Maximum PC

How come with the free edition I get bombarded with Avira pop-ups trying to sell me their "pro" versions? It was so annoying I removed Avira and went back to AVG. Seriously, no other free AV is that annoying.

Just seeing the title, I thought to myself, "I coulda told you that". I hate avira. Avast is becoming very similar to it too. AVG may hog resources sometimes, tho it's a lot better now compared to say, a month or 2 ago. Now it only hogs resources when updating or scanning. AVG ftw! Now if only we could get ALL of the features for free, lol.

Bombarded? I only get one ad per day, when Avira auto-updates itself.
I'll take that popup over the crapware that Avast has become.

You and me both. AVG is shitty on resources and can, itself, cause a lot of popups. AVAST! has simply turned into a joke of an A/V program.

Avira pops up ONE time a day. I don't consider Avira "Free" because it does take two seconds of my time to click off of that pop up, but still, for outstanding A/V protection at the price of two seconds per day over the other shit that's available? Sold.

BitDefender?

Is it now playing nice with Windows 7?

What about Microsoft Security Essentials? Works great on every machine I've installing it on. I used to use Avast back when it was good.

+1

Personally, I trust no security software from Microsoft. If they cannot include it in their OS' and thus, also make it powerful and efficient, then why should I bother to mess with it? Not to mention the fact that I've dealt with plenty of peoples' machines that had it installed and it didn't do crap to help them out.

Like I've said many times before, you can't always protect people from themselves, especially when the security guard requires an operator and the operator hasn't a clue what in the world they're doing.

I'm pretty sure the reason why Microsoft Security Essentials isn't included in Windows 7 is due to anti-trust concerns, and they would piss off a lot of anti-virus companies.

That's exactly correct. MS already had to deal with that with IE. Perhaps you should look into MSE more, PM_DMNKLR before posting incorrect stuff about any "MS related security". One of the best detection rates and very low performance impact.

Can we say a plus 10 for MSE?

I don't care what other people that Idk have said about it, I don't trust it, because of the experiences I and my fellow associates and friends have had with it. We don't like it one bit, and it very easily could be attached with the WinVista and Win7 discs, as a double pack, giving you the choice to install it or not, or even as a selectable Windows Update package, regardless. Anyway, my footing still stands, I don't like it, never have, never will. Heck, if it weren't for many of the apps I use and the games I do get to play on occasion, I wouldn't even use Windows either. Btw, Antitrust also happens to be one of my all-time favorite movies.

I have it installed on 20+ systems and I can't say I've had any issues at all.

I have used a bunch of different security programs including Norton, Zone Alarm, AdAware, Spybot, and several firewalls. I can tell you that at least for me none were any better than MSE.

My son in law was home on Christmas leave. Just before he left he requested me to do a back up copy of his portable USB HDD (Seagate FreeAgent Go). MSE caught stopped and removed two worms (Worm:Win32/Flibot.gen!A And Worm:Win32/Vobfus.E) the instant I connected the "Seagate FreeAgent Go" portable external USB HDD Device.

I will say this, MS Security Essentials did not horse around. It was; blam, here's your warning message. Then while I said to myself "oh shit what now?"; blam, a message saying threats stopped and removed. No if's, and's, or's, or but's about it. I have been wondering if this suite was doing anything. I mean it does keep a low profile. Anyway I scanned the drive completely and found nothing else.

Yes, I should have asked where these files came from. However, I did plan on scanning the files before I downloaded them. My point here is that MSE never let me get to the scanning. I don't pretend to know how the worms were setup but they seemed to be locked and loaded to attack the instant I plugged the drive in (if that is possible). this potential infection would have been invisible without protection and would have occured by merely plugging in the USB device. The drive was from a trusted source.

There was so little visible activity on MSE's part in the couple of months prior to this, I was a bit skeptical that it was doing anything. I have never had that kind of performance from any prior security software. The only thing I don't like is the firewall part only being one way.

Yes that's what happened. Generally those worms are packed in with pr0n, but sometimes can find their way into legitimate downloads if a site becomes infected.

Ok, so that gives my point even more credence.

No matter how careful you are, your machine can get infected. I mean for the sakes of Macho bravado your going to go without any protection except for a hardware firewall and adopt a citadel mentality? Your going to tell friends and family "don't be bringing me none of your trashy USB keys, CD's, portable drives or whatever because your probably infected? What do you do when someone near and dear comes to you and says, "could you check this key or CD for me , I can't seem to get it to work right"? You are already inside your firewall, how are you going to know you just had a drive by? Oh and by the way you just finished some really important document or project but haven't yet transfered it to your data drive.

That's just one possible vector for malware. I'm sure there are others.

Uh, bro that's an easy fix.

Assuming you're on XP:

Start > Run: secpol.msc (You can also access this program through 'Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy' this is useful if it is easier the location of this rather than the file name)



Right click "Software Restriction Policies," Choose "New Software Restriction Policies." (Skip this step if there are subfolders in Software Restriction Policies already.)



Right Click "Additional Rule" folder > New Path Rule.



Where it says Path, Type the path of avnotify.exe on your computer, or use the Browse button to find it. (On XP64 using a default install of Avira, the path is: (C:\Program Files (x86)\Avira\AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic\avnotify.exe)

5Make sure the "Security Level" Dropdown menu is selected as "Disallowed"



If you would like to make sure it went through correctly, open the Additional Rules folder, and verify the path and security level.



Enjoy the absence of nag windows.

One thing about MSE is, there are no nag screens. Why? Its completely free. But again it is the essentials and I do miss features from other suites but I'll pay that price in usability, reliability and integration.

I'm running Norton 360 on the kids and wife's computers. I'll give MSE a go on mine.

@SM, damned son. How long did you spend Googling to find that info?