OT - Free Antivirus and Malware Solutions
With the recent malware script. I thought I would share some free options that work to protect your computer.
Free Antivirus for XP, Vista, and Windows 7 32bit and 64bit - Avast, Avira, AVG, and Microsoft Security Essentials
Avast Free - http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download
I use Avast free. It detected and stopped the malware script from executing. It's free for a year, as long as you register it. After the year, just register it again.You don't have to provide your real contact information if you don't want to. You can fill out just about anything, and it will register just fine.
Avira Free - http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus
Avira is another popular antivirus. It has a nag screen that comes up to buy it, but nothing major.
AVG Free - http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage
AVG would be my 3rd choice for protection behind Avast or Avira.
Microsoft Security Essentials is a free download and highly rated. http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/
There is also a free online scanner from Trend Micro, a very reputable antivirus and Internet security company.
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/?cm_re=Threatbox-_-Consumer-_-HouseCall71
You can run 1 of these scanners together with the free version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware http://www.malwarebytes.org/
If you use torrents or other peer to peer programs, then get PeerBlock. Peerblock can't completely protect you, however... it will add a level of protection while your file sharing.
FAQ explaining what Peerblock is and does http://www.peerblock.com/docs/faq#what_is_peerblock
Download page http://www.peerblock.com/releases
Even if you just use the free online scanner at Trend Micro, it will help go a long way to keeping you virus free.
*Edit* - I forgot about Spybot, good program. Good call Josh. http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
January 25th, 2011 at 9:12 AM ^
Great stuff! I love AVG. I have used Avast and it's pretty nice too along with Trend Micro's. I've never used Avira. I have AVG on all my home computers along with Malware Bytes. The other thing I also use is Spybot. It's been around forever but seems to catch some things that Malware Bytes does not. My company uses Malware Bytes too.
January 25th, 2011 at 2:57 PM ^
I use the paid version of AVG and the paid version of malwarebytes. I never have any trouble with malware.
January 25th, 2011 at 9:24 AM ^
+1 for MS Security Essentials, -1 for AVG..absolutely despise that program made my PC run like a dog.
and PeerBlock is a lifesaver/money saver (after a couple Copywright infringment notices later...), the only thing with PeerBlock is that when its running it will also block IP's when your doing your normal browsing and it does not like sites such as CNN or ESPN so you have to manually tell it to allow those sites.
January 25th, 2011 at 9:31 AM ^
Avast and AVG are terrible.. specially the free ones.
AVG conflicts with a lot of things regarding ur connection at times and can be a resource hog. One of the last versions of AVG had a bunch of errors, and was causing people's computers to crash etc.. so be careful what you download
Avast isn't much better, guess it depends on the user though and what you use your computer for.
Id suggest malware bytes or Kapersky if you use anything at all.
January 25th, 2011 at 9:32 AM ^
I suggest being a little more careful when searching pron sites.
January 25th, 2011 at 9:47 AM ^
i don't use any anti virus software actually. I am just careful what sites i go to, most browsers warn you in the first place anyway
I was just suggesting better options, cause some of those are just terrible anti-virus programs
January 25th, 2011 at 10:50 AM ^
Concur with your statement. I have had a computer since I was 8 (MSFT Win 3.1 FTW!) and I have had exactly 1 virus and that was the FXSasser worm.
Its not that hard to protect yourself and careful browsing techniques are 90% of that. My parents are mortified of getting a virus despite the fact they live in the boonies and still have dial up.
January 25th, 2011 at 9:39 AM ^
what about for mac?
/s
January 25th, 2011 at 10:44 AM ^
Mac users need to download Sophos Anti-virus. Sophos just released a free version for home users. We use it at work on our macs and it's relatively painless.
January 25th, 2011 at 9:42 AM ^
for the info. I'll have to add the Avast to my PC since I've been without virus protection for over a year now, and no doubt the browsing on bangbus.com has infected my computer.
January 25th, 2011 at 9:57 AM ^
Recommend daredorm
January 25th, 2011 at 10:15 AM ^
and raise you Naughty America
January 25th, 2011 at 10:23 AM ^
Negging us for discussing a very important topic?
January 25th, 2011 at 9:50 AM ^
January 25th, 2011 at 9:53 AM ^
Microsoft Security Essentials is available for XP, Vista or Win7 and is highly recommended. I would also add to the list Sandboxie. You can run your web browser "sandboxed" and any changes made to your system during your web session get caught in the sandbox and thrown away when you close the browser.
January 25th, 2011 at 11:43 AM ^
you beat me to it. Great minds....
January 25th, 2011 at 9:56 AM ^
January 25th, 2011 at 9:55 AM ^
Haven't come across anything that an updated Malwarebytes(sometimes ran in safe mode) cannot fix.
