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I'm currently using AVG Antivirus 8.5 (the personal edition, which is free). Anyway, for the past week or so it's been giving me warnings about having to upgrade to AVG 9 before December 1st.
From past experience, I know that AVG usually continues to provide a free edition - but they go to great lengths not to publicise the fact. The only links I could find were to the paid-for versions.
Anyone know if AVG free will be continuing?
I don't know but I go out of my way to say not to use them.
The reason is that they are glad to take your money, but absolutely do not respond if you have any problems.
For a couple of years I ran their AV software on my laptop (Win2003 server) and bought the upgrade each year.
About a year or so ago, my version expired so I sent in the $60 (or whatever it was) to get it renewed.
When I downloaded the latest version (with the unlock key that I got for my $60), it told me that it couldn't install because I needed a server version of the product.
I sent several emails to AVG and never got any replies. I also tried to find a phone number for them without success.
They have zero customer service.
I've been using AVG since forever.
The last time it gave such warnings was to upgrade to version 8 / 8.5 - can't remember. It will continue to have a Free edition. Open your Interface for AVG ( so, double click on the icon next to the clock ), then, if the message doesn't show at default, click Show Notification - there you will see that AVG 9.0 Free is now available :)
If you are running business or home use personal computers and you need to protect yourself from malicious software, at least you have to think of the expenses for the anti-viral software; if you are not a technician then fees for calling a technician to your home to fix the errors or minimize the risks should be calculated in the first place. I have never heard of any company that runs a business without insurance for loss or damages. AVG is for free if you illegally download it from the internet. You might get sued, fined or worse be imprisoned in severe cases e.g for commercial purposes. That is _bad_...Quote:
Originally Posted by John E
NO, that's not true. Unlike Symantec (and others) AVG has been offering a lightweight, free edition (for personal use only) for as far back as I can remember. At first it was their way of gaining market share. The free personal software is still available from AVG. It's just that in recent years they've tended not to publicise it so much. Every time AVG brings out a new upgrade (7.0->8.0, or 8.0->8.5, or 8.5->9.0 etc) it starts popping up annoying messages to make you upgrade. But the popups only tell you about the paid-for versions (even though the free versions are usually still available somewhere). I'm talking about official (and free) AVG software - not hacked code.
Microsoft got in the FREE game recently: http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/
Haha - thanks for the tip dglienna, but you're obviously one of the "chosen people". When I go to that site I get turned away at the door with this courteous message from the Microsoft doorman....
I knew I should have worn a tie..! :DQuote:
You appear to be in a country or region where Microsoft Security Essentials is not available. Thank you for your interest in Microsoft Security Essentials
AVG wanted to delete and really deleted many many system files, it thought that they were viruses or trojans. XP was totally damaged.
Since that happened i never use it again.
At the moment i don't have any. Because i really don't need antivirus.
My friend just wanted to test it which is better and so on this failed the test.
You can't be serious... please tell me you are joking :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by BytePtr
Very serious. 6 years already without any antivirus.
No joke.
If you know what are you doing then you don't need it.
Believe me or not but that i know without antivirus that my PC is clean.
This is experience that comes with years when you are 24/7 at PC.
To be honest, AVG is the best for me. It is very very strict on its virus recognition, and sometimes stuff I made is seen as a virus - usually it says Possible virus....
Been using it for years, and it has found many a virus many a virus scanner tools couldn't.
I'll echo the previous comment, really no anti virus - good luck!
I disagree. You can have all the experience in teh world, but the person next to you doesn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by BytePtr
I repeat, good luck!
If i would use any i would use Avast or Eset Nod.
That's what my sister use in their PC's and laptops.
They got small girl and she likes to download different stuff from net. He doesn't realize the problems.
Well, if you can't get that, you can probably get AVAST, which is what I still run on my laptop (upgraded to Win7)
Mainly because I'm too lazy to go thru the trouble. Up in January, with the rest of my clients, they'll be switching...
Has anyone managed to install AVG Free V9? I tried today but I can't make it work. I downloaded the installation package which then seemed to spend a minute or so downloading a bunch of other files. Then nothing happened! So I located the downloaded files which had been placed in C:\Windows\Temp\AVGDownloadManager\packages\41. There I found a setup.exe file which I ran. It looks like it's going to work but after a minute or so it stops and asks me to enter the folder location containing the "installation package". No matter what I enter, the process then fails. :mad:
I just installed Avg version 9.0.707 yesterday without any problems
I got it from here http://download.cnet.com/3001-2239_4...cab9376b7a8dfa ... i think. I don't recall much of the installation process since I was reinstalling much of my programs :)
Thanks Joeman - but that link is actually for Avast antivirus - not AVG. I must admit, Avast looks quite good though. I might just ditch AVG and give it a try.
sorry about that. i also installed avast too. this was the link http://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-Vi...dlPid=11014801 ... pretty sure this is where i got it this time.
i have avg, avast and spybot. if one fails, the other sometimes work.
