anyone know a good free virus scan/remover tool?

robbies_gal

yopu should update mannually avg every day -if u leave it for the autop update and it misses a virus it will get through as the database wont be up to date

vixal

go to symantec's or network associates websites,

they have virus removal utils for the real nasties

that is a free download

XYZed

Posted by: gabbyevs Posted on: Today at 3:41pm
yopu should update mannually avg every day -if u leave it for the autop update and it misses a virus it will get through as the database wont be up to date

You don't need to do this manually. Go into the AVG ontrol Centre, choose the update manager tab, and tell it to update when the virus database is more than 'x' days old, choose however many days apart you want, and bingo. Auto update every day if you wish.

HTH

Zed

Wilo_2

Well as this is my first post, i better contribute to a computer question! ;D

As many people on this thread have said AVG is probably the best anti virus agent out there and has appeared in many PC mags over the past few months. But i found this anti virus agent called NOD32 which, in mine, and many other top computer whizzes opinions agree that this is the best one.

Not sure if NOD32 is free any more but when i got it from a friend it was. So see if you can find that, or go for the 2nd best option, AVG http://www.grisoft.com.

The NOD32 website can be found here http://www.nod32.com/home/home.htm. If it does turn out to just be a trial or one you have to pay for, let me know and ill get you the version i have, just PM me with your email.

Hope this helps!

Wilo

blinky

NOD32 is great it's £23 to buy and £15 renewal.

Online virus scanners - handy for emergencies

http://www.bitdefender.com/scan/licence.php

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml

stevem01

As one or two earlier posters on this thread have already pointed out, one of the very best AV tools available is a product from Avast. The home user version is free and you can download it from http://www.avast.com/eng/down_home.html or http://www.download.com/Avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10285256.html?tag=lst-4-7.

It's the most popular, free, anti-virus download listed on Cnet (apart from the Norton anti-virus definitions updates) http://www.download.com/sort/3150-2239_4-0-1-4.html?

Combine Avast with Spybot http://www.safer-networking.org/en/home/index.html and you have a pretty good free package of anti-virus scanning/detection/removal and adware/spyware detection/removal/blocking software.

Toxteth_OGrady

Caveat Emptor - you get what you pay for!!!

Virus Bulletin online magazine has been carrying out independent monthly tests since 1997 of the leading antivirus products on the market. To achieve a "VB100" pass in the test a product has to detect all 'in the wild' viruses with no 'false positives' for known clean files.

To summarise the results for some of the products mentioned in this thread:

AVG - 6 passes 20 fails
Avast - 10 passes 19 fails
NOD32 - 29 passes 3 fails

:P Ya pays ya money and ya takes ya choice

8)

TOG

Noobie_2

magoogy, if you've kept NIS up-to-date and have been running it (properly set up), you shouldn't have any problems - it is pretty thorough (one of the reasons its so big and slow).

Do any of the virus scans tell you what you've got?

Don't think there's a free version of NOD32 (other than a trial) (maybe worth downloading the trial to see what it picks up) but you can (in the UK) buy three years for the price of two, which makes it excellent value.

If you don't want to go down the freebie route, but still want to ditch NIS, you might be interested in this article: http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,115939,pg,1,00.asp

I think this started the fad in the States to 'ditch Norton, get Trend'.  I think the actual testing was carried out by the German equivalent of VB.

But then, there's reviews, and there's reviews.......

Think I'll stick with Eset (NOD32) and ZA (freebie).

One advantage of NOD32 is that its light on resources and damn quick (unlike Norton).

Difrent strokes for difrent folks, but I reckon to save money by spending £30 or so on a really good AV (like NOD32, or maybe Kaspersky) - there's a kinda logic there, if you can see it.

And - if you haven't seen the thread about free firewalls, may be worth having a look at that. Using an old pc to set up a first line of defence firewall sounds pretty good, and maybe this Prevx thing will turn out to be good (once you've cleansed your pc).