AVG throwing up alot of flase positives.

[88keys]

I've been noticing alot of fairly benign standalone programs are being considered viruses and AVG has automatically deleted some which really pissed me off becuase some of these programs aren't easy to find anymore.

Luckily I keep most of my abandon ware stuff backed up in zip files but it is starting to get annoying because it just deleted my the wma 9 lossless codec while I was installing it and that was not an easy download to find as standalone.

What are some other less annoying alternatives. Might even consider a paid antivirus again. Had Kaspersky years ago and I recall it being pretty good.

 

[MongGrel]

Allisolm threw up a link for Kaspersky being $.01 a couple of days ago at Staples.

Not sure if still would be.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2456023

Looks might be over.

 

[lxskllr]

AV largely doesn't work. I certainly wouldn't pay for snakeoil. I'd look into tweaking AVG's settings. There should be something that prompts for what to do, or ignores/logs the hit. Autodeletion is never an acceptable option.

 

[88keys]

AV largely doesn't work. I certainly wouldn't pay for snakeoil. I'd look into tweaking AVG's settings. There should be something that prompts for what to do, or ignores/logs the hit. Autodeletion is never an acceptable option.

Probably got a point... AV is mostly good for the viruses that do minimal damage but is generally useless against anything better because you'll end up needing to re install/image because it's only way to know that the damage to the OS has been undone.
And it's easier.



And to be honest. Just staying off the dark side of the web is probably the best anti virus protection there is. And if you must go, use a virtual machine.

 

[Captante]

On the contrary quality AV does work provided you have realistic expectations. Just like a radar detector will assist you in avoiding a speeding ticket, an effective AV program can assist in avoiding malware infection but certainly will not prevent it.

Fail to use proper care online and even the best AV won't save you, common sense should of course be your first defense.

In my opinion Avast is about the most effective of the "freebie" AV programs however I too have found that it tends to false more then it should with default settings. It is possible to tweak the program to avoid most false detection's and further anything it does delete on you should be easy enough to restore from quarantine assuming you didn't change the settings to auto-delete. (never a good idea)

If you do decide to go with a paid AV program, Kaspersky is very effective if a bit obtrusive and resource-intensive. Believe it or not I've had the best luck with Norton in recent years and Bit-Defender would also be a solid choice.

 

[Mike64]

I've been noticing alot of fairly benign standalone programs are being considered viruses and AVG has automatically deleted some which really pissed me off becuase some of these programs aren't easy to find anymore.

Luckily I keep most of my abandon ware stuff backed up in zip files but it is starting to get annoying because it just deleted my the wma 9 lossless codec while I was installing it and that was not an easy download to find as standalone.

What are some other less annoying alternatives. Might even consider a paid antivirus again. Had Kaspersky years ago and I recall it being pretty good.

Hmm... what other programs has it been flagging? I use AVG's free version and haven't noticed anything unusual lately. But in any event, you can definitely change the settings to prevent it from automatically "removing threats"...

As for using AV's in general, I do it the way I carry an umbrella when there's any realistic chance of it raining - it's always the times you don't have it with you that it seems to rain. They don't noticeably affect system performance for my purposes, and with autodeletion turned off, they can't "inadvertently" hurt anything. I'm not sure what you mean by the "dark side" of the web, but while I can't think of any site that qualifies that I visit regularly, I also don't hesitate to open random links that come up on web searches for all manner of stuff... On the other hand, I can't remember the last time I got an AV hit or got hit by malware. (fingers crossed)