Recommendation Please

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I use Outlook 2003 as my email client. My current version of anti-virus protection is about to expire. I have had problems with it crashing Outlook occasionally and I understand that the suite using anti-spyware also does the same thing. It appears to be a known problem that my current company is not addressing.

I would like to purchase a suite that protects against viruses and spyware. Can anyone recommend a good one. I have heard about Trend Micro but have no feed back on it.

Thanks

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Could we know what your current AV program is ???

As a recommendation, I am currently using Avast free for home use and am pleased with it.

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“Could we know what your current AV program is ???

As a recommendation, I am currently using Avast free for home use and am pleased with it.”

My current version is by Computer Associates. Other than the Outlook problem I described and difficulty in getting support I have had no other problems. I am running Avast on one of my computers now but only the anti-virus free version. Thanks.

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Here’s a new product from the firm that took over the Kerio Personal Firewall – Antivirus Software & Antispyware Software – VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware. $29.95 USD annual subscription for one computer or $49.95 USD annual subscription for all computers in the home.

It does not have all the various certifications as it hasn’t been submitted to the certification bodies yet. The web site claims it will be soon.

If you don’t want to go with paid software check out AVG Free & FREE avast!. Both claim a/v & anti-spyware. Both are for home use.

Joe

--Joe

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“Here’s a new product from the firm that took over the Kerio Personal Firewall – Antivirus Software & Antispyware Software – VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware. $29.95 USD annual subscription for one computer or $49.95 USD annual subscription for all computers in the home.

It does not have all the various certifications as it hasn’t been submitted to the certification bodies yet. The web site claims it will be soon.

If you don’t want to go with paid software check out AVG Free & FREE avast!. Both claim a/v & anti-spyware. Both are for home use.

Joe”

Thanks Joe I’ll look at that link.

as I said above, I already have Avast on one machine but I would rather go with a paid version of something that is known for causing no other problems. AVG didn’t work well the last time I tried to get it going on my daughter’s laptop.

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Well I just purchased and installed VIPRE and so far so good. Hope it works well cause I purchased for three machines for 3 years. It may sound silly but already it seems to me that my email is downloading faster and my Windows Explorer also appears to open quicker. One thing I did before installing it and after uninstalling CA Anti-Virus was to remove all traces of CA from the Registry. Don’t know if that did any good but it sure looks like it did no harm.

Thanks again Joe for the tip.

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You’re welcome. Keep us posted about the product. It is new and there is little real world information about it.

Good luck with it too!!!

Joe

--Joe

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I will do that.

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Well after about a week with VIPRE I am well pleased with its performance. I did find that I had to make a timer adjustment to the amount of time the server is allowed to time out in Outlook 2003 but I am not at all certain that was caused by VIPRE since even disabling VIPRE didn’t seem to correct the time out problem. However, it is quite coincidental, I believe, that I never in the past had this problem and it did occur the first time I tried to send a 4 MB file after installing VIPRE. If it is a problem caused by VIPRE it is a minor one since it was easily fixed thanks to Hans.

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US Consumer Reports current edition has a review of current products, if you’d like a relatively unbiased review of US products. (Though I sometimes wonder where they get their technical advice.) The cover is “7 Biggest online blunders”. Their top 4 suite rankings are BitDefender, McAfee, Kaspersky, and Trend Micro. I also use free Avast, (in conjunction with Ad-Aware and SpyBot), and am happy with it.

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I also read the Consumers Reports article and was puzzled why Avast, which I use, wasn’t included in the rankings. The magazine is excellent as a guide to products, but when computers and software are involved, other, more technical reviews are better.

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Exactly! I was also amused by a comment that “users should have different passwords for each account”. They could have mentioned password keeper software. As of last check I had 47 corporate and personal passwords in Password Safe. No way I could remember all those!

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Thanks I guess that answers about Trend Micro. Again thought the free Avast doesn’t offer spyware protection and I was kind of wanting that. Plus I don’t like the way Spybot places whatever it is in the systray that keeps monitoring the Registry for changes even though it does not have real time protection against adware or spyware. At least that is my understanding.

Has anyone had experience with Avasts product that you pay for? Plus Joe’s recommendation looks pretty good to from what I can find out about it.

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Spybot S&D does have a realtime component. You can turn it off:
– Make sure that you’re in Advanced mode (in the Mode menu).
– Click Tools.
– Click Resident.
– Clear the check box for TeaTimer (which is rather intrusive) and if you wish also the check box for SDHelper (which is rather quiet),

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Thanks Hans. I couldn’t find that but now I’ll know where to look.

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I have a “negative thing” for the “suite” types of products that claim to do it all. I guess it goes back a long way and isn’t worth discussing here. But, like MANY other Loungers, I am quite satisfied with the free Avast antivirus product and I use it in conjunction with SpywareBlaster, AdAware and Spybot. There are many others… I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but I read here that MS Defender might be worth itself too. Gotta check that out one of these days.

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Did you read the Avast page? It clearly states that anti-spyware & anti-rootkit technologies are included in the version.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks Joe I did read that page and knew what you just told me. I was only wondering if the paid version was as good as the free one since it has gotten so many recommendations.

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You might be interested in VIPRE performance shoot-out – Does it really not slow down your PC? | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks Joe that was very interesting and believe me it did help make up my mind, I will definitely give VIPIRE a try although I had been leaning toward the paid version of Avast until I just read about this test. Again, thanks.

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