Dumping Symantec-everything, looking for anti-virus and utilies recommendations

After quietly reading the number of horror stories about
things that Symantec products, notably Norton Utilities
and Norton Anti-Vurus, do to ordinarily fine running
systems, I've decided to dump everything-Symantec I've
got when my nephew finished my new PC. He'll be doing a
full install of Windows XP Pro SP2.

I'm leaning in favor of Grisoft's AVG for my anti-virus
solution right now. I'll try the Free Edition and
possibly upgrade to the Pro version.

I am /not/ looking for another all-in-one-does-
everything solution like my present Norton SystemWorks
2003. Instead, I'd like a completely separate anti-virus
program, and separate systems utility program(s).

What I'm requesting from the many knowledgeable people
here are some real-world experienced recommendations. As
I said, I am /not/ looking for another all-in-one app. I
have no use (I don't think) for utilities like Norton
Ghost or Norton Web Tools.

Is AVG a good AV choice? Do you recommending buying the
Pro edition?

What do people recommend for HD defragging, HD
optimizing, HD error diagnostics, file undeleting,
Registry cleaning, Registry editing, etc.? I assume the
more technically proficient people do not rely on Win XP
SP2 tools alone for this.

And, please keep in mind that I'm not necessarily
looking for free software. I pay for what I use and
would certainly pay the shareware fee for good software
as well as buy competant commercial utilities app(s).

Thanks for your help.

 

IMHO, kaspersky is the best AV, bar none.

 

Hi J. everone has they`re own favourites, and they all swear by them. I use
Zone Alarm
Spybot (search & destroy)
Spywareguard
Winpatrol
Ad-aware
Windows washer
Being a pensioner limits what I can afford, and some of these are freeware,
but you can go for commercial versions. The guys here will probably give you
more options. good luck and secure
computing.
best wishes..OJ

 

Bad move.

Kaspersky
http://www.kaspersky.com

ONLY if you ABSOLUTELY require a free solution, otherwise
it is a pile of poo.

No, there is no difference in the detect/replace engine.

There is nothing wrong with the built-in defragger and
registry editor. As for file undeleting, why would you
need one permanently installed?

<snip>

 

On this date, old jon extended this wisdom for the
consideration of other readers...

Thanks for your thoughts.

I use all of these except ZA, which I found in an
earlier version to be not only ineffective, but
intrusive on my work-flow, as well as causing me Windows
maintence issues.

 

On this date, °Mike° extended this wisdom for the
consideration of other readers...

OK, why? What are the pluses/minues? I'm not disputing
you, I just don't know. Lots of folks around here swear
by it, or so I've been led to believe...

Thanks, I'll investigate. Trend Micro's PC-cillin has
also been recommended to me. What're your thoughts on
that?

RegEdit works OK, I guess, but I've found that Windows
defragger only de-frags but makes no attempt at
optimizing what goes where, folders, etc.

I don't have a good answer to that except what
difference does it make if an un-delete utility is
permanently installed or not? But, you've not answered
the question. There's nothing I'm aware of in XP that
can get a file back if you empty the Recycle Bin, or am
I missing something here?

In general, for all the years I've had the misfortune to
be "associated" with Microsoft, I have found that their
utilities are hardly robust compared to utilities
written for specific purposes.

But, since I want to dump Symantec, I'm looking for
/more/ than the native tools of XP, whether SP1 or SP2.

 

Because, AS I SAID, it is a pile of poo. It has no pluses,
other than the fact that it is free. It has a tendancy to
detect but be unable to remove certain viruses; it is one
of the forerunners in the "false positive" stakes; it very
often tends to "guess", when it suspects, but has not
positively identified an infection; it fails 'in the wild'
tests regularly; it has failed ALL of the tests that I have
put it through...should I go on?

Much better than AVG, but not up to Kaspersky's standard.

On an NTFS system, that function is completely
redundant; it doesn't work like FAT32.

When you lose data, the IMMEDIATE thing you must
do, is to STOP USING THE DRIVE. Don't even shut
down correctly, just turn off the power. You then need
to remove the drive and slave it to another system to
have the best chance of recovering all of your data, hence
there is NO POINT.

I still get the impression that you don't know exactly WHAT
you are looking for, or don't understand.

 

|>On this date, old jon extended this wisdom for the
|>consideration of other readers...
|>
|>> Hi J. everone has they`re own favourites, and they
|>> all swear by them. I use Zone Alarm
|>> Spybot (search & destroy)
|>> Spywareguard
|>> Winpatrol
|>> Ad-aware
|>> Windows washer

|>Thanks for your thoughts.
|>
|>I use all of these except ZA, which I found in an
|>earlier version to be not only ineffective, but
|>intrusive on my work-flow, as well as causing me Windows
|>maintence issues.

An earlier version of ZA did have a problem with VSMON taking up all
the CPU (ver 4.5 IIRC), it's been fix'd now. You just got a bad
version, I've been more than happy with it.
--

 

Correct to a point. You do need to stop using the HD immediately. I'd just
power off, then just boot from a Knoppix CD and move stuff to an external
HD or USB SD thingy or an optical drive burner or a network location or
HTTP or FTP. You get the idea.

