Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? in Security http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18580722 en Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:22:05 EDT Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:22:05 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18857880 jeisenberg :
said by cdbma See Profile :

Avast does not support scheduled scans, but does not have a nag screen.
Although you can't schedule a scan, you can do scans while the screen saver is active. To me, that's a better solution.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18857880 Sun, 12 Aug 2007 10:19:01 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18857847 Mele20 : It's 4AM here and I have to get to sleep. I can find the threads at Wilders tomorrow for you or a search there for Avira nag screen should find them.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18857847 Sun, 12 Aug 2007 10:11:10 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18857725 cdbma : thanks Mele20. I have to start somewhere, so i think i'll go with Avira and figure out how to disable the nag screen.

I don't want the kitchen sink either. I need something that will keep viruses off my daughter's computer because you all know who she calls when it stops working!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18857725 Sun, 12 Aug 2007 09:31:54 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18857690 Mele20 : You can disable the Avira nag screen. Lots of posts about it over at Wilders. It never bothered me when I had the free version. Avira is a lot better at detection than Avast. Avast includes the kitchen sink too which I didn't like. I just want a really good AV....not everything else crammed in. But if you want all the other stuff then Avast would be the better choice.
--
"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18857690 Sun, 12 Aug 2007 09:21:21 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18857647 cdbma : Free is key - for now. I need to get an AV app on my daughter's new laptop, but i'm not sure which one is going to be the best in the long term. I figure I can get something on her computer for now and then figure out what she needs to buy for the long term.

Avira has a nag screen, but one can schedule a scan. Avast does not support scheduled scans, but does not have a nag screen. I'm wondering if it's important to have a scan scheduling feature, as I'm not sure i can depend on my daughter to run scans weekly.

I guess I just need to pick one and go.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18857647 Sun, 12 Aug 2007 09:05:08 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18857520 sjoeii : My choice for a free one. Would be Avira. But is free that important to you?
--
Kaspersky Labs Fan Club Project Manager
forum.kasperskyclub.com]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18857520 Sun, 12 Aug 2007 08:12:38 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18839460 clocks11 : Anyone get Antivir to run with Vista. Would not work for me after trying two separate installed. I believe it was an issue with the updater module.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18839460 Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:03:33 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18839201 jmorlan :
said by comfort See Profile :

Does AntiVir Free have a nag screen during updates, or did I set something incorrectly? If I wanted to be bothered by nag screens I would go through trial versions ..
Yes, there is a nag screen during updates even if you set updates to "silent" mode. It's quite intrusive and gaudy in my opinion. There is a work-around to disable it if it bothers you, or use another AV such as Avast or AVG. Neither of those have nag screens. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18839201 Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:03:32 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18838972 comfort : Does AntiVir Free have a nag screen during updates, or did I set something incorrectly? If I wanted to be bothered by nag screens I would go through trial versions ..]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18838972 Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:43:47 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18837705 StraitShoot : I would either try Avira or Avast...]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18837705 Wed, 08 Aug 2007 23:33:53 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18833447 poppster : Try AntiVir from Avira. I use it on all of my pc's.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18833447 Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:57:56 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18831548 cdbma : I was about to download the AOL SW, but they apparently switched form Kaspersky to McAfee. I'm looking for an easy, intuitive, stress-free app for my daughter's new Vista laptop. Any thoughts on what AOL is now offering?

If this is not the way to go, I guess i'll check out the other free kits. I do need something that supports scheduled scans, as she will not remember to do it.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18831548 Wed, 08 Aug 2007 07:12:09 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18642544 Mele20 : I'm glad you found the workarounds. The Splash screen when updating didn't bother me but it does a lot of folks. The only real problem with the free version is that the update servers are slow. That is not a problem usually. But if Avira has a fat update or a major version upgrade like on April 19 then the servers for the free version get overwhelmed and it is a problem then. The servers for the paid versions are MUCH faster and there are no problems when major updates/upgrades happen. There has been much speculation as to why Avira allows the servers for the free version to have the problems. I assume it is to encourage users to buy Avira. It is not an expensive AV but I don't really know why they don't fix the servers for the free version.

I was using the free version, but about two-three months ago, there was a promotion in a German version of, I think it was PC magazine, some computer magazine that offered a SIX MONTH trial of the Personal Premium version. A whole bunch of us got it. So, I have the trial until the middle of October.

