McAfee is a huge resource hog. Symantec's consumer version, Norton Antivirus is better but it still installs too much stuff. AVG is a pretty lightweight product that can't keep up with the level of threats that are out there.
My antivirus of choice is Symantec Endpoint Protection without the Network Threat Protection installed. Previously this line was under the name Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition. This product line was developed from the old Intel LanDesk Antivirus. It isn't intrusive and doesn't create problems while catching most anything. It is also uncommon enough that most well written viruses don't focus on correctly attacking it.
Antivirus is a moving target so track record counts for a lot but it can change in a hurry. Nothing can give a computer a complete level of protection except for disconnecting the network. Antivirus programs can detect viruses
after they have been released into the wild, discovered, and analyzed. That means we are running after the threat. Viruses are now professionally written by very well paid programmers with the best technology.
It is all about money.
When a virus is written nowadays they don't just release it because as soon as it is detected the antivirus programs will disable it. Remember they are written by professionals so they don't make that mistake. They take their new virus and create thousands of versions of it. That way if one is detected all the other versions can keep working.
You don't even need to do anything wrong or stupid to get attached. You just need to visit a completely up and up website that may be compromised, or you might go to any website that displays Flash banner ads that may have been submitted by a paying advertiser with no scruples. (
Stupid behavior helps though!) Maybe you installed something free with out thinking why they would offer a free program when they had to pay the programmer and pay for the bandwidth.
So how to protect against bad stuff?
- Get
one good, professionally written, well supported antivirus software. (
2 antivirus programs will conflict and make your computer slow or crash...) Good antivirus programs include Symantec Endpoint Protection, F-Prot, Kaspersky, and Panda.
- Plug the holes.
··· Patch Windows. (
Patching Windows can cause problems but the odds are better that you will avoid problems.)
··· Update
Java.
··· Update
Adobe Flash.
··· Use a
third party PDF reader as your default in your browser. (
Adobe Acrobat/Reader has some bugs that can not be plugged and is a huge problem)
··· Update your browser.
- Don't install free screen savers, cursors, or smiley programs.
- Boring is good. Exciting free stuff comes with exciting free problems.
- Use a less common browser.
FireFox is a good choice as it doesn't support ActiveX which is a common pathway for attacks.
What to do if you are attacked?
- Attack it from all sides. It is easier to design a virus to counteract one protection program. It is extremely hard to protect against many protection programs. Use a number of spyware programs to scan the problem system:
Spybot Search & Destroy,
SuperAntiSpyware,
Adaware, T
rend Micro Housecall,
Malware Bytes. (
Remember that most free antispyware and/or antivirus programs are actually malware.)
- Delete everything the TEMP folder.
- Delete everything in Temporary Internet Files.
- Put the drive in an uninfected computer to scan it.
- Find someone who has done a lot of computer cleaning to go through it.
- If you have good backups recover to an old backup.
- And if all else fails, make a fresh install of Windows and transfer your data to the new system