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Seeking (Free) Antivirus Alternatives
03-29-2013, 05:51 AM
Seeking some input here. I've spent my two hours of creative this night troubleshooting why I could no longer use the Poser Pro 2012 Library palette. It appears to come down to Avast's file scan shield not allowing Poser's AIR extension to work correctly. It's not "window blank", it's "the applet crashes, just crashes". I turn off the file scanner or fiddle with the settings, it's fine, turn on scanner, reboot Poser, not working again until I fiddle some more.
This has already progressed into a dealbreaker for me in terms of Avast. Poser Pro's library was working fine until the last Avast update, and as noted, I've lost an entire evening I planned on doing something with Poser instead fighting for reasons why it wouldn't work. And yes, I updated Flash and AIR to no effect.
My two big requirements is that 1) the software be free and 2) it not get in the way of an evening of creation.
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I use Security Essentials, with Malwarebytes to supplement it. I forget I'm running them, most of the time.
Avira is also well-regarded and free.
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False positives are a fact of life when it comes to security suites. They all do it from time to time. Usually they get corrected in the next update.
Microsoft Security Essentials has the lowest rate of false positives. It also has the lowest detection rate.
Might I suggest adjusting the behaviour shield to make Poser a trusted process? Sometimes that can have an effect.
________________________________
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Avast! Antivirus alongside Spybot Search & Destroy.
(current versions at least...)
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I use AVG Free
There is no coincidence, only necessity....
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CrimsonKMR Wrote:I use AVG Free As do I, although I'm not completely happy with how many ads it presents for services that don't have anything to do with AV.
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Quote:Dartz wrote:
Might I suggest adjusting the behaviour shield to make Poser a trusted process? Sometimes that can have an effect.
I've already done that, actually. It's only managed to ensure I can open the palette once.
The problem isn't that I'm getting false flags... it's that the library palette isn't being very stable. In fact, I'm suspecting I'm going to have to uninstall and reinstall Poser... which I can't do until tomorrow. If I get the palette to come up, I can't close it that session or I have to restart Poser itself, because the palette will crash out every time. And even that doesn't guarantee.
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Quote:robkelk wrote:
Quote:CrimsonKMR wrote:
I use AVG Free
As do I, although I'm not completely happy with how many ads it presents for services that don't have anything to do with AV.
Don't let it instal the browser toolbar. And opt out of all emails. Cinch.
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I use AVG Free after getting away from the older Symantec Antivirus. I actually preferred it, but they stopped supporting it.
Anyway, AVG Free is one of the best options at the moment. And I second the statement about toolbars, and take it even further. Never, ever, *ever* let any program install toolbars in your computer. If you have any, remove them. You'll notice an immediate improvement in system performance and internet transfer speed. Those things are ugly, and insidious. Not to mention even the most benign exist to perform net traffic performance modeling on your internet habits, and send it back to the programmer...
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I've generally used Security Essentials and AVG free (depending on the system) plus supplementing with Malware bytes as needed.
My opinion about toolbars is unprintable, Most are bloatware if not malware at the very least. Particularly after having to do a cleanup twice after the ask.com toolbar hosed two different computers belonging to family members. First time was absolutely maddening second time around I'd already seen the same symptoms from the first go around so fixing was easier...
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No toolbars here, I also believe that they are Of The Devil's Work.
Avast turned out to be my problem. It's been fired, replaced with MS Security Essentials for the time being. Poser appears to be sitting happily again, the external Library palette comes up without fail now.
Now, this doesn't mean I'm not putting a small share of blame upon Adobe (for having security flaws) and Smith Micro (for using someone else's library for a key part of their software, the internal Library uses the specifically Internet Explorer version of Flash, which I don't even have installed on this machine right now, and let's not speak of using AIR for the external version...), but that the last Avast upgrade broke the external library without having to specify a LOT of exceptions, and possibly running both Poser Pro and the Library widget as Administrator, even on an Administrator account...
Plus, the whole system seems a little snappier with the change. Yeah. Too much more of this, and I might have to consider running Poser Pro on a network-isolated system just to avoid dealing with the headache of what the security software is doing to protect it.
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"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
paladindythe
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If you're willing to spend a little, I'd recommend ESET's NOD 32. You can only buy it online, but it's a great product.For free, I'd recommend Microsoft Security Essentials, as a light weight solution.
There's some helpful security habits to get into as well: - Keep your computer updated with Windows Update
- regularly check for updates for all the software you use
- uninstall any software you don't use (Java has earned the moniker "Just Another Vulnerability Announcement" lately)
If you suspect that there's malware in your system, the nuke-from-orbit solution is to copy your data off your system, format your hard drive and start over -- this can easily kill a day or two.
There are some smaller scale steps you can take: - Run 'mrt' from the command prompt. The is Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool, which is updated monthly (you have automatic updates enabled, right?)
- Download and burn the image for Windows Defender Offline, and then boot off the disc. This runs a (long) scan of your discs from a known uninfected OS (it's rather like a Linux Live-CD for dealing with malware).
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Quote:JFerio wrote:
I have my system set up to automatically inform me but ask if I want to install. I'm savvy enough (I hope!) that I don't need to let my system do this without my input. Especially when I'm trying to do things like render or do paying freelance work, where restarts willy-nilly would be BAD.
There's a bit of registry editing you can do (described here) that disables the automatic restart portion of the Windows Update. You'll still get the message with the delay prompt, but it won't actually be able to restart it itself.
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Quote:Jorlem wrote:
There's a bit of registry editing you can do (described here) that disables the automatic restart portion of the Windows Update. You'll still get the message with the delay prompt, but it won't actually be able to restart it itself.
Yeah, I think I'll avoid doing the registry edits - usually if I put off the reboot part I can keep ahead of it until I'm ready to let it reboot.
I've got the malicious software tool running right now, as well as the flash drive "baking" for the Offline Defender.
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Quote:paladindythe wrote:
There's some helpful security habits to get into as well: - Keep your computer updated with Windows Update
- regularly check for updates for all the software you use
On point two there, I'd like to recommend http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/]Secunia's Personal Software Inspector. I discovered this utility through a recommendation by the Windows Secrets newsletter, and I've been using it for about a year now. It identifies all the third-party programs on your PC that do not automatically update themselves and keeps them updated for you. When for some reason it can't do the update itself, it lets you know to do it. It can also identify obsolete and sunsetted software, and lets you override its settings on a per-application basis. It's not perfect -- there's way too much out there for any one program to know it all -- but I have yet to have a program it didn't know about.
-- Bob
---------
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...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Downloaded, installed, ran. Pretty slick little tool there. Why didn't I find out about this sooner? Keeping up with software versions is a real pain in the oil pan.
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