AntiVirus/Spyware/Malware Protection

[Shu]

I have a 13 year old daughter who is very prone to getting virus' on her PC along with Malware. I have her machine running Free AVG, Windows Defender, AdAware, etc. But last night she got another one. Some of these rascals are a total PIA and take hours of my time each time to kill. This time I said screw it and broke out the recovery disks and reloaded it. So my question is what is the best virus/spyware/malware live protection today? I know it changes weekly and that the online PC rags aren't the most reliable sources (like electronic politicians). So for those who are on sites like myspace, playlist, or other sites know for their complete lack of control over the spread of virus', what are you doing to keep clean?

[colonelangus]

the best out there imo is avast home its free and theres an upgrade ,but its not needed.ive used this for quite awhile now and its awesome.you can even collect virusses with this program as it will store and lock them down or delete it altogether.its originally for macs but now for all pc's.most have weekly upgrades avast is daily so there is no time for hackers to do their thing.with weekly upgrades they have more time to fugure it out and do damage.
http://www.avast.com/

[bigjnsa]

Get her a Mac, problem solved

[Weo]

Thats a hard one. I had a friend who worked for a company that spent thousands of dollars on protection software and hardware. The owner's 12 year old came in for a day and used the computer. She was playing games online and messaging. She downloaded a virus and corrupted their whole system.

There are some programs that scan attachments when you download. However, many files that are shared are compressed (mpeg, jpeg, mp3, etc.) and therefore the scans can miss it.

IMO, 99% of the time, operator usage determines infection rate. If the user clicks on unknown messages and their attachments or player/game download links than you'll probably get something whether you have the best software/hardware or not. I know these habits are common for children.

What I would do, is buy a second hard drive and some sort of cloning software. Make a fresh install of all the programs and updates, and do whatever tools you use to maintain the drive (i.e. defragment, check disk, etc.) you want. Then clone this disk onto the second hard drive before your daughter starts surfing. Then whenever your daughter downloads a virus or malware you can just format your main drive, install the clone, and then clone the old main hard drive.

Personally, I use Norton, Advanced System Optimizer, and Spybot Search and Destroy. Of these, Spybot is the free one (I used to use Adaware freeware in addition to Spybot). Even with these, I know if I get a little too anxious with clicking links or attachments, I'll still get some sort of malware.

Edit: As bigjnsa said, many of these malware programs aren't designed for macs.

[krono]

Hey, why not install Linux?

I have Ubuntu on my machine, had this machine for over 4 years now, never a virus, never dataloss, once you get to know the new system, is really easy to use

you can do everything you do in a Windows PC: browse the web, chat, skype, facebook, games, music, mp3s, record dvds, use office / spreadsheet, etc

and the best, is FREE, and all the soft is free too, you dont need to pay $ to legally use it, and you can use it with the hardware you have now

and is inmune to windows malware or adware or that crap, you just laugh in the face of virus with linux installed

http://www.ubuntu.com/

check it out, you can install it in about 2 to 4 hours


btw, you can check it out without installing it, just record it to a CD, and boot from the CD, you can use it from there without erasing your current windows, but it will run slower since it has to load every program from the CD, but is a cool way to check it out before installing it

also, if you have a old machine, check Slax

http://www.slax.org/

I use it for some embedded apps that I work on

This advice is endorsed by an IT professional(tm)

[Shu]

Originally Posted by bigjnsa

Get her a Mac, problem solved

I've heard that's not exactly the whole truth these days as more and more Mac's are becoming prone to virus attacks. Plus like I said she is 13 and buying her a new expensive mac just isn't in the budget....maybe when she goes to college. Right now I have to get her old pc up and running again and I'd like to try to secure it the best I can.

[bigjnsa]

Originally Posted by Shu

I've heard that's not exactly the whole truth these days as more and more Mac's are becoming prone to virus attacks. Plus like I said she is 13 and buying her a new expensive mac just isn't in the budget....maybe when she goes to college. Right now I have to get her old pc up and running again and I'd like to try to secure it the best I can.

