Yes Zone Alarm is simply a firewall, and does not protect against viruses.
Hi, Since buying my present computer I have had ZoneAlarm downloaded. Last year, acting on advice from my credit card company, I have also downloaded AVG Anti-Virus System. For my home computer to stay virus free, do I really need both systems? MC.
Do you believe that a car should have both seat belts and brakes? BTW, not much point unless you change the brake pads when they are worn out - your AVG needs updating.
Zone Alarm is a firewall, AVG is an antivirus program. Your version of AVG is out of date, and is almost certainly NOT protecting you -- AVG is not very good, anyway. Anti-virus programs: -------------------- KAV (Kaspersky) http://www.kaspersky.com/ eZ Antivirus (Computer Associates) http://www.my-etrust.com/products/Antivirus.cfm Sophos http://www.sophos.com/products/sav/
Invest in a anti virus program that isnt free. AVG is a free download unless of course you purchased it which may be more beneficial. However, a friend of mine had the free version of AVG and she got slammed with viruses and her computer is now ruined. Norton Systemworks is a good investment. JM
You really do *need* both an AV and a firewall - and it's really nice to have a spyware cleaner as well. I've used AVG's free version for quite a while now, and I have had really great results from the free version, *but* you have to keep that sucker updated or it's no good whatsoever. That's true with all AV programs. AVG is a little on the menial side because they don't pay much attention to the Free version's update servers from time to time, so you have to do it manually to be sure. It's the way they work. There's an international database, but someone has to get bit before the bug makes it to the database and the remedy is passed along to us, the *oppressed* *masses* (Bush's tax break excepted). (o; In AVG's case, there's a couple of tricks to updating it, especially the free version, because it has little problems periodically especially with updating it. news://alt.comp.freeware is a good group to get the particulars on updating your url.ini file and some other methods for making sure you are configured correctly. Then there's the pesky little spyware apps, which will give you fits every now and then. Lavasoft's Ad-Aware is as good as any and it's free as well. These things have a tendency to overlap in their protections. For instance, ZA will block an *.exe from downloading onto my hard drive, renaming it *.zl9, or similar - and then I'll get a prompt to scan it with AVG. I use Trojan Remover as well as PestPatrol too. Both of these recognize AVG and have prompted me to remove a file with AVG - which then quarantines the bad file to the AVG vault where I can just delete it, etc. But the main thing is that you have to keep these things updated, and lately that means on a daily basis. AVG is currently v6.0.654 and Virus database 419, which was released yesterday. So unless you get hit with a really old virus, you're a sitting duck for these things. Like any infection, it only takes *one* little bug to cause a whole mess 'o messiness. And one of the characteristics of viruses is that they mutate and adapt - change.
--- Many thanks for all your replies. Acting on your advice, I updated AVG yesterday evening and am now rather surprised to find that it is already out of date. It seems that updating AVG is yet another job I will have to add to my daily workload. MC
As it was so far out of date, you may find that it needed several updates to catch up. So don't expect this to happen all the time! However, checking for updates every day only takes a moment and a boring moment every day is better than an exciting moment once a month - finding that your machine is infected because you let your AV get out of date again.
In Switch to Avast! - it's also free, just as good, and is automatically updated every time you go on line, so you don't have to do anything!
It's playing in the wrong league, but then, it *is* free. Basically, it's no good at detection, when it comes to exotics. It also throws too many false positives and 'guesses'.
Any chance you've got reviews of it? There's one on Kickstart News (http://tinyurl.com/26f4) and it seems to get the thumbs up with the only "con" being some bizarrely worded sentence on the packaging. I've been using it for a couple of years (PC-Cillin was too resouce- intensive at the time), and haven't had anything slip through. Of course, would I know if it had?
My view of AVG comes from personal experience, testing different antivirus products with thousands of different viruses, worms and trojans. The vast majority of reviews you find on the net are either biased, or written by people who have no idea, however, the following two pages should give you some idea. http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archives/products.xml?avg.xml http://www.software-antivirus.com/program/avg-antivirus-review.html "Testing has put AVG Antivirus in the lower range, with only a 15%-20% detection rate."
Taking a moment's reflection, °Mike° mused: | | the following two pages should give you some idea. | | http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archives/products.xml?avg.xml Received a 100% Pass Rating for XP and Server 2003 last year, and the same for Red Hat 9 this year. | http://www.software-antivirus.com/program/avg-antivirus-review.html | "Testing has put AVG Antivirus in the lower range, with only | a 15%-20% detection rate." Link failed to load ...
Four passes vs. twenty fails. Works fine here. Try the Google cache: http://makeashorterlink.com/?A2D8619F7
Taking a moment's reflection, °Mike° mused: | | Four passes vs. twenty fails. ... which occurred in past tests with older versions of the program. What do I care if a program was bad two years ago if it's good now?
It was bad two years ago, and it's just as bad now. That is from first hand experience. You don't have to take my word for it, though; go ahead and use it.
In || WHO IS THIS.I DONT KNOW YOU Eh? || ||| Taking a moment's reflection, °Mike° mused: |||| |||| Four passes vs. twenty fails. ||| ||| ... which occurred in past tests with older versions of the ||| program. What do I care if a program was bad two years ago if it's ||| good now?