The rootkit detection module I think has been improved since April 19 when first released. I got it then and I believe it was at least part of the sudden printer problems I had. I haven't tried it since then.

The FP's are mainly with the Extended Threat Category of Security Privacy Risks. That was ON by default until the major upgrade on April 19. Now it is OFF by default. That is probably why you saw no FP's. If you turn that on Avira will flag stuff like Sysinternals PSTools (pskill.exe). So, either keep that turned off or exclude and exclude is not set up to work smoothly. We have asked Avira to fix that.

Avira has warts. But they all do. I think the paid version should have email support but support for both paid and free is just the forum. There are several Avira support personnel who are assigned to the forum which is good.
--
"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18642544 Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:05:59 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18640558 jmorlan :
said by Mele20 See Profile :

First, I recommend Avira. It causes less problems than any other AV I have used. I did have a problem with the recent addition of the rootkit scanner so I uninstalled it. It's detection is equal to or better than KAV and it can be set to update every hour. It doesn't have bells and whistles like KAV but supposedly is getting some of those this fall (web checker).
Avira is one of the few free AV's that I have not tried. Based on your recommendation I am giving it a try right now and have removed AVS.

So far I like it pretty well. The detection rates are good and I did not see any false positives when I let it do a full scan. I had heard that it had a high rate of false positives, but that was not the case for me. I don't need or want an email scanner or a web checker; just an unobtrusive real-time defense is what I look for in an AV and Avira offers exactly that.

However, there are a few things I don't like. They advise you to update frequently like every six hours. However the update "interval" option only works for times greater than one day. Otherwise, to set it for one hour using the interface, you would need to add additional tasks for each hour of the day and have them repeat daily. That's just stupid.

The other thing that I don't care for is the large intrusive nag-screen popup that you get when it updates. It's really unprofessional looking and I think it's likely to turn people off more than encourage users of the free version to upgrade.

Fortunately there are workarounds to both of these issues, but it took a while to find and apply them.

I did not have any issues with the rootkit detection. Are you using the free version? ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18640558 Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:18:45 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18638352 jmorlan :
said by MikePal :

You are wrong posting that. All technical details you posted here have nothing with iSwift technology. They are related to iStreams technology used in earliest KAV 5.0 versions.

iSwift technology used in KAV 6.0+ is implemented in different way. It doesn't create any streams in files, it doesn't modify files in any way. It uses it's own database to maintain list of checked files instead. It has no any problem with CHKDSK.
You are misinformed. AVS does not use iStreams. It uses both iSwift and iChecker but not iStreams. See screen shot earlier in this thread here. ISwift works as I described.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18638352 Mon, 09 Jul 2007 10:28:02 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18637540 Mele20 :
said by MikePal :

said by jmorlan See Profile :

said by lordpuffer See Profile :

If I use AOL AVS, does it also download other AOL stuff? I don't want any other AOL stuff on my computer.
One downside to AVS (and KAV) in my opinion is that it defaults to enabling the built-in iSwift technology which adds undocumented NTFS-identifiers to your NTFS indexes. It does this to speed up scanning by skipping files that have already been scanned and cleared. However, there appears to be a side-effect of this technology in that some (many?) systems will experience long pauses during or before stage 2 CHKDSK after these NTFS-identifiers have been added. In some cases CHKDSK may not be able to run to completion.
...
You are wrong posting that. All technical details you posted here have nothing with iSwift technology. They are related to iStreams technology used in earliest KAV 5.0 versions.

iSwift technology used in KAV 6.0+ is implemented in different way. It doesn't create any streams in files, it doesn't modify files in any way. It uses it's own database to maintain list of checked files instead. It has no any problem with CHKDSK.
I don't know who you are since you posted anon but if by some vague chance you actually are connected to Kasperksy Labs which I doubt please post in the »Kaspersky, You lost me at ISwift..
thread and "enlighten" us.

