techAdmin
Status: Site Admin Joined: 26 Sep 2003 Posts: 1034 Location: East Coast, West Coast? I know it's one of them.
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Posted: Jan 8, 05, 20:05 Antivirus and Spyware Resources
Here are some of the better tools and resources we've found to help you clean out your system.
Free Online Virus Scanners
Make sure to turn off your current antivirus product before using these, or it slows things down too much. These can be used safely with a currently installed AV product.
Generally, these will catch some trojans and viruses that other antivirus products have missed.
Virus and AntiVirus Information
- Virus Bulletin. Here you can find a performance comparison between the various Antivirus products. Nod32 is very highly rated. See below for where to buy nod32 though, dealing with the main eset site is a pain.
- Spyware, Adware, Windows, GNU/Linux, and Software Culture. This is one of the more accurate articles on the reality of spyware and viruses. Obviously, almost all, if not all, spyware and virus issues are directly caused by Windows systems. There is lots of good advice on maintaining a relatively clean network of windows installations here. I follow most of the steps the author recommends, and they work. Especially forcing users to switch to Firefox browser and Thunderbird email client.
Antivirus Products
NOTE: make sure if you are using a non-standard email client like mozilla thunderbird to set these to quarantine or warn on detection of viri, otherwise you can risk losing your inbox, since any virus found in your inbox will cause the deletion of the inbox file if you haven't changed this setting.
- Nod32. This antivirus product is very highly rated, it is not cheap, but what is your data worth to you? But don't get it from their site, that site sucks, get it from computech4u.net. that reseller is really pleasant to deal with, highly recommended. Nod32 is the best, don't settle for less if you want real antivirus protection.
- AVG Free Edition. I like AVG's stuff, it's small, light footprint, doesn't slow your box down like Norton, and has reasonably sized AV update downloads, very good product for users with dialup modem connections. You can also get their Professional Edition. AVG supports Linux too by the way, for those of you looking for AV protection for your servers.
- AntiVir. Not quite as slick as AVG, also very lightweight, but forces you to download entire new program every major upgrade, which is usually every 6 weeks or so. Their antivirus definition files are quite small however. I use this product all the time when disinfecting a badly infected machine, I usually remove it afterwards though.
Antivirus Product we STRONGLY recommend against using
- Norton Antivirus. We especially recommend against using their Norton System Works product, which tends to mess up an unpleasantly high percentage of the computer's it's installed on.
- And the other big one, McAfee Antivirus. From my experience, almost worse than useless.
Firewalls
Always use a firewall, even if you are behind a router, it might save your butt one day. We've used the following happily for years:
- ZoneAlarm Firewall. Solid product, year after year. That link points to their free version download page, but check out their main site too, they have other stuff if you want to give them some money as well.
Anti Spyware Products
- Spybot Search and Destroy. Freeware, very well regarded. One of two tools you should run on a spyware infested machine. Make sure to update the spyware definitions before each scan.
- AdAware. You'll also want to run this one. As above, update before scanning. You can also download it from MajorGeeks, it's faster and easier.
- Hijack This. A registry analyzing tool, shows changes and lets you see what needs to be looked at more carefully. This tool is probably better for advanced users. You can download it here, at MajorGeeks. But take a look at the spywareinfo.com site, it's educational. And filled with good resources.
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