Free AV scanners And firewalls

[bloodhound]

just because norton has the largest market share doesnt mean its the best. there are free Av as good or better and with faster scanning times than norton. they even has free updates!!

 

AVG is what most pple use: its quite good. i havent tried it properly. but its not a memory hog like norton

 

http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

 

Avast antivirus is what i am using now. u can get the home edition for free or download the pro edition which acts like a 60 day trial. you can find the keygens all over the net.

http://www.avast.com/i_kat_67.html

 

there are also BitDefender, Panda , and AvtiVir. i havent tried them.

 

For firewalls I used to use norton personall firewall, but then stopped it.

since then i have tried mcafee personal firewall plus which honestly sucked. its alrite for novices with its colourful GUI. but it still sucked.

 

Tried Zome alarm pro. which was alrite. but didnt particulary feel at home with it.

 

Rite now i am using Kerio Personall Firewal, which is mainly for advanced end. its interface is simple and effective. it also alerts u when an application is trying to run another application. Like most firewalls , its rule based. It doesnt give u any help with programs which are trying to access the internet. so if u dont know what svchost.exe and the others do then u should maybe try others. like zone alarm it has an icon in the sytem tray which shows the incoming and outgoing connections. it also has pop up blockers and ad blockers which i have disabled.

 

http://www.kerio.com/us/kpf_download.html

 

damn i just found out that the program acts as a free for 30 days and then acts as a limited free with features disabled

 

its always a good idea to install more than one antivirus software , making sure that they both dont have resident scanners running at the same time. Also there are vairous online virus scanners to double check.

 

You can also make ur own router/firewall . if u have a old , really old box. just download IPcop and set it up. cant go into details. click here for details

 

http://www.the-scream.co.uk/forums/t10400.html?

 

if u know any good free software. put the link and reviews up here

[Sayonara]

Sophos!

[bloodhound]

my uni uses sophos.

 

in one of keygens i downloaded there was a tojan called. W32.bridge or something or other. i researched it on google. and there was someone with avast which i am using , and also sophos.

 

except avast did detect it, but sophos didnt. i was cracking up.

[Sayonara]

http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/w32genkya.html

 

Is that the one?

 

I've had similar experiences but in the opposite direction (IE sophos picked things up when nothing else did.)

 

I'm not sure if there's an industry-standard way of writing identities, but it seems to me that a lot of alerts for small files like keygens might be deliberate false positives. A kind of insurance policy for AV vendors.

[bloodhound]

no. thats not the one. but someone in this forum has the same one as me. even the file name is the same "start.exe"

 

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,9780036~mode=flat

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Is there one that will remember what programs you want to let through (unlike Norton or McAffee), is free, and works well?

[5614]

everything is free [when its illegal] - not that i support it, just thought id point it out.

 

im still with norton because i find that i like the program, it allows programs to be controlled and you just get more options - if you go into options for norton internet security professional [what i have] you get loads of options which you simply dont get in zone alarm and other such free firewalls.

 

i have never found a free firewall that gives you as many options as NIS pro 2003 does.

does anyone have NIS 2004? whats it like?

 

just remember, AVs and firewalls are useless unless you update them reguarly.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Norton always forgets what programs I tell it to allow. Then I have to log into the admin mode, log out (without changing anything) and then it works. This happens for days. Then finally it remembers and I don't have to do it.

 

So that's why I want a free one for the firewall part.

[5614]

if you go free, i dont think you will find anything better, you obviously have something wrong with your norton, mine remembers settings fine.... zone alarm and ZA pro are the same interface and same lack of advance options, but with script blocking powers.

[Pangloss]

I use AntiVir. It can be found at http://www.hbedv.com/en/. It's pretty decent, but it doesn't scan email.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Does anyone know of a good firewall that remembers what programs to let through and isn't annoying?

[5614]

ok..... you're clearly getting annoyed, i know how you felt when i tried to get rid of norton, i went through about 5 other AVs and 5 other firewalls.... ask bloodhound, we were talking through it ova MSN, anyway, in the end i just went back to norton.

 

my advice to you is to figure out why your norton is mis-behaving and sort out that problem.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I emailed tech support once and they gave me some crap answer. They didn't notice that I had discounted that in my original email.

 

Then they never replied back again.

[bloodhound]

update: I am currently running no firewall, because I am behind a NAT/router anyway, and I have switch to Kaspersky Antivirus Personal Pro 4.5. which gives me all the protection i need for now

[5614]

router firewalls arent very effective. they are poor and block out very little. a novice hacker could hack you behind a firewall.

 

you must have a software firewall [not in a router]. nearly all hacking is done because people dont have firewalls.... and because of people who do things like post #14.

 

GET A PROPER FIREWALL.... for your own safety!

[bloodhound]

I am not that paranoid, whats the worst that could happen anyway? did a port check at GRC . and only one port showed up as closed , all others were stealth . range 1:1024

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Switched to Zone Alarm. IT REMEMBERS WHAT I TELL IT! WOOHOO!

[5614]

cap'n.... if you used the advance feature of norton, how do you find ZA?

because i switch to ZA and found it not too good and lacking the advance features options of norton, maybe ZA does have them activated, but you didnt get the same many options which an advance user likes to have.... what do you think/find?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

All I did was tell it what programs to allow, and it has worked fine. A little pop-up appears if something new tries to get on, and you can tell it to allow it (and remember) or to block it. I have no need for the advaced options really.

[5614]

yes, i have a similar thing with norton, you had ever such a strange problem.

 

ok about the advance stuff, i still find that norton has more options and so on despite what people say.