Who said anything about ADS tags? We are not talking about KAV 5 but KAV 6 and 7 which have NTFS Identifiers added to each file and these Identifiers ARE causing problems with Chkdsk for a lot of us.
--
"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18637540 Mon, 09 Jul 2007 05:41:10 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18637506 anon :
said by jmorlan See Profile :

said by lordpuffer See Profile :

If I use AOL AVS, does it also download other AOL stuff? I don't want any other AOL stuff on my computer.
One downside to AVS (and KAV) in my opinion is that it defaults to enabling the built-in iSwift technology which adds undocumented NTFS-identifiers to your NTFS indexes. It does this to speed up scanning by skipping files that have already been scanned and cleared. However, there appears to be a side-effect of this technology in that some (many?) systems will experience long pauses during or before stage 2 CHKDSK after these NTFS-identifiers have been added. In some cases CHKDSK may not be able to run to completion.
...
You are wrong posting that. All technical details you posted here have nothing with iSwift technology. They are related to iStreams technology used in earliest KAV 5.0 versions.

iSwift technology used in KAV 6.0+ is implemented in different way. It doesn't create any streams in files, it doesn't modify files in any way. It uses it's own database to maintain list of checked files instead. It has no any problem with CHKDSK. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18637506 Mon, 09 Jul 2007 04:53:03 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18618265 Maarvin : My Comcast offered McAfee Security Suite was not as trouble free as Comcast and McAfee proposed. For no particular reason the McAfee System Manager, mcmscsvc.exe, would hog the hard disk system utility at over 95% of the system time. This made my system next to useless. Since McAfee had no cure for this, McAfee was deleted. Oddly enough my other system runs smoothly.

The firewall was replaced with Microsoft Windows XP firewall. I am currently using PCTools free VirusScan. However, after reading through this thread I may check out AVS since it seems so popular.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18618265 Thu, 05 Jul 2007 12:57:30 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18615206 dantz :
said by lordpuffer See Profile :

I have a few questons.....First of all , I took the above posters' advice, and I disabled iSwift before I ran a C:Drive scan. So I should be fine, right? It did, however, on it's own, start scanning the startup files before I could disable it. I had no chlice. It happened on it's own. Am I still ok? Also, what is CHKDSK? How would I know if I'm having a lag. I'm not sure what it is and when you would see the lag.

I also tried to install the AOL AVS on my friend's new computer that has Vista. During the installation, I kept getting an error message and it would not install. Does it not work with Vista?
Chkdsk is also known as Check Disk. One way to access it is to go into My Computer, right-click on one of your drive letters (usually C), then choose Properties, then the Tools tab. Under Error Checking, click Check Now. In most cases you would also tick the "Automatically fix file system errors" checkbox. (Leave the second box blank). Then click on Start. If you are testing your C drive, Windows will offer to run the disk check at the next reboot.

Chkdsk can also be accessed via the command line, and this is the preferred method for most users.

When chkdsk is running it normally goes from the end of Stage 1 directly into Stage 2 with no lag whatsoever. If all you see is a short lag at the start of Stage 2 and nothing else is amiss, I recommend not worrying about it. However, if chkdsk has a very long lag, freezes up or even crashes, then you can start to wonder what's going on. However, the majority of users will experience nothing more than a short (and hopefully harmless) lag.

PS: I'm not sure what to tell you about AVS and Vista. A Vista-compatible version was recently released, but I have not looked into it. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18615206 Wed, 04 Jul 2007 21:22:23 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18611857 lordpuffer : I have a few questons.....First of all , I took the above posters' advice, and I disabled iSwift before I ran a C:Drive scan. So I should be fine, right? It did, however, on it's own, start scanning the startup files before I could disable it. I had no chlice. It happened on it's own. Am I still ok? Also, what is CHKDSK? How would I know if I'm having a lag. I'm not sure what it is and when you would see the lag.

I also tried to install the AOL AVS on my friend's new computer that has Vista. During the installation, I kept getting an error message and it would not install. Does it not work with Vista? ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18611857 Wed, 04 Jul 2007 09:13:38 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18611813 FF again : So far only SAM 2007.1 has full filled all my requirements. Multilingual, fast & easy web surfing, infection free etc.

Best regards,
FF again!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18611813 Wed, 04 Jul 2007 08:54:41 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18611246 dantz : I'm not particularly concerned about the fragmentation itself; I'm just using that as a marker to show me which areas are active during a scan, and thus a likely location of the NTFS identifiers. But yes, I'll switch to the other thread. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18611246 Wed, 04 Jul 2007 03:15:58 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18610887 jmorlan : There are a number of utilities that can defrag metadata. I have at least two and they both report that my metadata is not fragmented at all. Yet I still have the CHKDSK issue. If it were just a matter of defragging metadata, I think it would be a minor issue with an easy fix.

