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January 2006

You are here: Home > Professional Writing > MasterIT > 2006 archive > January 2006

31/1/06

For a couple of years now, I've had Norton's Anti-virus. I am now tired of Ccapp errors and Lucom Server errors (which, as best I can figure it through Googling, have to do with Norton's). I am due to renew with Norton's and do not wish to, but I'm confused about the best product to get. Is the free AVG no good? If not, what in your view is the best product?

I've not extensively tried AVG, but from what I've seen it works pretty well. This, incidentally, is not because it's lousy, but because I've always been pretty happy with McAfee (I've been using version 7 for a few years now, and have never had a virus infection. I believe they're up to version 9 now).

As far as Norton products go, I too have had a few bad experiences, and over the years various readers have reported a myriad of issues. As a result, I tend to avoid Norton software entirely, and other Symantec products, as they can cause all sorts of odd PC behaviour, and can sometimes be a pain to uninstall.

Of course, I'm not saying that their stuff doesn't work. Many people use Symantec products without issues; it's just that my own mileage (and my mileage as an IT troubleshooter) varied considerably.

Alienating myself from the Symantec Christmas Card List aside, the most important thing about a virus scanner is that it be kept up to date. New worms and security exploits appear constantly, and staying ahead of the game is essential.

All good scanners can be configured to update transparently (and do complete scans) at user-specified intervals. I recommend every couple of days for the former and every month for the latter.

Ideally, you should make sure the scanner is set up to intercept viruses before they even get a chance to make it to your hard disk. This means an automatic scan whenever you read or write to the disk (or both) - the latter is the most effective.

Both AVG and McAfee offer free virus definition updates, which I also consider a must-have - why continue to pay for a product once you've bought it? Major software updates are one thing, but bug fixes and virus definition files are a different kettle of fish.

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