This is the newest. I haven't had any reason to NOT use it, so far. I install it on all client pc's http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/
I finally got AVG to install by going through the installation process again. After downloading a big bunch of files the installation window just disappears from my screen. But this time I launched Task Manager which revealed that the installer was still running. After (literally) 2 minutes or more, another window opened and the installation process then continued. I'm not sure what it was doing for all that time but I assume it must have been uninstalling the old version. It seems to be a poor design though, to be doing so much work without any user feedback.... :(
I downloaded v9.0 from http://free.avg.com. and it work fine now.
This is what I'm using and it works great.Quote:
Originally Posted by dglienna
I'm also pretty confident that I'll be able to get some customer service if I need it (unlike with AVG).
At the risk of introducing a political note I have to admit that I tend to eschew products from Microsoft (if I can) because at a personal level I have a deep mistrust of software that insists on "phoning home". Yes, I know that this is inevitable in an antivirus product and I realise that most Windows software has taken to doing this nowadays but I think it was basically Microsoft and Symantec who started the trend.
Perhaps the worst offender is Incredimail (can't remember who makes it now). Even the paid-for version never stops pestering you with adverts, promotions and other junk that you don't want to know about. It's supposed to be a sophisticated email package but IMHO that's just a thinly veiled front. It's really just a glorified spam client.
In AVG's defence, I've only once had a problem with it (where it was reporting a false positive on a file that clearly wasn't infected). I reported it to AVG and although they never replied, it was fixed within a couple of hours.
They all require daily communication with 'home', so I don't get what you mean. Forefront uses 9 different virus engines, of which any 5 run AT THE SAME TIME!
Yes, I have been able to install AVG 9 but I have turned off a few of the optional features as suggested by someone on google groups when I had some issues with IE and DEP and also since my emails from Outlook had got a performance mess up. Things look better now.
Reference to the google groups post according to which I disabled the email scan options + active surfing shield, linkscanner, toolbar : http://groups.google.com/group/micro...ea8bef0c9eb080
So far it has been working good for me. I don't have the firewall from AVG as well, I am using the windows firewall with Vista.
And by the way, I am planning to try out the security essentials from MS. If it don't work I can always go back to AVG 9.
Here's an interesting twist... last week I bought my first ever Apple Mac. It's only a Mac Mini so not one of the most powerful Macs but of course, being a Mac, the OS runs without any Firewall or Antivirus (well, so I've been led to believe). I must admit I've been truly astonished at how much faster it is at internet access, compared to my previous PC. Other things aren't particularly fast - but browsing and general internet access absolutely fly along. Both machines are connected to the same router and phone line so there's no difference there. I realise now how much my PC is being throttled by having to check everything in real time for potential malware.
Yep, that's the price that MS has to pay for having 95% of the pc market. If Apple ever gets more market share, they'll become a hacker target as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by John E
Well now that I'm happy with my Mac it's time to install Windows on it!! One thing I'll definitely be looking for is an antivirus package that doesn't bring it all grinding to a halt. After experiencing the bliss of OS-X's superbly fast internet access, I really don't want to be going back to the slow, clunky crawl that was Internet Explorer and AVG.
Does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap (but effective) antivirus package that doesn't leave my surfing experiences slower than a drunken snail?
Microsoft Security Essentials is good, small, and free
Just got around to installing Security Essentials on my Win7 partition this morning. First impressions are that it's noticeably slower than OS-X (which is currently running without antivirus) but considerably faster than XP and AVG which I was using previously. Thanks for the tip.
I wonder about the hardware that Windows 7 is running on. I can imagine anything (comparably priced)being faster than my laptop (with AV)Quote:
First impressions are that it's noticeably slower than OS-X
Both OS's are running on the same physical machine David. It's a new Mac Mini that I configured for dual booting. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to run Windows and OS-X, The only caveat is that Apple doesn't officially support more than 2 partitions on a Boot Camped drive, so if you want your data on a separate partition (as I did) you end up having to buy an external drive. :(
Hmm. If Windows 7 can see that drive, let it scan it. It'd be interesting to see the results.
Just because you don't *have* AV software running doesn't mean that you don't have an infection.
Of course, problems are always introduced by elevating a command (with your pw). Same thing built into Windows 7.
Still haven't seen any infections on any Windows 7 boxes. A friend thinks that the bad guys just need more time, but the underlying code is baked in, since Windows 2008 came out.
Quite.... as someone who's had several infections over the years on my Windows boxes I must admit to being very very sceptical about the naivety of Mac users who all seem to think Macs are inherently "immune" from viruses. Personally I'd prefer to install an AV utility and not have the worry - but is there even anything available for OS-X? I remember being laughed at when I innocently asked on a Linux forum whether there were any AV packages available for Linux. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by dglienna