I believe this issue is different.

We probably should move this discussion over to the new thread.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18610887 Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:55:36 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18610772 dantz :
said by jmorlan See Profile :

dantz See Profile, I think your analysis of these mysterious NTFS identifiers is correct. Here is a link that explains about NTFS "object identifiers" and how they work. Essentially an attribute is added to each file which uniquely identifies it.

»msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/librar···997.aspx

Here is code which will delete object identifiers:

»msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/librar···559.aspx

What we need is a simple program that will run that last routine on every file on disk and I think we will have the problem solved.
Thanks. I'm not too sure that's the appropriate code, but I'll look into it. My focus is centered in the MFT's extended attributes, particularly $Extend\$ObjID:$O, as this area showed extensive fragmentation immediately after running a KAV filescan. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18610772 Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:24:58 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18610502 jmorlan : I tried to turn iSwift off in the registry, but it wouldn't let me make the change no matter what I did to the permissions. I'm not sure how to turn off self-defence in AVS, but changing those registry values may not work anyway according to this thread.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18610502 Tue, 03 Jul 2007 23:24:54 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18610094 Mele20 :
said by jmorlan See Profile :

If you use AVS (or KAV) there is an option to turn iSwift off and I recommend that you do (see above screenshot). However, if you run a scan with it on, you will have those NTFS-identifiers forever and there is no going back. However, if your system was clean to begin with, there's really no need to do an initial scan and you will still get AVS's excellent real-time protection should a parasite get downloaded or try to execute on your system.
First, I recommend Avira. It causes less problems than any other AV I have used. I did have a problem with the recent addition of the rootkit scanner so I uninstalled it. It's detection is equal to or better than KAV and it can be set to update every hour. It doesn't have bells and whistles like KAV but supposedly is getting some of those this fall (web checker).

As for the Kaspersky chkdsk problems, Lucian is saying that the only way to turn off ISwift for the file checker is to do so in the Registry (and that may not work). Evidently turning off ISwift for the file checker cannot be done from the GUI so apparently it doesn't matter if one is careful to turn it off for the on demand scanner. I never ran a full scan when I had KAV 2006 and the first thing I did was turn off ISwift and Ichecker yet I still had damage to Chkdsk which has remained after removing KAV back in Nov 2006. ISwift cannot be turned off for the file checker in 2007 version either unless it does work to do so in the Registry.
--
"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18610094 Tue, 03 Jul 2007 22:00:41 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18609830 technovert : I really like the AOL Active Virus Shield I have been very happy with it and am using it on several pcs. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18609830 Tue, 03 Jul 2007 21:09:39 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18609440 RonT :
said by StraitShoot See Profile :

1. As a Comcast subscriber, I can have the "privilige" of using McAfee Internet Security for free.. »www.comcast.net/security/?CM.src=top Thanks but no thanks...I found it to be a resource hog and it keeps sending me pop ups to be stuff I don't need or want.
The folks at McAfee should read this book here before making such lame attempts to sell their Comcast subscribers more crap...»www.sethgodin.com/permission/
FWIW, I'm a Comcast subscriber also and have used their McAfee offering for 2 years...have never got a pop-up from the software at all.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18609440 Tue, 03 Jul 2007 19:48:20 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18606814 HA Nut : Interesting discussion about KAV 6. I ran it for nearly a year and wondered why CHKDSK ran so slow in comparison to other PCs. Thankfully, mine never froze...]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18606814 Tue, 03 Jul 2007 11:26:04 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18606377 StraitShoot :
said by dantz See Profile :

said by StraitShoot See Profile :

Well, according to this thread, if you uninstall KIS or KAV 6 the ISwift goes away, but even they in the forum seem to ignore the issue.
Nope, sorry, that doesn't work.
I played with it and you're correct...
Jim
--
"Who Loves Ya Baby?"]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18606377 Tue, 03 Jul 2007 10:00:47 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18605046 jmorlan : dantz See Profile, I think your analysis of these mysterious NTFS identifiers is correct. Here is a link that explains about NTFS "object identifiers" and how they work. Essentially an attribute is added to each file which uniquely identifies it.

»msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/librar···997.aspx

Here is code which will delete object identifiers:

»msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/librar···559.aspx

What we need is a simple program that will run that last routine on every file on disk and I think we will have the problem solved.

Antaeogo See Profile, that's a separate issue. This CHKDSK problem is not caused by NTFS ADS. There were problems with metadata fragmentation, but this is a separate issue. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18605046 Tue, 03 Jul 2007 00:19:22 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18604996 Antaeogo : A long time ago when I installed KAV (briefly), I used sysinternals "Streams" utility to remove the junk NTFS ADS. You can still get it from Microsoft here. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18604996 Tue, 03 Jul 2007 00:07:30 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18604963 dantz :
said by StraitShoot See Profile :

Well, according to this thread, if you uninstall KIS or KAV 6 the ISwift goes away, but even they in the forum seem to ignore the issue.
Nope, sorry, that doesn't work. You can uninstall KAV and/or delete the several "fidbox" files, but the so-called "NTFS identifiers" that were added to the NTFS indexes will still remain. If you are getting the CHKDSK lag, you will keep on getting it. If CHKDSK crashes after the lag, it will keep on crashing. To the best of my knowledge, the changes that were done to the NTFS filesystem cannot be undone by merely uninstalling the program and/or deleting the fidbox files.

Here's a link to the main thread on the Kaspersky forum that discusses this issue in greater detail (18 pages and counting):

»forum.kaspersky.com/index.php?sh···ic=14995

You can also search the KAV forums for "chkdsk" and find a few other related threads.

My current thinking about the fidbox files is that they are a database containing copies of the NTFS identifiers, the last scanned dates, the virus definition version in effect when each file was scanned, etc. that is used for comparison purposes, i.e. for each file being scanned, the index value of the NTFS identifier is compared to the fidbox data, then KAV decides how to handle that file. I think that each file's NTFS identifier is also updated or appended during the scan. I'm just guessing at this point, but eventually I will figure it out. I'm continuing to research this issue and will post my results on the main thread. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18604963 Mon, 02 Jul 2007 23:56:46 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18604960 clocks11 : I can say I have uninstalled, and still have the delay. I guess it could be something else, but I doubt it.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18604960 Mon, 02 Jul 2007 23:56:01 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18604381 StraitShoot : Well, according to this thread, if you uninstall KIS or KAV 6 the ISwift goes away, but even they in the forum seem to ignore the issue.

I will play around later and let you folks know.. and if it's true, I will uninstall KIS and go with AVG. I've had it with all these "little" surprises the AV companies play. Sometimes it seems the cure is worse than the disease with these guys...

»forum.kaspersky.com/index.php?s=···ry212917
--
"Who Loves Ya Baby?"]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18604381 Mon, 02 Jul 2007 22:01:02 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18598474 jmorlan : Some people see just a minor delay, others a much longer one. Mine is about 10 minutes at the beginning of Stage 2. Some users have reported not being able to get CHKDSK to run to completion.

For many it is just a minor annoyance, for others it's a deal breaker.

Kaspersky has an excellent reputation, but their unwillingness to acknowledge the problem despite numerous documented cases and complaints is disappointing. ISwift is proprietary technology, so it's not easy for a 3rd party to devise a removal tool. In my opinion, Kaspersky really should step up to the plate and offer a removal tool for those users who are affected by this bug.

In the past they did it for iStreams, why not for iSwift?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18598474 Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:30:05 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18598211 hpguru :
said by dantz See Profile :

...try running CHKDSK on Drive C and see if your system experiences a noticeable delay at the beginning of Phase 2 (or "Stage" 2, if you scheduled CHKDSK to run after a reboot). If you are lucky this is all that will happen, but some people experience worse symptoms.
I just checked. There is indeed a slight delay over what I would expect but nothing serious. I suppose if one makes a habit of watching chkdsk it would seem like it is taking forever but it isn't but just a moment. Besides, when I have occasion to scan my disks, I schedule them, reboot and go do something else for a while.
--
The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18598211 Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:26:34 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18598194 clocks11 : I wish I read your post about this sooner. I have the dreaded delay now. It will be a long time before I use anything Kaspersky again.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18598194 Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:23:45 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18597874 dantz :
said by hpguru See Profile :

No issues with iSwift here. Works great. :)
If you run at least one full scan of Drive C with iSwift enabled then the so-called NTFS identifiers will be permanently added to your filesystem indexes. (Uninstalling KAV or AVS won't remove them). After this happens, try running CHKDSK on Drive C and see if your system experiences a noticeable delay at the beginning of Phase 2 (or "Stage" 2, if you scheduled CHKDSK to run after a reboot). If you are lucky this is all that will happen, but some people experience worse symptoms.

