Permanent Portfolio Forum
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https://www.gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3133
I used AVG for a long time until I read an article that rated Avast as the best free anti-virus program. So I tried it and ultimately discovered it was the culprit in pegging my CPU at 100% and bringing my computer to its knees. So now I'm back to AVG on all computers in my house.Ad Orientem wrote: My Norton 360 subscription has expired and I was scandalized when they wanted almost $100 for a one year renewal. So I am exploring the Free-Ware options. Two suggestions I have gotten were AVG and Avast. I don't know enough about either of them or any other options though. Does anyone have any experience with them or any other suggestions for a reasonably reliable anti-virus or security program?
Based on detection/protection ratings:Ad Orientem wrote: My Norton 360 subscription has expired and I was scandalized when they wanted almost $100 for a one year renewal. So I am exploring the Free-Ware options. Two suggestions I have gotten were AVG and Avast. I don't know enough about either of them or any other options though. Does anyone have any experience with them or any other suggestions for a reasonably reliable anti-virus or security program?
True! I hate it when I get circumcised by a virus. Always a bummer.Reub wrote: I've also heard that ACE, Anti-Circumcision Essentials, is a very endearing product.
Idk about that one. For some reason the name makes me cringe.Reub wrote: I've also heard that ACE, Anti-Circumcision Essentials, is a very endearing product.
I put Avira on a friend's computer, but was quickly turned off due to the pop-up advertising trying to get me to buy their paid version. It pops up every single time you reboot your computer. If all you need is an AV that is free and doesn't pop up constantly interrupting your work and reminding you of how great of a job it's doing protecting your computer, and how you should really buy their paid version because it's even better, MSE is a pretty good bet.MachineGhost wrote: I will check out Avast to see if switching is warranted. Avast has the advantage of faster scanning speed, but AVIRA has a better (low) system impact.
That's the hard part. Using Chrome and ditching Outlook are things your neighborhood or family tech person can do once for you, but in my experience as that family tech person, getting people to stop downloading random files is darn near impossible. I think the problem is that older folks--especially those who never needed to use computers in their job--don't have a well-developed sense of what areas of the internet are the digital equivalent of the red-light district. Since everything seems sort of weird and foreign, their alarm bells don't go off when they find themselves at freelotterytickets.ru and get asked to download a .exe. OS warnings that appear when you open a downloaded file are no help because people have been trained to reflexively close pop-up windows and often have a hard time distinguishing between dialog boxes from the OS, pop-ups from web-pages, or even fake CSS masquerading as a pop-up.Storm wrote: Take normal precautions like surfing with Chrome (Chrome receives automatic updates, including Flash and PDF reader, and uses sandboxing, so I believe it to be the safest browser available), running Adblock, Flashblock, and Noscript plugins. Use web-based email such as Gmail (again through Chrome) rather than using Outlook or Outlook Express, which all use IE's engine to render HTML email so are inherently insecure. Don't download files or attachments from sites you don't trust, and if you do download a file (even from a site you trust), check it at virustotal.com to see if it has any signature matches. Don't plug in USB drives from friends. You never know what might be on it.