Anti virus alternatives

fiddiwebb

Avira, it justs sits in the background doing what it is supposed to do without any distractions (apart from the nag screen when updating but hey it's free!)

tronator

sillygoose wrote: »

I have used Avira for a long time and its always kept me clean. The free version does updates automatically at the small cost of a nag (advert) screen popping up once a day when it does.

You used to be able to 'knobble' the actual nag screen program but recent updates have made it difficult, as if Avira thinks its been messed with it will repair itself and nag you to keep rebooting.

I found a simple solution, a small free program called ClickOff that sits in your tray, when the nag screen next appears just select it and press ctrl-alt-D and ClickOff will close it and learn to close it automatically from then on so you can forget about it.

The program can also be used to close any other windows that annoy you on other programs in the same way. Screenshot on authors site is German but program has English option during install.

No need to install additional software for this. See my post here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=32264337&postcount=16

sillygoose

tronator wrote: »

No need to install additional software for this. See my post here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=32264337&postcount=16

erm... yes there is, as you point out yourself in the post if your running Windows XP Home. Also some people (not everyone) have reported problems with this fix even on XP Pro with it disabling the popup OK but causing Avira to request a lot of reboots (quite insistently!)

tronator

sillygoose wrote: »

erm... yes there is, as you point out yourself in the post if your running Windows XP Home. Also some people (not everyone) have reported problems with this fix even on XP Pro with it disabling the popup OK but causing Avira to request a lot of reboots (quite insistently!)

I rarely use Windows anymore, but never seen problems with this fix. Just fired up my VirtualBox VM and Avira updated itself without problems. I applied this "fix" to a number of computers in the past and never run into such problems.

Just googled for this and found this link with a few alternative methods, even one for XP Home.

preable

Norton has saved me from alot of attacks thats my choice xD

sillygoose

tronator wrote: »

I rarely use Windows anymore, but never seen problems with this fix. Just fired up my VirtualBox VM and Avira updated itself without problems. I applied this "fix" to a number of computers in the past and never run into such problems.

Just googled for this and found this link with a few alternative methods, even one for XP Home.

Its a recent development... the many pages detailing the 'fixes' are now out of date. I have another machine with Windows Pro, my entertainment PC and have seen the problems myself after using the 'classic' fix that worked well in the past. the utility fixes it without restricting the program, violating the terms of use and will continue to work on future version.

RussJK

On my netbook I now use Avira (free) and MBAM (licenced protection module). I also use the Spybot browser immunisations.

Avira performed well in the independent AV Comparitives test:
http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_report25.pdf

I disabled the Avira popup, but you'll have to search for the methods yourself. The one above listed by tronator does do the machine reboot, but there is another method that works fine (besides actually paying for it).

A-Squared is notorious for false-positives; admittedly I gave up on it a long time ago so I don't know if it is much better now.

spud17

I've never had a problem disabling the nag screen, half a dozen mouse clicks?

Used it on 2000 Pro, both XPs, Vista and Win 7.

http://www.elitekiller.com/files/disable_antivir_nag.htm