Anti Virus Suggestions

M

montyracing2

At the Start
Joined
Apr 17, 2005
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Blackpool
Just had to reset my PC to factory settings, never been completely happy with Norton - seems too big and too bulky.

Decided to take-up past advice from knowledgeable TH members and downloaded AVG. Is there anything else someone might recommend?

MR2
 
Following on AVG Free, I paid for their 2011 package and found my desktop went slower than dial-up. Apparently, I didn't have enough RAM. Got a refund and on the advice of wizards on here, am flying along on Microsoft Security Essentials, which is free, loads up quickly and doesn't ask you endless questions, and also scans faster than AVG did. Have previously used Norton and Virgin's free PCGuard - the latter drove me nuts with its Mastermind quizzing, so dumped it. I'm the most satisfied now with what I've got.
 
I have Symantec Anti Virus and have been using it for years without any problems that others seem to have encountered. At the weekend I got a load of Windows (Vista) automatic updates. After that, or sometime in the intervening period, my virus checker seems to have changed to Microsoft's virus security, which I didn't pay for and therefore doesn't work. It seems to be finding all sorts of outrageous attacks and viruses but wont fix them until I pay amounts varying between $59.99 and $139.99 depending on the level of security I want. It genuinely does seem to be Microsoft as opposed to being fake demands. I ran Symantec and AVG manually and found nothing wrong.

Anyway I did a system restore back to before the updates and everything is a little happier. The only problem is my security centre tells me every so often that my my virus checker is not activated and it appears in the mini icon on the very bottom left of the screen with a small red circle around it which seems to imply something isn't right. When I press the button to activate it it seems to pretend to do something but ultimately doesn't. Despite all this I can see that it is checking e-mails automatically for viruses, seems to be checking file downloads, and runs the scheduled scans on schedule, so could it be that it is doing its job and not reporting properly to the security centre?

Should I be worried? If so, what do I do? If not what do I do to get it to stop telling me I should be worried?

Edit: Looking at the web it would seem it wasn't Microsoft Security, as this is free - that must have been a virus that messed things up initially. The system restore seems to have resolved that, even though I'm not sure how it would have removed the virus, but I'm still left with the problem of the security centre reporting that my anti-virus isn't activated.
 
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Mel, reading your last big post above, I got onto a couple of websites where out of the blue a very Microsofty-like box popped up and said I should close all my applications, as my computer was under attack. It had the right look, logo, etc., and so I closed and it began to scroll through rapidly, showing all kinds of malware on board. It then said it could fix it for £39 or something. I couldn't get it to go away until I just switched everything off at the mains. I don't know if it was this sort of thing - it's a nasty type of advertising for something that is not Microsoft - that appeared for you. It hasn't been back, but it was quite a shock when it first appeared. Whether it can itself do some damage, I don't know, but the Microsoft Essentials have so far (she says, with everything crossed) managed to keep the pc neat and tidy, free of charge.
 
I'm sure it was similar, but it actually went a little further and put its own program in place of the symantec virus checker in the security centre so that it really started to look ominous, the system restore put Symantec back in place again.

Since I've had something approaching help, albeit somewhat belatedly, I'll answer Grey's question. In the above post I said (regarding activating the virus checker, actually meant enabling auto-protect) ...

"When I press the button to activate it it seems to pretend to do something but ultimately doesn't."

... when you do this for approximately the eleventh time in between four or five reboots it eventually just got the message what I wanted it to do. The language was getting sterner, so I'm not sure if that was a factor.
 
That sounds a really nasty, aggressive sort of attack, Mel. I wouldn't have had a clue, anyway - my solution to any really vexing problem is to unplug things or hurl them across the room (accompanied by assorted curses).
 
My myth about myself is that I'm a calm, reasoning, rational person, Grey. All of that is undone entirely in a few moments - for example, the blasted second-hand banger is sweet and a very pretty blue, but it auto-locks, or quixotically auto-unlocks, all the doors as I'm driving along. Not a huge prob, as our carjacking in Brighton is not even at Novice level compared to Cape Town. But I let a friend out of the car a few weeks ago, who was going to spot me a tenner for it to be given a hand wash. He forgot and went trotting off, so I got out of the car, shut my door to, and bawled after him. Kerzoinngggg! The bloody doors all auto-locked - with the engine running! £20 for a taxi home for the spare key and back again... we were not amused.

I don't ask much from the mechanical world - just behave nicely and do your job. Do not undertake tasks unbidden, do not get smart and talk back to me, do not decide that you will take charge. It's like having H-A-L on the rampage some days!
 
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