How good ?

[scaraben]

Can one of you clever guys offer me your advice on how good is the free edition of AVG Anti Virus ?

[charlie]

How good is a loaded question :)

It's free and does what it says on the tin.

Some comparison and comments in this thread
http://forum.caithness.org/showthread.php?t=108061

Everybody has their own requirements of an AV prog but I have used it for years as a basic AV prog.

You DON'T pays your money but you takes your choice in this case!

[dx100uk]

pers
having done virus stuff for years
i very much like microsoft security essentials

it deals with loads of stuff others dont and its spyware too.

dx

[Niall Fernie]

I can't disagree enough about Microsoft Security Essentials.

I'm on day four of ridding myself of the rootkit, many virii and bits of malware thats it seems to have helped to install. The messages from it may as well have said "You need to reboot your PC in order to complete the installation of a nasty rootkit and when I pop back up to try and fix it I'll destroy several system files and allow the downloading of more malware to your system"

Thankfully I have Ubuntu installed as well so at least I can access my hard drive and start the repairs. I'm in the process of upgrading Ubuntu to the latest release so it may well be bye bye Windows in a little while.

[RecQuery]

I too, dislike MSE. I'm not exactly raving about AVG either, lots of these AV programs are bloated and they try to do too many things. I've seen some take up 30% to 40% of resident resources. Some of the corporate AV solutions are better, but no by much.

[Niall Fernie]

Well here I am on my tea break and I've just installed Moz Thunderbird and transfered all of my e-mail to my new Ubuntu setup. I'm watching iPlayer and checking on my auctions in World of Warcraft (which is running better now than on XP) Looks like I'm only going to be using my Windows install for the odd game of Colin Mcrae as I seem to be able to get everything else I need on Ubuntu for free :) And once I've run though the security site I found no more need for an anti-virus :)

[Boozeburglar]

I would recommend Comodo Internet Security without reservation.

[scaraben]

Tell me more about this Ubuntu operating system please, you arouse my curiosity Niall.
Does it take up a lot of space on my hard disc ?
Can I have it without getting rid of my present op. system ?
What are its advantages over my windows vista ?
Its a Dell machine I have will it be OK ?
+ Anything more you care to tell me !!!

[scaraben]

To all you guys who offered your comment on AVG, a big thank you. I have downloaded it and it seems to be doing the job OK, except perhaps its responsible for slowing down my PC a bit, but then I'm retired and kicking 80 so I'm in no hurry !!!!!!!!!!!

[Niall Fernie]

If you have your drive partitioned already then its a snap to set up for dual boot, if not you would have to look into some partitioning software to resize your windows partition and give you room to create a one for Ubuntu.

Currently I have my drive laid out like this:

5GB - Windows Page file partition
20GB - XP and software partition
120GB - partition for all my files
5GB - Linux swap file partition
50GB - Ubuntu partition

I'm pretty sure someone can suggest software to set this up for you.

When I installed XP at first I set up the windows partitions and left the rest of the drive free and I created the remaining ones when I installed Ubuntu.

You can download Ubuntu from www.ubuntu.com then you need to burn it onto a CD, from that point you can use it as a live CD and use Ubuntu from that without any installation. It comes with Firefox and OpenOffice pre-installed so you can have a play about with it before you decide to install it. It runs a bit slowly from the CD but it really flies along when its on your hard drive.

[Leanne]

I'd recommend Trenmicro Housecall for a free AV download

[scaraben]

Thanks for the info Niall, I'll have a think about it.

[RecQuery]

Its been a while since I've used Ubuntu favouring Debian instead, however I think the current Ubuntu installer has the option itself to resize and split a Windows partition.

Failing that if you stick the CD in while Windows is running Wubi will pop up which will allow you to install Linux into a flat file on the Windows hard drive then boot to it from the Windows boot menu.

[NickInTheNorth]

For anyone not familiar with any Linux OS but wanting to try it our can I strongly recomend trying Linux Mint - it is based on Ubuntu, but far more user friendly, I've been using Ubuntu for years, but I'm currently using Mint and love it!

http://www.linuxmint.com/

[RecQuery]

Kind of hijacking the thread, anyway.

If you do go Linux, you'll want to look into installing so called restricted formats. I think Mint has some of that out of the box, again its been a year or so since I've tried anything outside of stock Debian. If not just google stuff like w32codecs, libdvdcss. Or even the more generic '[Name of distro] how to play video'.

You may also want to consider Linux (depending on the distribution) for older hardware - I've been able to get a 486 with 4MB to play video using stuff like DSL (Damn Small Linux), Turbopup etc. If you just want a Linux server, router, firewall or NAS then really old hardware, hell anything would probably be fine.