 

On this date, °Mike° extended this wisdom for the
consideration of other readers...

[snip]

Mike, I read and understood your replies to my questions. Thanks
for the clarification.

As to the last comment, I'm sorry you feel that way. I think I
know exactly what I want, and I'll "know it when I see it".

 

On this date, Parko extended this wisdom for the
consideration of other readers...

Hey, guys, you're making a /lot/ of assumptions here,
the biggest one of which is that people /know/ when
they've deleted a file they really want. A much more
common scenario is not to discover the loss for days,
weeks, or months.

The advice to immediately shut down and attempt a
recovery is obviously correct, but what do you do
/later/?

I've been successfully using Norton Utilities since DOS
4.0. It has always performed flawlessly for me. But,
enough people in recent times have commented on the
unknowing things that modern Symantec software does,
that I've decided to heed their warnings and dump it.

But, the need/want is still there...

Having said that, Norton's Unerase /can/ and /does/
successfully recover deleted files so long as the HD
where the file was stored hasn't been overwritten.

So, my question still stands: what, if anything, do
people recommend for advanced systems work /other/ than
the tools native to XP?

Thanks for all for their comments.

 

|>I've been successfully using Norton Utilities since DOS
|>4.0. It has always performed flawlessly for me. But,
|>enough people in recent times have commented on the
|>unknowing things that modern Symantec software does,
|>that I've decided to heed their warnings and dump it.
|>
|>But, the need/want is still there...
|>
|>Having said that, Norton's Unerase /can/ and /does/
|>successfully recover deleted files so long as the HD
|>where the file was stored hasn't been overwritten.
|>
|>So, my question still stands: what, if anything, do
|>people recommend for advanced systems work /other/ than
|>the tools native to XP?

Norton Undelete is great, as is diskedit.

Hiren's BootCD is good http://tinyurl.com/cup72 as is BartsPE as it
reads NTFS http://65.24.134.81/KipSolutions/BootableCDrom/BartsPE.htm
--

 

<flipping between OSes>

Without being flippant, I thought I just gave you a hint.
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
Useful scenarios for WinXP: files deleted accidentally; files recovered
from a hacked/infected machine.

Plugged an external HD into my Linux box and recovered 3.4 Gig of WinXP
deleted by music files. Its all about reading the set bits in the file
headers, or sommat.

 

wrote:

|>Norton Undelete is great

Of course I ment unerase.
--

 

wrote in 4ax.com:

Did you read the topic of this thread? LMAO.

 

|> wrote in |>4ax.com:
|>
|>> Norton Undelete is great, as is diskedit.

|>Did you read the topic of this thread? LMAO.

These are dos programs that come/came with Norton they alone are worth
it, but they used to be hidden you really had to search for them.

Unerase allows you to undelete files by just typing in the first
letter of the file, no need to move it to another drive to recover.
(like the old dos command just much better)

I've used diskedit to rebuild partitions before, it's one of the
better disk editors I've come across.

I don't have Norton products installed on my system, but I have those
two files.
--

 

On this date, extended this wisdom for the
consideration of other readers...

Thanks. I knew what you meant. BTW, I get 100% no-thing
if I'm dumb enough to delete the folder as well as the
files. If it's just some files, and their HD space
hasn't been over-written, Unerase Wizard does reasonably
well.

One good by-product of getting ready for a new PC is I'm
backing up everything in sight before it gets "lost" in
the transfer. Plus, I've tracked down all the various
usernames, passwords, unlock codes, serial numbers, and
other stuff that I'll need to install my shareware and
commercial software.

 

I too dumped my Norton Systemworks about 6 months ago...

....and chose AVG (free) for my antivirus app. My WinXP
bootup time went from about 2.5 minutes to about 30
seconds. And I'm very happy with AVG.

Doesn't defragging also optimize? I've not had a problem with it.

WinXP scandisk

Restoration (freeware) and EasyRecovery Pro (payware)
While Restoration is very fast, I find that EasyRecovery Pro is more
comprehensive and successful at finding deleted files. However,
neither of those actually replace Norton Unerase because they don't
save deleted files for a specified amount of time. You have to take
your chances of a deleted file being available.

CCleaner, RegCleaner (both freeware)

I use the WinXP tools, and have no regrets about not using the Norton
apps any longer. However, I recently installed Norton's GoBack and my
bootup time has increased to the 2 minute mark again, but I think
GoBack is worth it.

 

On this date, M.L. extended this wisdom for the consideration
of other readers...

Not necessarily. One of Norton's Speed Disk options I used to
use was to put file extensions used most at the front of the
partition, then put the directory blocks up front also. For
example, on C:\, I put the EXE and DLL files first. On my
graphics files-only partition, I put JPG files first.

I don't know if XP's defrag does or doesn't "optimize" but I'd
be surprised if it did. I've never been particularly impressed
with the robustness of native Windows utilities. Obviously, lots
of other people agree, else Peter Norton wouldn't have become a
multi-millionaire.