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For those still with AVG
(17 posts)
Not to mention that it's not a very good AV program at all. AVG 7.5 didn't stop my old file server from getting jacked up by a virus. Even the AVG process itself became infected. Nothing like an AV program reporting that itself is infected.
Get Avast instead! It's free and won't let you down.
Actually AVG is OK.
They had a "bad update" but got it straighten out.
Was discussed in all the "Trade Zines".
Only issue with AVG is that if run in Real Time, it really slows a machine down.
Good to run as a machine manual maintenance program at the end of day however.
Kindest Regards,
Rick P.♦:)
Yeah, all the AVs pretty much cause machine inefficiency.
That's the trade off between security and speed each must decide for themselves.
I'll run an AV at the end of a secession during machine maintenance but normally have it disabled in Real Time.
Kindest Regards,
Rick P.♦:)
No problem, here's the reference if you want it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avast!
# Standard Shield — Real-time protection
# Anti-rootkit — Built-in protection
# Anti-spyware — Built-in protection
# IM shield — Instant Messenger protection
# P2P shield — P2P protection
# Internet Mail — E-mail protection
# Outlook/Exchange — Microsoft Outlook/Exchange protection
# Web Shield — HTTP protection (localtransparent proxy)
# Script blocker — script checker (Pro version only)
# Network Shield — basic protection against well-known network worms. Acts as a lightweight Intrusion Detection System
Probably going to stir up the pot here, but a "lively" discussion is always good.
While email protection is nice to have, it's not essential. What IS essential is blocking a virus when opening a file, which is what real time scanners do.
It's like a bad guy approaching your house. Email protection will stop him as he comes up the driveway. Real time scanners will stop him when he gets to the door as you open it. Either way he gets stopped, only with one way he gets stopped earlier. Now some might prefer that "pre-emptive strike" earlier, but as I just said, BOTH ways stop the bad guy.
As long as your antivirus will alert when you try to open an infected file (an email attachment in this case), you are protected.
Now here's the arguable part. Many people believe that opening an HTML email alone will result in infection. But doing that has never exposed anyone to a virus UNLESS you open the attachment. If doing that gave you a virus, then simply visiting an HTML web page would do the same. If you visit a web page that harbors viruses, you HAVE TO download something or click on a disguised link that has virus code. Just visiting the web page alone will not give you a virus.
Anyway, as I said email protection is nice to have but it's not essential as long as you're protected when opening attachments.
Bob is correct.
That is why I recommend "Think Before You Click" and always have a "Clean System Backup Archived".
One Caveat, keep all unnecessary ports closed and run behind a well configured router when possible.
Also, some like to run in a Sand Box or maybe even in a Virtual Machine if they have "the horse power" to do it.
Good Post as Usual by BobJam.
Kindest Regards,
Rick P.♦:)
JonMCC33 is correct also.
Even well meaning friends and co-workers can send and keep circulating a virus ridden file by accident.
I've seen this happen from within even secured business networks.
Here again, individual home users must assess risk against machine performance plus have the knowledge and tools available to recover from bad situations.
Unfortunately, most Average Home Users don't have these assets at their disposal.
Good Obseration by Jon.
Kindest Regards,
Rick P.♦:)
Even if you download an attachment from an email from a "trusted" friend, you SHOULD first scan that attachment BEFORE opening it. In fact, I have a filter that sends all emails with attachments to a special folder on my system called "Email attachments to scan". BEFORE I open any attachment, even if it's from that "trusted" friend (that I really don't trust anyway), I always scan it FIRST.
The "Average Home User" would do well to incorporate this practice. It's really easy, and just takes the effort of creating a simple filter and then scanning before opening.
A basic security "best practice", whether you have email scanning in your antivirus or not.
This *is* an interesting discussion. A good mail account will scan e-mail before it even gets to you. That stops the bad guy before he even makes it to your driveway. Yahoo does some such scanning. My personal ISP uses SpamAssassin which "neuters" any e-mail that is considered spam so that it won't even display as HTML without special effort on the user's part.
It's true that a real-time virus scanner will catch something in an attachment if that attachment is launched. However, I know there have been problems with HTML e-mail and I don't believe that all of those security holes have been closed. The problem is that many local e-mail clients use Internet Explorer's rendering engine to display HTML e-mails. So if that e-mail contains any scripts, they will be executed the same as if run in IE. That means that any IE exploit can become an e-mail exploit for such clients. There have also been problems with e-mail previews rendering the entire message when the user doesn't consider a preview to be "opening" the mail.
This problem with HTML e-mail in local clients is greatly mitigated in Vista which uses Protected Mode for IE rendering and Windows Mail opens e-mails in the Restricted Sites security zone by default. Webmail clients could also be a problem since an HTML e-mail is still rendered in your browser with all of your browsers security holes.
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