clean OS install of XP Pro takes me somewhere between 9 and 12 hours (including all the updates), most of which is me making changes to the registry that I have never been able to collect into a registry file, since many of the settings are "system only", requiring me to go in and change ownership of them before they can be changed. Of course, I'm "way beyond anal" with the way I want my box set up, but that's just me. So it's easy for folks to see why I consider a format and re-install to be a "last ditch effort". This is also one of several reasons why I haven't made the switch to 7 yet. Too much to learn, to make my computer "truly mine".

[Data]

Well guys I kind of agree that putting windows in is a bit of a pain but over the years I have found ways to speed up the process greatly.

I still think 2 hours is enough for me to get win 7 mostly back to how I want it.

45 mins win 7 in

15 mins up-dates and MSE in

15 mins drivers in

45 mins restoring e-mails, passwords, and a few programs that have to be installed, many of the programs I use don’t need to be installed, they are stand-alone and on their own HD.

So yes 2 hours on Win 7 is possible for me.

XP and Vista though, no, XP takes something like 4 hours just for the up-dates, I did one last week, there is over 100 of them now, depending on what service pack the XP disk is, the best idea is to make an XP slipstream disk with SP3 already on it, fastest XP install from CD you can do.

Check this page out, it will speed up your XP install.
http://www.howtohaven.com/system/slipstream-xp-service-pack-3.shtml

[Data]

Well that stopped the topic in its track. (sorry)

I just thought I would add this.

A windows slipstream install will run and boot faster than a standard install, mainly because it doesn’t mess with the registry as service packs get removed, over written or installed.

So if you have a Windows XP system, now would be a good time to make that CD, as there isn’t going to be any more service packs for XP. 

Slipstream can also be used on Vista and Windows 7, I will be making mine when Win7 SP1 is out, coming soon.