I've run Macs (and Linux) machines for over a decade. Never had an issue with any attacks. In fact, I'm on a quite congested University network with no firewall and no AV software. You have to understand that undernearth the Macs bang wizz interface is BSD (a unix variant). By design, malicious software cannot install itself without YOU giving it permission. There simply is not a why to get around the system permissions. This is what makes Mac and Linux so powerful. You put ONE windows machine on the 'net and I can guarantee you within 5 minutes it'll be infected. Its simply NOT POSSIBLE for Macs and Linux machines to get infected.

[Martimus]

Personally I like the free version of AVG...

I've messed with Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky, and others over the last few years. For the price (free!) AVG seems to perform with the best of them...

I've been in the technology field for nearly 30 years now and I've found that AV software is only part of the solution. A major piece of the puzzle is education! Sounds like your daughter may need to learn a little something about Netiquette (Internet etiquette).

Originally Posted by bigjnsa

I've run Macs (and Linux) machines for over a decade. Never had an issue with any attacks. In fact, I'm on a quite congested University network with no firewall and no AV software. You have to understand that undernearth the Macs bang wizz interface is BSD (a unix variant). By design, malicious software cannot install itself without YOU giving it permission. There simply is not a why to get around the system permissions. This is what makes Mac and Linux so powerful. You put ONE windows machine on the 'net and I can guarantee you within 5 minutes it'll be infected. Its simply NOT POSSIBLE for Macs and Linux machines to get infected.

Actually it is possible to infect MAC's and BSD systems! As a single example there is the Scalper worm. It used Apache as a vehicle to access BSD. There are also vendors who have written AV software for BSD. If BSD was invulnerable then there'd be no need for AV software like Clam or BitDefender...

Given that MAC's comprise maybe only 2% of the active computers on the Internet it's simply not financially prudent for virus authors to build malicious rootkits for BSD. If Mac's become more popular, the number of viruses will increase... guaranteed!

Historically it's been proven rather silly to make headfirst attacks at OS's like BSD. Now attacking through Internet-aware applications like WWW or DNS or SMTP are another matter entirely. As one of my college professors once told me "Computers are only as smart as the dummy's who program them!!" LOL

[Shu]

Originally Posted by Weo

Thats a hard one. I had a friend who worked for a company that spent thousands of dollars on protection software and hardware. The owner's 12 year old came in for a day and used the computer. She was playing games online and messaging. She downloaded a virus and corrupted their whole system.

There are some programs that scan attachments when you download. However, many files that are shared are compressed (mpeg, jpeg, mp3, etc.) and therefore the scans can miss it.

IMO, 99% of the time, operator usage determines infection rate. If the user clicks on unknown messages and their attachments or player/game download links than you'll probably get something whether you have the best software/hardware or not. I know these habits are common for children.

What I would do, is buy a second hard drive and some sort of cloning software. Make a fresh install of all the programs and updates, and do whatever tools you use to maintain the drive (i.e. defragment, check disk, etc.) you want. Then clone this disk onto the second hard drive before your daughter starts surfing. Then whenever your daughter downloads a virus or malware you can just format your main drive, install the clone, and then clone the old main hard drive.

Personally, I use Norton, Advanced System Optimizer, and Spybot Search and Destroy. Of these, Spybot is the free one (I used to use Adaware freeware in addition to Spybot). Even with these, I know if I get a little too anxious with clicking links or attachments, I'll still get some sort of malware.

Edit: As bigjnsa said, many of these malware programs aren't designed for macs.

That is great advice. I just bought a large portable hard drive (WD) and I already have a cloning software (I think it's called Ghost or something like that). It's amazing how impatient kids are. When I watch her on it, it's click click click click why isn't it loading click click click etc. And they don't always read what they are clicking. The one that kept getting her was that dang malware that looks like AVG! She'd click to clean the virus and then we'd have a full blown infection. Got a letter and phone call from our ISP that her email had been shut down because someone was using it to spam. Now she is more careful but somehow (dad will never know the real story, heck as fast as she clicks she probably doesn't know it either) she got a virus. It is quite frustrating that people have nothing better to do than cause virus' and tojans, etc. Get a job and be productive! Ok that's my rant.

[Peg Scraper]

Set up a virtual machine or get a sandbox program.
Then have her run from there.
I believe Microsoft has VM for free.