January 25th, 2011 at 9:55 AM ^
This is something that should have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY!
January 25th, 2011 at 10:01 AM ^
January 25th, 2011 at 10:07 AM ^
I did not know that actually. I think it did have something to do with me, because my computer was infected. I couldn't get anything to work and my screen wallpaper changed to some system tool message. I downloaded Norton and everything is fine now.
January 25th, 2011 at 10:15 AM ^
The error message suggested it was an XSS issue (Cross-Site-Scripting attack).
Some comment or title posted to the site contained a web-browser instruction to load a script from the (whatever).co.cc site that would try to do nasty things to any browser/computer that opened it.
If anything, it was just a clever bit of attack vector that the existing MGoCode to prohibit such attempts didn't catch and stop.
The clean-up steps are pretty straight-forward: Find and remove the script instruction. Close the loophole that allowed it to get posted in the first place. [Edit: Those are the web cleanup steps, fyi. Naturally, once your own computer has been molested by the script, a good antivirus, Mal-ware bytes cleanup, etc. is called for on your end]
A security cert (SSL) wouldn't have stopped that.
January 25th, 2011 at 11:42 AM ^
oops you're right. I just tried the page on IE and got the prompt for downloading the file. If people don't have a super paranoid firewall set-up they likely will have something on their computer then. So run those scans!!
January 25th, 2011 at 10:17 AM ^
January 25th, 2011 at 10:18 AM ^
I am running an upgraded version of Webroot and have yet to receive a single warning. Also ran many scans over the past two days and they only picked up some ad cookies. Now my desk top alerts me to an attempted malware every time the page loads. Hopefully Webroot is blocking this with out me knowing.
January 25th, 2011 at 10:31 AM ^
another thing that people should pay attention to on PC's when getting a virus or spyware w/e is this.
If you get a virus that pops up everytime you start your computer, you can usually disable it by going to your run menu, or search bar on win 7 and typing in msconfig
Then once that pops up go to the startup tab, look for any .exe programs that look goofy, or are named like a virus. Usually turning that off will keep the virus from starting when you reboot, and that way you can run your anti-virus stuff.
Or do it all through safe mode as well
January 25th, 2011 at 10:37 AM ^
January 25th, 2011 at 10:40 AM ^
January 25th, 2011 at 10:41 AM ^
hacked the site?
January 25th, 2011 at 11:32 AM ^
As much as Brian has tried to undermine the Hoke hire, it may be UM engineers. Maybe a warning shot across the bow as it were. Hell, they took down the US Board of Elections(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130372662&sc=emaf) . They could probably throw together a nice virus package in 5 minutes at Pierpont Commons...
January 25th, 2011 at 10:54 AM ^
is the best.
I also have CC Cleaner for deleting startup nasties and Hiren's boot disk which is the blue screen of death life saver, http://www.hiren.info/ .
A couple of tips for the non-techies:
Never click yes/ok on a popup.
Immediately unplug network cable or turn off machine.
Restart in safe mode and run malwarebytes and CC Cleaner.
The above has kept me safe with no anti-virus to bog down the machine and I like porn.
January 25th, 2011 at 2:10 PM ^
Debian
January 25th, 2011 at 2:24 PM ^
Another thing to think about that the IT guy for my grad progam suggested was to have two accounts set up on your computer. One as an admin with full privileges, the second as your everyday account with limited privileges (ie. no install and limited adjustments to settings). This prevents malware, viruses, etc from downloading and installing on your computer.
It's kind of a pain switching between accounts when installing a new program, but for most people we don't install new things all that often and I have not a problem with malware/viruses. Once a month or so I log into the admin account and download any updates that may be available for windows, java, flash, etc.
Another suggestion for those running firefox is to install the Adblock Plus and Noscript plug-ins. When you navigate to a website (MGoBlog included) you are actually loading several websites at the same time. All the ads are coming from different sources, blocking those prevents unwanted content and attacks. You can customize the settings so sites like MGoBlog can still display everything and Brian still receives his pennies for each click.
January 25th, 2011 at 2:35 PM ^
December 7th, 2011 at 6:34 AM ^
Most of us know that there are so many antivirus are available in the market such as Avira,Kaspersky,Avast,Macfee Norton etc. But I am very much confused what antivirus should I use? What things should be countable to choose a best anti virus? Have any link to give me a good suggestion?
December 17th, 2020 at 8:09 PM ^
I agree that sometimes even free solutions are enough to protect your system. But I think it's important to find out more about them before starting using any. So it's better to read more about the best antivirus software here. Hopefully, the article will help you with it.