Re: AVG free? ( was Re: latest xp pro security fixes )

We all try to spend money as if it was our own, and in the case of a
house full of PC's and portables, it is our own.

For various reasons I have run the gamut of "Internet security suites"
in the last couple of months. Starting with a very old version of
Norton and the freebie scanners. Norton did not seem to cover pre-teen
and young adult surfing carelessness. One of our computers got
hijacked with this stuff installed.

Even on my own tube, some things you just can not for see at dubious
sites could get in, since I am breaking one of the rules and running
as admin. The ultimate protection is required (by me)  if I care at
all about starting from scratch or do online banking (scary thought).

So, I tried CA-Antivirus because it was free from TimeWarner. CA's AV
had a false positive on Gmail JS and does not have a real tech-support
(I think). The software seemed slower, more dumber than what I like to
see. It looks dated and bloated.

I had a lot of recent cable issues and switched to DSL. Bellsouth
offers their own version of Internet protection suite -if you can
believe it, and the CHARGE a monthly toll to use it??? This is out of
the question unless it really is the best, so I have not tried it.
I read too many bad reviews of Norton to even think about that one.

I tried F-Protect on the problem child computer - It has a nice
interface and is fast but not quite sure it is the best. It cleaned up
the 1 computer just fine, and recognized other tools and demanded
removal of them.
I am cross checking products with ScanSpyware v3.8.0.4 which I paid for.
So far everything is picking up 100% of the other product's warning base.

I recently installed AVG latest suite on my own local, I like it. I
like the defauilt firewall. It is a big plus with me if I do not have
to read the manual. The defaults [SPAM] marked questionable email  and
the nightly scan sees the cookies I am most concerned about (being
tracked).
Obviously, not sure about any of this either.

My business computers are on VPN with their own protection so they are
out of the "home network problem and control loop" of protection.
I also have tried the MS spyware stuff. MS seems to be the most mysterious.
The biggest reason I am doing all this (besides that I am cheap) is
because everyone says they are the best, I can not find a convincing
review, Keyloggers are my biggest worry, and I find it hard to believe
that one suite is not much better than the others and has a solid
framework for the next year or two.

For now I am deciding to go with AVG or F-protect, after I take one
more look at the 4-5 pack licensing and maybe a deeper review. I think
AVG may have missed some important items like POPCAPLOADER and my DDE
is a lot slower now on MS products. (it's either DDE or com interface)
and could be coincidence.

I think that *if* all the good players are charging for update
accessibility,  it will open the market. I give it 6 months before
another great competitive evolution of freeware is out trying to gain
market share.

Gradually I am shifting everything from MS, i.e.; using Thunderbird
and online when practical. The last time I loaded Linux, the desktop
was just too clumsy to turn loose on the family, but that was a few
years back. In a funny sense, I have extremely demanding clients in
"my family".

I like prompting for third party cookies, I hate being tracked, anyone
else stuck on this decision?
I would also be interested if anyone else has familly requirements of
allowing program popcaploader to exist where all these tools say it it
is a really bad idea....

The single best thing I did (after the invasion last year) was update
my hosts files on all boxes here:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts with sites to block;
I currently have 1347 entries which makes an ad blocker that can't be
beat. Example: 127.0.0.1 ads.interfacelift.com

But had to allow :
127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com

because almost every site known to man uses this now and you will get
a JS error on each one. Amazing what Google is gathering about all of
us. Beyond numerical comprehension!!

Always looking for best approaches.
-Mark




Mark Villa
Summerville, SC