h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Saw a recent thread Ed t B started about AV software. I've been using McAfee and am less than satisfied. Not concerned about paying. Any suggestions? I have Win XP.

Avast seems to be the AV of choice these days http://www.avast.com/
The home edition is free although they do require you give them some details before you can download/register it for updates.

None of them is 100% but the Avast seems to be pretty good.

I'd also back it up with a decent firewall like ZoneAlarm (easy) or Commodo (rather techy and involved, but very effective). Commodo has its own AV as well so that doubles up.

And anti spyware like Spybot Search & Destroy and Lavasoft Adaware.

All the above are free. You got wireless or a router? Cos if so the firewall on that will also be helping a lot.

I've got Adaware and Spybot installed already, and yep, I do have a router. Will check out ZoneAlarm and Avast.

I'm just really unhappy with McAfee lately; it's a huge resource drain (my PC often takes upwards of 10 minutes to boot up) and it comes up with a lot of false positives, including games, etc, I've paid to download that it's arbitrarily removed, while at the same time letting viruses get through.

Thanks for the tips- knew I could count on you.

One reason i stopped using ZoneAlarm is I found it can cause large delays in start up. Not sure why and different versions would have a different effect - it is good and plenty of people use it with no probs. I switched to Commodo which has no such probs - my win XP boots really fast.

All of the scanners get false positives. I have the sysinternals windows stuff on my machine (lots of geeky admin tools) and there is one tool that will allow you to kill any process dead. This is not normal windows behaviour as the rights of the user normally play a part. Because this tool is not so constrained many AV products will identify it as a problem. Not a problem but i have taken to checking any file id'd as a problem on the web first!

BTW, 10min bootup - your startups are too full. Something like SpyBot will let you view all the startups in windows and disable those you don't need. And startups is plural - there's tons of ways a program can be run at startup and not just because it is in the startup folder. Services and background stuff, reg entries and so forth.

You know the startup bit of XP when you get the blue progress bar scrolling across the centre of the screen on a black background? Well, mine only scrolls about 4 times before it boots. That's about optimal. If yours does more then it needs a clean out. And a reg cleaner on its own won;t do that. You'll prob find all sorts of stuff you didn't know about in the startups.

OTOH if you (or friends) do not feel techy enough then fair enough

I'm paranoid about registry cleaners (I'm afraid of removing or disabling something that absolutely needs to run) but would love to disable some startups. No way do all those programs needs to run at startup- I have no problem opening them when they are needed. I didn't know that SpyBot would disable unwanted startups- I'll take a look at that soon.

I'm also going to look into Commodo, thanks.

Didn't know that all scanners got false positives. I guess what's so frustrating is downloading the daily updates and it takes them forever to update their end, neither can I find any way to report a false positive to them.

in SpyBot you need to change it to 'Advanced' mode then go into 'Tools' and choose 'System Startup' - it is quite helpful actually.

It ain't quite as good as the sysinternals stuff, but is useful - esp if run as an admin user!

The false positives come about because many scanners use what they call heuristics. Normal specific identification of a threat depends on a 'footprint' detection. They know what the malicious code looks like and check for that. But with new stuff coming out all the time and modern code being self modifying this doesn't always work so they use heuristics to spot 'dodgy looking' code and report that. There's certain functions and methods that malicious code needs to use that normal code doesn;t so if it spots this it reports it. It isn't 100% though as the name would suggest.

Lot of them aren't bothered. Avast has a forum (I guess most do) but I find it easier to set the AV to always ask then I am in control.

Ah, thanks for that explanation about Spybot... when I'm logged into XP, I'm the admin, so it should work for me. You're a veritable font of knowledge!

Truthfully I'd rather experience false positives than reduced security levels, but what was frustrating about the last few was when I removed the files from quarantine, the programs still wouldn't run. I'll see, though, if there is something I can change to always ask me before doing anything. That's a good idea, too.

You're a real help, you are!

"You're a real help, you are! "

Appreciation, at last
Now I just have to convince my family and friends of the same thing!

It probably gets a bit tedious, being asked all the time to diagnose or assist with PC problems, no? But you explain it all so well. And I understand most of what you are saying. I'm not techy but I don't mind trying to sort things on my own, if someone who knows what I'm doing can sort of coax me through.

if I get bored of it I don't post

Nah, I find it interesting, plus it is a good way of keeping my l33t |-|4x0r sk1llz topped up

I've a 16yr old nephew who is fast catching up though!

Young'uns sure do catch on to this techy stuff quickly. I wish I'd had more computer training in school.

I was pleased with myself when I managed to replace my DVD burner without breaking anything or being electrocuted. But when it comes to poking around in the registry, I'm afraid of FUBARing something. What I lack in knowledge and skill, I make up for in bad luck.

well, I'm pretty much the same with the registry. I limit my skills to those I know about deleting stuff I don't want.

It is a bit of a black art to be honest. And anyway, windows does a pretty good job of stuffing the registry anyway, what chance do us mortals have?

Yeah. I wish I could figure out how to get our Mac connected to the internet, too, so I could use it for 'net browsing sometimes. Two geeky people and one PC doesn't always cut it.

Surely Macs just connect automagically using the Steve Jobs patented Apple iMagic connector?

I'm sure it's just me screwing up the network connection somehow. MAybe I'll figure it out someday. I don't really have anyplace to *put* it at the moment, so it's not my most pressing problem.

Sometimes I wonder if I can really be as stupid as I feel.

well clearly not as you understood what I posted above. Plus you like Blake's 7

I not only like it but have turned a few friends onto it as well.

(And wouldn't it be nice if things could just be set up or fixed magically? )

Might have to go back and watch it, am feeling a level of unease over the next series of Who now they've anounced the new assistant. Beginning to look very 'yoof'/Whedonesque. We'll see.

Oh I had no idea they'd announced the new assistant.

I'll probably ask Sho to record the new episodes for me again- she's good to me in that regard- so if they don't bear re-watching I won't have wasted money getting DVDs from abroad.

So you dislike Whedon as much as I do?