Comments on: I’m done with McAfee VirusScan

By: Stef

Stef — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:13:29 +0000

Thanks for the recommendation of OneCare, I’ll take a look.

I had McAfee many moons ago briefly as a free trial, and we never agreed on anything so went our separate ways.

No I use the inbuilt Vista ’stuff’ (Which I tolerate. You just have to get your head around it), and my router to block just about everything except what I tell it to let through.

I still stand by my conviction the anti-virus companies write bucket-loads of viruses (Virui?) just to keep people needing their product. Mission Impossible 2 was just a parable of the exploits of anti-virus companies. Or something.

By: Colin Weingarten

Colin Weingarten — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:42:06 +0000

I got Onecare myself about 3 months ago. It’s a fairly unobtrusive and simple program. Unfortunately a little too simple on my end. In addition to my own PC I installed it on a relatives PC (with one of the extra licenses), which promptly was infected with several viruses without so much as a twinge from Onecare’s active portion in memory. Subsequent scan attempts detected it, only to fail to remove it. After attempting to restore the backup using its limited restore utility I was at the point of smashing the CD into dust. So I’ve switched to BitDefender, which appears to do its primary job much more reliably.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:58:23 +0000

Why not switch to a free antivirus? Like Avast! or AVG? They are both rated very high on all the review sites, they are not resource / memory hogs like norton, they are simple to use, and they provide excellent protection.

I’ve been using Avast! Home Edition now for almost a year and I never once had an issue with it. It has lots of options to customize it. This includes the option to ’silence’ the only notice you get, which is when the program has been updated. Basically, a sliding box appears on the bottom right hand corner of the screen saying the virus database has been updated, and then a voice tells you that it has been updated. It can get annoying, hence, the option to silence the voice. I like to keep the sliding box option. It disappears in like 2 seconds.

By: Bryan K

Bryan K — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:06:12 +0000

I’d recommend AntiVir as a free AV solution (I have it installed on the few Windows machines that I have to support), except that they do a few annoying things too. For instance, every time they update their signatures, they pop up some huge dialog asking if you want to buy the full version.

(Now in their defense, I am using the free download version. But it’s still annoying, and if it’s that kind of annoyance that you want to get rid of, then I can’t really recommend them.)

Never used Avast! or AVG, though. Perhaps they’re better at that (it sounds like Avast! is, at least).

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:52:22 +0000

Get a Mac. I’ve had one since the first one in 1984, and I’ve NEVER had a virus!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 03:33:04 +0000

Onecare is one of the most incomplete AV software solutions on the market! Don’t fool yourself with cheap or free AV, when you get annoying pop up’s on your machine or something worse then you’ll kick yourself. I started that way and my machine turned into a mess until it was not working! Now I pay for product and i’m happy to be warned rather than end up with a slow machine that doesn’t work because it’s full of programs I never installed.

By: smeos

smeos — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:53:39 +0000

I had McAfee when I first got a computer, and I never used it again. Not to mention, they sponsor the stadium where the Raiders play, which should tell you that they’re all a bunch of scumbags.

I use AVG, which is free and seems to do an okay job.

By: Jamahl Epsicokhan

Jamahl Epsicokhan — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:05:51 +0000

Just to clarify: I am not necessarily “recommending” OneCare. I honestly have not thoroughly investigated it based on quantitative tests by the reviews that do such things. It seems competent, but that’s just based on a few months experience of it on my laptop.

Mainly, it doesn’t bug me like McAfee, which is what I can report right now.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:23:50 +0000

Avast is ranked 12th and AVG ranked 8th out of the top 17 anti viruses, according to http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

BitDefender is ranked #1 on many sites.

By: kj

kj — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:27:23 +0000

I’ve used Norton suite for a couple of years. NIS2006 gave good protection, but was pretty obtrusive in terms of resource usage and of often asking questions (though it did learn after a while). But NIS2007 I really like, I don’t often notice a performance hit, and it almost never asks me anything, while the protection seems just as good. I don’t mind paying if I get the goods. Just my experience, no firestorm of anti-Norton comments required, thanks…

By: Stef

Stef — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 09:55:12 +0000

I know Jammer, I wasn’t implying you were actually ‘recommending’ OneCare in any legal sense (e.g. I’m not going to sue you when I get infected)

“Get a Mac. I’ve had one since the first one in 1984, and I’ve NEVER had a virus!”

I’ve had PCs for almost 20 years, and never had a virus, worm, or trojan. So…

The more popular Macs become, the more trojans and viruses will get written. Recommending that people get Macs will only put your Mac at risk in the long run.

By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:42:30 +0000

“The more popular Macs become, the more trojans and viruses will get written. Recommending that people get Macs will only put your Mac at risk in the long run.”

Good. I hate smug Mac users like Eric.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:11:34 +0000

For the BEST in free protection, check out Comodo…..I’ve used both their AV suite & Firewall and both have surpassed my expectations so much so that I’ve switched from Norton.

Also for AV……AVG Free Edition is a stellar choice too

By: Dude

Dude — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 05:10:32 +0000

I always say “I’d rather have a virus than Norton installed” - and I ditched McAfee back in the days too.

Use Kaspersky if you really need to protect something.

By: Jamahl Epsicokhan

Jamahl Epsicokhan — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:19:22 +0000

Back in the day, virus scanners used to just run when you asked them to scan for viruses — and the rest of the time they did nothing. Now they turn your computer into a fortress and prompt you constantly. To be honest, I’m not sure that the cure isn’t worse than the potential disease, especially since my computer never got infected.

Then again, it’s possible that having that fortress is what kept my computer uninfected all these years, so who knows.

By: neilo

neilo — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 02:06:08 +0000

I had a similar experience with Norton Internet Security. It just kept getting bigger and wanting more and more stuff bought and installed. Then I switched to Vista, and NIS2007 ran like an absolute dog.

With six months to go on my NIS subscription, I installed OnceCare, and all of a suddem my computer felt like the tar had been removed. One of the better offerings from MS, and certainly one program I will have no problem subscribing to.

By: Dani

Dani — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 01:21:53 +0000

Guys, get NOD32. It’s one of the best anti-virus out there. There’s even a new suite called Smart Security, complete with anit-spam and firewall. And the best thing is: it won’t make your PC crawl.
I have quite a few PC-s at home, the oldest one being a P2-Celeron clocked at 458 with 256 megs of RAM. NOD is running on that PC flawlessly, using only 23 megs of RAM at startup. And it has a cool scheduler too.
Check out www.av-comparatives.org

By: Aquatakat

Aquatakat — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 06:33:21 +0000

Windows Live OneCare has really bad detection rates. Something like 80-85% last time I checked.

The latest Norton is almost nice to use (oops!) but Kaspersky, NOD32, and BitDefender are all great.

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By: SecurityProtector

SecurityProtector — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:45:40 +0000

Gettin’ a mac is often recommended by happy owners
But it seems that PC’s are more attacked because they dominate on the world market of personal computers. Hence the number of viruses to exploit Windows vulnerabilities.
BTW, sometimes antivirus tests display as winners the companies I’be never heard of. One of such is MKS from Poland, and another - G-Data. The latter seems to be with German interface only But I’m a bit too conservative to try out every AV out there.