which av prog? mcafee viruscan or avg

[TheWart]

should i use version 4.5.1 of mcafee viruscan licensed thru my university (free) or the free AVG software from Grisoft. or, are neither of these sufficient and should i hunker down and pay for better software. i am constantly downloading things, so if these aren't "powerful" enough please tell me.

 

[holycow]

there are no 'powerful' virus scanners.. as long as you keep your virus def up to date, you should be fine..

 

[Hossenfeffer]

Just for the heck of it, go with McAfee. It's a full-featured scanner that will do everything and more that you need. A good recommendation is to set it to check daily (or hourly if you're anal) for virus definitions. Holycow's right in saying that there aren't really any "powerful" av programs.

 

[TheWart]

thx for the advice.

 

[Workin']

AVG has been working well for me.

I personally have a love/hate relationship with McAfee. I hate it because it is such a bloated piece of garbage that invades every pore of your system and interferes with things it has no business with. I love it because I earn a fair piece of change helping people untangle their system after McAfee forks it up.

Example: What the hell kind of virus scanning software makes you LOOSEN the DEFAULT security of your web browser to allow subscription updates? Had to do that a few times with McAfee.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Back in the late 90's I had a virus that McAfee could not clean up on a boot disk. Norton straightened it out.

McAfee has worked fine since then, but once burned, twice shy.

 

[OZEE]

I personally use McAfee 5.21. I sure wouldn't mess around with 4.5 -- it's too old. They'll stop developing dat files for it soon.

Go ahead and get the newly released McAfee 6.0 -- it's got a built in firewall, too.

Whatever you do - keep it updated and set it to scan everything!

 

[68GTX]

McAfee Will Ignore FBI Spyware called ''Magic Lantern''


<< The Washington Post is reporting on the FBI's new spyware called 'Magic Lantern.' According to their article, "At least one antivirus software company, McAfee Corp., contacted the FBI on Wednesday to ensure its software wouldn't inadvertently detect the bureau's snooping software and alert a criminal suspect.' It is ridiculous that the software companies that are supposed to help us protect computers purposefully leave in loopholes for the FBI to operate their spyware." >>




<< Carnivore feature software, dubbed 'Magic Lantern,' which arrives on a victim's computer in the form of a virus through email or well-known vulnerabilities. Magic Lantern uses keylogging to extract keys typed in, and sends them off to the FBI. This is software takes one step further, allowing computers to be compromised remotely. >>

I'm sure that most of the "Non-US" Antivirus Companies will be able to detect this running on your system.

 

[Byte]

mcafee is a joke thier virusscan causes more problems then most viruses.

 

[gopunk]

perhaps they've changed the error of their ways in 6, but mcafee 5 had many problems, one of which was that it would drastically slow down operations in internet explorer. of course these were complicated actions that only advanced users would ever dream of doing. actions such as "right click" and typing an address in the "address bar".

nav was the best i've ever used, i'm using avg until i can get a copy of nav02.

 

[krystalogik]

If you can fork the $ over for it, I recommend TrendMicro's PC-Cillin, never had a problem with it.
They have a cool FREE scanner at their website (www.antivirus.com) called House call. Pretty cool. all my poor friends just run the web based one once a week.