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If you had access to any of the following anti-virus programs, which would you choose?

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-AVG Anti-Virus 8 Pro
-BitDefender Total Security 2008 v11.0.15
-ESET NOD32 3.0.636.0
-ESET NOD32 Smart Security 3.0
-Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0.1.325
-McAfee Total Protection 2008
-Panda Antivirus 2008
-Panda Internet Security 2008
-Symantec Norton 360
-ZoneAlarm Security Suite 7.0.462

The reason I'm asking this is because I do have access to all of these, and my computer is being plagued by a virus at the moment. I therefore seek to terminate it with extreme prejudice.

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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I swear by the free version of AVG, it has served me well for years. I would imagine the pro version is just as good and better.

I have worked with computers with McAfee and Norton before and found them both very irritating, but that was back in the ninties, I suppose it is possible that they made improvements since then. I always judge my virus software by whether or not I can tell it is running, if it makes itself obvious then I don't want it, if it is doing its job behind the scenes without bother me, then I am happy with it. So far AVG has done a good job of working for me and keeping quiet about it.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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At my old school,a lot of kids used Norton (don't ask why a middle school needed laptops.) I always saw Norton do something really stupid, like lockdown you computer "because you had a virus" instead of just deleting it. And it would always keep it that way, basically saying "Too bad :D". I've had mcafee for ages, and it's served me well. I use the old one though.

But, I have separate scanners for bots and spyware, so... take that information as you will.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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In my PC days, I used NOD32 on every box I had, including a dedicated server that hosted multiple web sites. Very little overhead and great virus detection. Highly recommended.
Forum Administrator

MTFBWY…A

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I use AntiVir because its free. Its not as good as Norton I'm sure, but for something that doesn't cost me anything it certainly does the job.
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C3PX said:

I have worked with computers with McAfee and Norton before and found them both very irritating, but that was back in the ninties, I suppose it is possible that they made improvements since then.


Nope, still irritating.
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By the way, if anyone wants said programs, I'm not allowed to link to the torrent, but shoot me a PM and I'll point you in the right direction. :D

Oh, I just installed NOD32. I'm diggin' it, I gotta say.

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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I'm using NOD32 smart security. I really like the firewall.
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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Way to advertise your piracy there Nanner.

I use AVG personally. If your machine is so infected with a virus that it's become impossible to clean, you're much better off just formatting the drive and reinstalling. You don't know how deep the virus could be hiding or what it's really doing behind the scenes. Until the computer has been completely wiped, it may as well be considered totally compromised.

Make sure you have a good backup and then just wipe it. I know it's a pain in the ass, but it's really the only way to make sure it's clean, especially if your virus scanners are having a hard time cleaning it.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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And make sure to wipe the bootsector also. If it's in the bootsector formatting the hdd isn't enough.
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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If it's a boot sector virus (which aren't typical these days), simply overwriting the boot sector with a good one (by using a floppy) will fix that. No need to format the drive in that case.

If you do need to format the drive that fully, you'll have to do a low level format (writes all zeros to the drive). That'll take quite a bit longer to do than a normal format though.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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Well, I had one a few years ago that had infected a lot of files and when I formatted and reinstalled my PC I found out it also used the bootsector so I had to start all over again.
Do you know the name of the virus Nanner?
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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No, but don't think I haven't been trying to find out. My main problem is this (reposted from the WhatTheTech forum):

This problem first came up about five days ago, when I realised that one of my audio files wouldn't play. At first I thought it was iTunes (which I rarely use; at first I thought I was being reminded just why that was), but it turned out that I couldn't get sound to play at all. Moreover, I would get this message:

"Windows Audio Device Graph Isolation stopped working and was closed."
closely followed by:
"Windows Audio stopped working and was closed."

So I went into control panel to try and look at what was going on, and I got this message:
"Windows host process (rundll32) has stopped working."

Now the fact that my sound doesn't work at all is annoying enough. What is even more annoying is that I keep getting pop-ups from Windows saying "Windows Audio has stopped working" every thirty seconds! I'm not sure if it's a virus or not, but it's so irritating that I just assume it is anyway. But before I do decide to go all Rambo on my laptop, I want to see if it's a virus or just a hardware problem.

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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I wouldn't really be to concerned with computer viruses, you should be much more worried about the A.I.D.S.

HARMY RULES

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The worst part is, even with all the virus protection out there, you can't avoid the trolls.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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I'm going to assume you're running either Windows 2000 or XP.

Click Start, then Run, then type services.msc. Hopefully it'll come up. Check the Windows Audio service to make sure it's running. If it's not, try to start it, it may not even start.

If you can't get that far, restart the computer in safe mode and run one of those virus scanners. If you're on XP, I recommend disabling system restore at this point as well. Speaking of that, if you haven't tried rolling back to before the problem, you might want to try that too.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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Well, first off, I'm running Vista (unfortunately). I've already tried turning the service on, but whenever I do it says that the process ended unexpectedly. I've also tried to do System Restore, but when I went in to do it, it said that it had been turned off this whole time, so I'm pretty much shit out of luck there too.

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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You can try to do a repair install then. Just put your Vista disc in the drive and boot up with it. Tell it you have an existing install (it may find it anyway) and that you want to repair it. It shouldn't take long and your system will be like new after that.

Have you tried to install SP1 yet? I'm hearing pretty good things about it (improves file transfers and a few other things).
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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Well, I installed SP1, and now it won't even start up. It has an error message before it even finishes installing. I did a google search for the error message, and apparently I'm not the only one to have gotten the exact same error message, but nobody seems to have an actual solution to the problem. If I can't find the Vista install disc, I may just have to do a System Restore.

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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Well, I reinstalled SP1, and it all works now! Pyeeaaah!

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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C3PX said:

I swear by the free version of AVG, it has served me well for years. I would imagine the pro version is just as good and better.

I have worked with computers with McAfee and Norton before and found them both very irritating, but that was back in the ninties, I suppose it is possible that they made improvements since then. I always judge my virus software by whether or not I can tell it is running, if it makes itself obvious then I don't want it, if it is doing its job behind the scenes without bother me, then I am happy with it. So far AVG has done a good job of working for me and keeping quiet about it.


mcaffee and norton, you better buying a CD worth of spyware and installing it then using those two peices of garbage. They are both INSANE resourcehogs and in ways jsut as bad as the software your trying to prevent getting onto your computer. I personally use Sophos because UBC provides it for free and its so much nicer.
nice guys finish last