If you have not yet run a full scan of Drive C and you want to try this, I strongly recommend that you save a fresh image before you do so, as the NTFS identifiers are very difficult to remove from the partition containing the OS. In fact, the simplest way to "remove" them is to restore from a previous image. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18597874 Sun, 01 Jul 2007 18:05:03 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18596940 hpguru : No issues with iSwift here. Works great. :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18596940 Sun, 01 Jul 2007 14:16:48 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18596524 diver196 : While it may not be a favorite of those posting here, AVG is probably the most widely used free AV program. Its the number one AV program on the AV poll here. Other programs may boast better detection rates and AVG is known to be weak on spyware, but it is very easy to use.

Another alternative, not usually though of as free, is to use whatever your employer or school is authorized to give out. This would most likely include enterprise versions of Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro. Many scoff at the "big 3", but their enterprise versions are free of the annoyances that come with the consumer versions.

Its like what I say about Coffee. Folks will walk past free coffee in a hotel lobby and buy a cup of Starbucks across the street. The hotel coffee isn't what they want. AV's are the same way. You really don't have to pay for one unless you insist.
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Only those defenses are good, certain and durable, which depend on yourself alone and your own ability. -The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18596524 Sun, 01 Jul 2007 12:44:49 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18595128 lordpuffer : Thanks]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18595128 Sun, 01 Jul 2007 01:21:43 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18594478 jmorlan : You can set scheduled scans at the "Run Mode" check box above. Check the box and then click on "change." You can schedule scans daily, weekly, monthly, Wednesdays, whatever you want. There is also a similar setting for scheduling scans of "My Computer" and "Startup Objects."
]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18594478 Sat, 30 Jun 2007 22:33:21 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18594334 lordpuffer : Thanks jmorlan....I downloaded the AOL AVS program and disabled iSwift before I ran a scan. Can you or somebody answer a question that I cannot figure out? How do you set the program to run a scan on it's own like once a week? I couldn't figure that out. Thanks.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18594334 Sat, 30 Jun 2007 21:58:28 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18584133 tim_k : I recently installed AVS on my cousins computer to try to clean it up. It seems to have wiped out all the bad stuff. Haven't seen a reappearance yet.
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RIP my baby Buttons 1/15/94-2/9/07]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18584133 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 22:18:15 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18582515 EUS : Still no 64 bit release?
For shame.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18582515 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:01:10 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18582455 JammerMan79 : I'd also recommend AVIRA (»www.free-av.com)
Been using it for years and it's been top notch.
The update servers can occasionally become overloaded with the free version BUT it will update itself later on... The updates are very frequent, quite often multiple updates during the day.
Never had a virus squeak through either.
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I may work for, but do not necessarily represent the views and beliefs of TELUS Communications.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18582455 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:47:18 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18582407 La Luna : »AntiVirus Poll 2007

This question has been asked numerous times. There is no "best", everyone has their own opinion based on what works well on their system.

Do a search:

»Why to pay for an av?

»[Need] Best AV software

»Pros/Cons of Free AVG & Avast AV Programs

»Looking for a good free Anti-Virus Program

»What's your preferred free antivirus software?
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~~"As long as America is an infidel enemy, terrorizing it is a duty." Sayed Imam Abdul-Aziz el-Sheriff~~

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18582407 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:36:38 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18582316 jp10558 : I'd recommend Avira.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18582316 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:19:31 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18581352 jmorlan :
said by lordpuffer See Profile :

If I use AOL AVS, does it also download other AOL stuff? I don't want any other AOL stuff on my computer.
I've been using it since September 2006 and have never seen so much as a single ad or email from AOL even though they have my email address. That should not be a worry.

