Antivirus for Vista?

1clue · l33t Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 945

Please no flames, this is a serious post.

My new girlfriend has a Vista laptop. I have no idea because I don't do Windows.

She has some sort of Micro$oft-spawned antivirus on there, and every 3 days she's complaining that it's glacial again. I run that virus scanner, it finds a couple bad files. I remove them. It gets fast. 3 days later, same thing. I run trendmicro's housecall (which is all I really know about Windows) and it finds a couple more files than the Micro$oft one does.

Now she wants me to install some other antivirus package, and I don't know what to pick. I don't think she'll buy into Linux yet, we've only known each other a few weeks. If it were me I would stick on something easy like Ubuntu, or at least Windows 7.

Anyone run Windows and have a good recommendation for malware protection?

Thanks.

MystKid · n00b Joined: 30 Mar 2011 Posts: 73

Avira Free is the way to go

Akkara · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 1:09 am Post subject:

Moved from Unsupported Software to Off the Wall.

Non-Gentoo, non-linux questions go here.

warrens · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 1:12 am Post subject:

AVG free seems to work well.
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notageek · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 1:17 am Post subject:

My coworker got interested in VBScript and kept asking me for help. I know some but not much, so I helped him with a few rudimentary scripts and pointed him to online tutorials for help.

He was writing a script to get the AD login information of his account.

A few minutes later he comes to me all excited and tells me that he found a Windows command that does exactly the same thing his script does. So when he types 'username' in the command prompt, he gets the same result, therefore 'username' must be a Windows command.

I pointed out that his script is named username.vbs and he was like "What? Windows did not even ask if I wanted to execute this and simply executed this?"

That's Windows for you.
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wswartzendruber · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 2:33 am Post subject:

Old School · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 2:41 am Post subject:

notageek · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 2:53 am Post subject:

wswartzendruber · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:12 am Post subject:

wswartzendruber · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:13 am Post subject:

And for antivirus I go with Microsoft Security Essentials.

pjp · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:29 am Post subject:

wswartzendruber · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:35 am Post subject:

pjp · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:51 am Post subject:

I have no idea how good it is. I'm not familiar with the site sugar referenced, but it would seem quantifiable if sites compare them against various threats.
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notageek · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:54 am Post subject:

I used MS' anti-spyware back in 2005. At-first I was impressed, it was fast, good interface and worked. Later when I had the opportunity to use another product I realized MS' thing actually treated only the symptoms not the disease.

I don't recall most of the details, it was back in 2005.
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Closey · n00b Joined: 18 May 2003 Posts: 11 Location: Sweden

1clue · l33t Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 945

Thanks for the advice guys. Got a bit of research to do now.

aidanjt · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 7:01 pm Post subject:

++ for MS Security Essentials.
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jdmulloy · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 4:11 am Post subject:

Is AV really necessary? They don't even catch the new viruses until it's too late. They just end up eating resources. Just remove admin rights from her main account and create a separate admin user. If the machine has already been infected it can no longer be trusted and needs to be reformatted if possible.
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aidanjt · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 7:35 am Post subject:

Closey · n00b Joined: 18 May 2003 Posts: 11 Location: Sweden

slycordinator · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 2:49 pm Post subject:

wswartzendruber · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 3:04 pm Post subject:

slycordinator · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 3:10 pm Post subject:

1clue · l33t Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 945

Re: Is antivirus necessary. For me, no. My sole Windows experience in the last decade is as a virtual machine on which I do testing of software I write. I never hook up email, never go to some other site, never do any of the things which allow viruses on there, and if it were to happen I just delete that VM and go back to the most recent backup. For my girlfriend, obviously yes. She has a problem with viruses/trojans/whatever is in there bringing her laptop to its knees every few days.

Re: arguments. Please stop. I understand that everyone's needs and preferences are different. I'm looking for viable alternatives to look at, and I will keep in mind your reasons as I look. There's no reason to fight about it.

Thanks for all the posts.

tylerwylie · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 8:32 pm Post subject: