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davidh
January 17th, 2011, 01:35 PM
The Best Antivirus Software in 2011
If you're still not running antivirus protection, you should be. We'll help you choose a free or premium solution.
IN THIS STORY

* The Best Antivirus Software in 2011
* The Best Protection
* Oldies but Goodies
* Premium Antivirus Reviews: Ad-Aware to Kaspersky
* Premium Antivirus Reviews: McAfee to Webroot
* Free Antivirus Reviews: AVG to Panda
* Antivirus Apps Awaiting Update

By: Neil J. Rubenking

If you're still not running antivirus protection, you should be. We'll help you choose a free or premium solution.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372364,00.asp

I haven't read the whole spiel but I'm taking a slightly educated guess and sticking with Panda Cloud Antivirus, as soon as I get my power supply to fix my Windows XP Dell Vostro 200 PC :o

Dan in Saint Louis
January 17th, 2011, 02:39 PM
I haven't read the whole spiel but I'm taking a slightly educated guess and sticking with Panda Cloud Antivirus, as soon as I get my power supply to fix my Windows XP Dell Vostro 200 PC :o
See also here (http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/summary/summary2010.pdf) and here (http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_retro_nov2010.pdf). These guys provide actual numeric results. I think I'll just stay with Avira. Actually, any of the the three that got green ratings across the board at my first link ought to be fine.

MollyM/CA
January 17th, 2011, 08:01 PM
Hey, the old TapCis stalwart Neil Rubenking is still around! No wonder we don't see him here much (if ever) -- I can hardly imagine all the work that went into constructing those analyses.

I must be behind the times -- I assumed the Windows (7) Firewall was useless like some of its predecessors. Rubenking seems to think it's just fine.

Didn't Neil write one of the two fun programs that we had in the TapCis libraries in the DOS days -- NameGram or Babble?

m

davidh
January 18th, 2011, 12:15 PM
I must be behind the times -- I assumed the Windows (7) Firewall was useless like some of its predecessors.
m
I use PCTOOLS Firewall on Windows XP and the old Sygate Firewall on Windows 98. Both have the feature that they ask you to allow (give permission to) new applications to access the network. I was infected by a Vietnamese pro-communist DDoS virus a couple years ago (fortunately not an ID theft one). My anti virus did NOT detect it for a while, but even tho' I DID give permission to access the net, I was suspicious and found out that it actually was a virus when I tried to delete it (because it seemed superfluous at best) and it kept coming back. So if your anti-virus is perfect :rolleyes: then maybe checking outgoing connections by apps is superfluous. If the Windows 7 firewall does not check outgoing connections much better than Vista or XP, then I would probably use a 3rd party firewall still if I had Windows 7.

ndebord
January 18th, 2011, 12:31 PM
I use PCTOOLS Firewall on Windows XP and the old Sygate Firewall on Windows 98. Both have the feature that they ask you to allow (give permission to) new applications to access the network. I was infected by a Vietnamese pro-communist DDoS virus a couple years ago (fortunately not an ID theft one). My anti virus did NOT detect it for a while, but even tho' I DID give permission to access the net, I was suspicious and found out that it actually was a virus when I tried to delete it (because it seemed superfluous at best) and it kept coming back. So if your anti-virus is perfect :rolleyes: then maybe checking outgoing connections by apps is superfluous. If the Windows 7 firewall does not check outgoing connections much better than Vista or XP, then I would probably use a 3rd party firewall still if I had Windows 7.

David,

I tried PCTOOLS 7, but I don't think it robust enough. Read lots of reviews, tried the new Outpost Security Suite (Free), but in the end I went for Privacyware's Private Firewall, Avast 5.1 and Ad-Aware 9.0.1 with MalwareBytes standalone as my backup there and Stinger too.

davidh
January 18th, 2011, 12:49 PM
David,

I tried PCTOOLS 7, but I don't think it robust enough. Read lots of reviews, tried the new Outpost Security Suite (Free), but in the end I went for Privacyware's Private Firewall, Avast 5.1 and Ad-Aware 9.0.1 with MalwareBytes standalone as my backup there and Stinger too.
I assume that PCTOOLS 7 is a whole suite. I've never used it. I only use the standalone PCTOOLS firewall and the standalone PCTOOLS Threatfire (behavior based detection), both freeware.

I think that Threatfire was the app that actually gave me my first positive detection of the virus that I mentioned that attacked me (from an infected download of a Vietnamese keyboard program). I still keep PCTOOLS Threatfire running on XP even though it may be slightly redundant to my now current AV (Panda Cloud Antivirus, but I do turn off behavior detect in Panda). I forget the name of the AV that actually totally nailed the virus and cleaned it completely. Some company in NL that had a full limited time trial version that apparently runs files thru detection by multiple AV products (cloud based? too). I'll probably stick with Panda Cloud AntiVirus for a while because it has ranked high (or top?) among free AV for a couple years now.

When I did switch from Zone Alarm FW to PCTOOLS FW my network seemed to speed up a little. That was at least a couple years ago.

ndebord
January 18th, 2011, 02:32 PM
I assume that PCTOOLS 7 is a whole suite. I've never used it. I only use the standalone PCTOOLS firewall and the standalone PCTOOLS Threatfire (behavior based detection), both freeware.

I think that Threatfire was the app that actually gave me my first positive detection of the virus that I mentioned that attacked me (from an infected download of a Vietnamese keyboard program). I still keep PCTOOLS Threatfire running on XP even though it may be slightly redundant to my now current AV (Panda Cloud Antivirus, but I do turn off behavior detect in Panda). I forget the name of the AV that actually totally nailed the virus and cleaned it completely. Some company in NL that had a full limited time trial version that apparently runs files thru detection by multiple AV products (cloud based? too). I'll probably stick with Panda Cloud AntiVirus for a while because it has ranked high (or top?) among free AV for a couple years now.

When I did switch from Zone Alarm FW to PCTOOLS FW my network seemed to speed up a little. That was at least a couple years ago.

David,

You are probably using PC Tools firewall 6, I was referring to PC Tools firewall 7 which is just out. As Symantec bought PC Tools, version 7 will probably be the EOL for that nice product. I've been reading posts here about the relative merits and demerits of various firewalls as I had to replace my outdated Outpost 2009 (free) firewall which is out-of-date and not getting any more fixes.

The top 2 free firewalls (they say) are Online Armor and Private Firewall. The former didn't work well with my DOS apps (although others says it must be something peculiar to my setup, as they couldn't replicate my problems) The latter has worked real well. The new Outpost Security Suite (free) was very nice, but both my experience and reviews say it is not top-of-the-line right now. As it is a new release, I expect Outpost to fix things in their next releases, but I can't wait for that day to appear.

I have a hodgepodge of standalone apps that changes all the time, just in case.