The big advantage of AVS is that it uses KAV definitions and you can configure AVS to check for updates as often as you want. For a while I had mine set to every five minutes which is probably overkill. It has fewer features than the real KAV, but the core is the same and it takes less memory and uses fewer resources than KAV.

One downside to AVS (and KAV) in my opinion is that it defaults to enabling the built-in iSwift technology which adds undocumented NTFS-identifiers to your NTFS indexes. It does this to speed up scanning by skipping files that have already been scanned and cleared. However, there appears to be a side-effect of this technology in that some (many?) systems will experience long pauses during or before stage 2 CHKDSK after these NTFS-identifiers have been added. In some cases CHKDSK may not be able to run to completion.

If you remove KAV or AVS, these NTFS-identifiers remain in your file system and there is no way to remove them except heroic measures such as copying your drive to a backup, removing your data and then copying it back. The NTFS-identifiers are not copied, so that's one way to be rid of them. Unfortunately KAV has been unwilling to acknowledge this issue. In my opinion they need to offer a removal tool for the unwanted NTFS-identifiers, but thus far have turned a deaf ear to this issue.

If you use AVS (or KAV) there is an option to turn iSwift off and I recommend that you do (see above screenshot). However, if you run a scan with it on, you will have those NTFS-identifiers forever and there is no going back. However, if your system was clean to begin with, there's really no need to do an initial scan and you will still get AVS's excellent real-time protection should a parasite get downloaded or try to execute on your system.
]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18581352 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:21:27 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18581172 Tuneraider : lordpuffer,
during the AVS installation uncheck the option to install the security toolbar. You should be good to go then.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18581172 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 12:48:52 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18581111 KoRnGtL15 : I can vouch for AVS (active virus shield) myself. Been using it for months. And no it doesnt install aol junk on your pc. Its light weight and a very solid performer. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18581111 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 12:39:04 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18580756 lordpuffer : If I use AOL AVS, does it also download other AOL stuff? I don't want any other AOL stuff on my computer.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18580756 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:31:54 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18580722 Kerodo : Probably the best 3 would be AOL AVS, Avast, and AntiVir. I think I would choose AOL AVS because AntiVir's update servers can be problematic at times, and AVS should give you good protection as it's based on KAV, perhaps a little better than Avast, although Avast users might argue with this. :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18580722 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:23:31 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18580681 StraitShoot : I've been thinking of the same question because although I run Kaspersky Internet Security 6, I'm a "mature" enough surfer to know how to be careful; besided, my AV, whether it was Avast, KAV, or NOD32 never rang up at all, in spite of the fact that a couple of trojans snuck in there, (with KAV), I don't see the point of paying for AV software anymore.. When my KIS 6 expires I will be taking the freeway.. and I don't mean the one in Los Angeles :D

My choices and my impressions..

1. As a Comcast subscriber, I can have the "privilige" of using McAfee Internet Security for free.. »www.comcast.net/security/?CM.src=top Thanks but no thanks...I found it to be a resource hog and it keeps sending me pop ups to be stuff I don't need or want.
The folks at McAfee should read this book here before making such lame attempts to sell their Comcast subscribers more crap...»www.sethgodin.com/permission/

2. Avast. »www.avast.com Not bad, actually. The folks who run this one are great and the program is very good.

3. »www.free-av.com/ Seems to be missing some features... I don't know much about it.

4. »free.grisoft.com/doc/1 Well known AV. Seems a little on the "weak" side, however, I heard it doesn't slow a system down.

5. »www.activevirusshield.com/antivi···dex.adp?
AOL Version of KAV. Very good! However someone at DSLR pointed out you can't exclude a file from being scanned..

Have fun!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18580681 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:14:31 EDT Re: The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18580602 CajunTek : Try this one from Avira »www.free-av.com/
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da Cajun Darn I hate Malware]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18580602 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 10:58:19 EDT The Best Free Antivirus Program? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18580442 lordpuffer : What would you suggest as the best free antivirus program that uses the least resources and doesn't slow your computer down? I took a look at Avast and it didn't seem to have a setting where you can schedule a scan to run once a week. I would like the program that I use to have this feature. What other suggestions would you have? Thanks.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18580442 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 10:19:14 EDT