virus protection

[Phil Pascoe]

Can anyone suggest an alternative to paying £80 p. a. for Norton for one computer?

 

[Droogs]

avast is a lot cheaper,

 

[Lons]

I've used the free version of Avast without problems for several years now Phil, just keep it auto updated and renew every 12 months. They often offer the paid version via a pop up which has more features but I've resisted. I use a malware prog along side it.
Not recommending it just works for me and will likely get the thumbs down from others.

FOC is obviously limited and maybe I've been lucky but after having Norton for years I got fed up with the clutter and frustration of it slowing my machine as well as the price.

 

[SammyQ]

Malwarebytes is £18 per year for 2 laptops and a P.C. for us. Easily installed, fairly unobtrusive, save for a 30 second slow-down just after bootup, when it seems to hogg memory, and Chrome won't connect. After that, fine.

Sam

 

[ColeyS1]

You shouldn't be paying that much Phil.
This is what I've just bought

Just be sure to login and deselect the automatic renewal.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Phil Pascoe]

What's the catch? Renews automatically each year?

 

[SammyQ]

Coley, I - and others - have, in the past, found Norton ponderous, annoying with its pretentious queries, and not totally effective. Bit like McAfee. It was nearly always eclipsed by less-well-advertised Kaspersky et al. Has it changed then?

CC Cleaner is a VERY good tracker cleaner, even in its free mode, but be mindful of the settings as it eliminates auto-password provision too if you aren't careful. G'damn annoying having to look 'em all up and re-sign up. Grrrrr....

Sam

 

[Lons]

What's the catch? Renews automatically each year?

That's usually where they sting you with higher prices Phil, get you in on a special then zap the cost up to full on renewal, same as insurance, utilities, mobile phone etc. I never allow anything to automatically renew for that reason as you can always get a better deal.

 

[gwaithcoed]

I purchase the latest version and just before the old Norton is about to expire I go to setting and uninstall the old version and then install the new one
Alan.

 

[sammy.se]

When you buy directly from the Antivrus company, they charge a LOT! Don't know why.

I paid £35 for McAfee (direct to them), couple weeks later bought an even better version of McAffee from Amazon for £7.

No catch - just the way they do marketing.

What you buy from Amazon is a code, which unlocks the downloaded antivirus software.

I'm due to renew McAfee again, so will go down the Amazon route.

 

[Yojevol]

I've been pondering the same issue recently. I've been using AVG for 3 years. My subscription ended a few days ago. For the last 3 weeks AVG have been reminding me daily and offering a renewal price of £60. Then about a week before the end date they dropped the price to £30. I haven't renewed but am relying on MS Defender. Does anyone think I'm doing the wrong thing?
Brian

 

[sunnybob]

I gave up on the ridiculous amount ot false alerts and memory hogging of norton many years ago.

I just use windows defender, and thats on my 12 year old vista machine that everybody and their mother tells me is completely unsafe. never had an issue so far.
In fact the only virus I ever got caught with was about 20 years ago, and that was caused by the company I worked for letting a bugbear virus into the system.
Hoe many of you have actually ever had a virus affect your machines? unless of course youre visiting extremely dodgy sites rated at more than one x. :roll:

 

[John15]

I have used Microsoft security for some time. So far so good and it's free of charge.

John

 

[Rorschach]

I use the stock microsoft thing that is already on there. 4 laptops, no viruses in 15 years.

 

[Gerry]

I also only ever use the built in microsoft security. I have never had any virus or malware on any of my machines. You just need to be sensible on what you click on. If you can't get rid of a pop up box just switch it off at the wall and then reboot.

Gerry

 

[lurker]

I use free avast.

Does this and the Microsoft one work together or do they fall out with each other?

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Once again, the smug Linux contingent say, "Antivirus? What's one of those?"

A short learning curve and then you are away, running your computer the way you want. Open source, virus free by design.

https://www.linuxmint.com/

 

[Gerry]

There are plenty of viruses and malware that attack linux systems. It's simply the scale of economics that makes Windows the most viable target. Linux is by no means immune to attack.

Gerry

 

[ColeyS1]

What's the catch? Renews automatically each year?

Pretty much yes. I think I had to register a cash card to activate the product, but then deselected the option to auto renew. In the past it was never necessary to give them card details, for those who forget to deselect, they get stung with a big price hike come renewal time. I've had Norton ever since I can remember and never had an issue with them. Back in the day when I use to download quite alot of 'stuff' it use to catch and remove viruses with no bother.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Trainee neophyte]

There are plenty of viruses and malware that attack linux systems. It's simply the scale of economics that makes Windows the most viable target. Linux is by no means immune to attack.

Gerry

Yes and no. There are a few (about 70?), mostly produced as a proof of concept, but nothing alive and well out in the real world. Because of Linux not allowing root access to run other people's programs remotely, unlike proprietary software (Microsoft and Apple), and having repositories of open source software, so no dodgy downloading from random sites, in reality viruses just don't happen. Amusingly, Linux mail servers all run antivirus constantly to remove the endless infections from/ to Microsoft clients.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware