So our anti v/ Internet security ran out a couple days ago and we’ve now been scammed for 400 quid, I’m thinking this may be just a coincidence but I need to sort the lap top out to put my mind at rest. Currently got kaspersky but the renewal is stupidly expensive. Any tips on any others and where to purchase from. Don’t mind paying to get a good product.

Microsoft security essentials is as good as anything these days and is free as long as you have a legit copy of windows.

Edited to add:

If you think you’ve been scammed due to a virus then you might want to re-format the laptop for peace of mind as well.

MSE +1

I know we’ve been scammed, 400 quid due to disappear out of our account anytime soon, 90 odd payments of £4.46? It might just be a coincidence as I say because I don’t think we’ve ever bought anything off the Internet with the offending debit card!

Kaspersky is arguably one of the best paid-for AVs.

MSE is arguably the best free (stand-alone) AV.

That scam sounds like some sort of automated payment. Who’s it to?

Russian telecoms company called beeline. Mobile phone top ups apparently. **** stressful afternoon!!

A test in one of the computer mags put BitDefender and Kaspersky at the top of the list.

MSE didn’t get a great write-up.

MSE is free but cack, Avira or Kaspersky are better if you can tolerate the occassional but annoying popups.

Russian telecoms company called beeline. Mobile phone top ups apparently. **** stressful afternoon!!

Not the iPad app developer, then? Got a small child who likes the Smurfs?

MSE didn’t get a great write-up.

You need to be careful with reviews.

The thing with MSE is, it’s an anti-virus product, and nothing else. This is it’s biggest strength and its biggest weakness. It’s a fantastic AV product, but will always do poorly in “internet security” tests because of all the things it doesn’t do.

The other thing to bear in mind is, many AV products are aggressive to the max by default in order to score well in tests. So, pulling random figures out of the air, MSE might stop 95% of test viruses where Norton stops 98%, but Norton could be constantly kicking the crap out of your PC in the process to achieve that.

I use eset nod32. Ya gotta pay for it though.

I use MSE coupled with Spybot, SuperAntiSpyware & Malwarebytes.
The last 3 I just scan manually whenever I think to (3-4 month intervals) and MSE hasn’t had to do anything yet.
I don’t, however think just MSE or most free AVs will protect against spyware / keyloggers that would be used to get your card details, someone can correct me on that though.

As long as you are a little selective about the site you visit you shouldn’t have problems with the free ones.

That said, if you’ve not used the debit card on the computer it has surely been cloned somewhere?

My first thoughts with a heart stopping moment cougar! That’s thankfully not the account or card linked to the I tunes account. Showing on the bank statements as beeline and not as iTunes Store, and also being charged a £1 overseas card charge every time the £4.48 transaction has gone through.

I use eset nod32. Ya gotta pay for it though.

As an aside, I’m a big fan of ESET’s online scanner for when the brown has hit the fan. Really useful little secondary tool.

Norton/McAfee could will be constantly kicking the crap out of your PC in the process thus rendering it &*(£ing slow when you need it most

TFTFY

I was wondering about this lot, is all.

http://www.beeline-i.com/home.php

No idea if they’re reputable or not, but app micropayments would fit the pattern.

TFTFY

Well, yes and no.

Norton is much maligned and misunderstood. I’ve dealt with its corporate version (Symantec) a lot and its desktop outing a little, though in fairness not for a couple of years now.

My experience is that Norton is actually very good, but its default settings are utterly stupid (I suspect for reasons as above). It takes an amount of configuration work to get running smoothly, and most people either can’t be bothered or don’t know how.

MSE+sandbox browser have a teenage boy & older daughter both use bittorrents etc, sometimes I have a horrendous amount of s***e on a big desktop pc to get rid of,however by letting them download to one machine it keeps the other pc’s free of junk!!

Avoid Norton. I’ve finally managed to pin down why my microsoft CRM was taking an eternity to load cases etc. Bloody Norton Browser Protection, thats what. Disabled it and they open in seconds, rather than 30s. Flipping thing. Only realised it after I’d pulled my work PC apart and put it back together.

MSE perfectly ok when combined with other products.

Bloody Norton Browser Protection

Yeah, this is an example of another problem (and why I advocate MSE). “Internet security” type products do all sorts of random things that can cause your machine to behave in unpredictable ways.

Most of the time it’s unnecessary IMHO; you want “browser protection”, keep Windows and Flash up to date, disable Java in the browser, stay off porn and warez sites, and stop clicking on stupid shit. Bingo, one protected browser. You’re welcome.

Firstly if you use Firefox browser try to add NoScript extension then … Try these …

MSE + any of this …

Malwarebytes

Or this if you want new concept of “anti-virus” this is the one.

Voodooshield

As far as I know they play well together and use minimum resources.

🙂

Oooooh. So, MSE isn’t enough on it’s own? I should download something like malwarebytes too??

The U.K. arm of the (massive multinational) company I work for recently replaced the AV they were using on all the shop floor and office machines with MSE. If its good enough for them its good enough for me.

The U.K. arm of the (massive multinational) company I work for recently replaced the AV they were using on all the shop floor and office machines with MSE. If its good enough for them its good enough for me.

I bet they’ve got more advanced equipment and software on the server and firewall though. I imagine MSE will be a local back up for each machine.

stumpy01 – Member

Oooooh. So, MSE isn’t enough on it’s own? I should download something like malwarebytes too??

Yes. No jack of all trade I am afraid.

I have Malwarebytes pro and it is a one off lifetime license btw.

The rest of my stuff are free like NoScript and MSE that’s all really.

Voodooshield is constantly evolving at the moment but I like the concept because of the way they handle incoming nasties.

Oh ya … no Java here so my pooter is rather boring really.

Oooooh. So, MSE isn’t enough on it’s own? I should download something like malwarebytes too??

I’d disagree. MBAM is a fantastic disinfection tool, but safe browsing practices is more effective than continual protection. I think we’re getting to the point now where AV is almost redundant, other than for zero day exploits.

If you want to back it up with something, look at Spyware Blaster. This is passive protection, it blocks known hostile sites and uses no system resource whatsoever. I like it a lot.

I bet they’ve got more advanced equipment and software on the server and firewall though. I imagine MSE will be a local back up for each machine.

There’s a compelling argument for multi-vendor protection. Eg, MSE on the desktop, Symantec on the Exchange server, Trend on the Citrix boxes, etc. The logic here is with the same vendor, malware that defeats one will defeat them all as they’re using the same definitions and detection engines throughout.

Ta chaps. I’ll give that Spyware Blaster a try….just installed it.

I thought MSE wasn’t licensed for commercial use?

Use MSE and Malwarebytes on home windows machine. We’re tied into McAfee for another 6 months at work but won’t be renewing. It’s pants but MBAM does pick up what it misses.

Yes, as per Cougar, SpywareBlaster is good and free.

I used to use it but then got MBAM so decided to opt out for now. May install it again …

Spyware Blaster. This is passive protection, it blocks known hostile sites and uses no system resource whatsoever. I like it a lot.

Installed it about 3 months ago–runs with ease, no system drag that I can see.

A friend of mine is an IT security guy at one of our national laboratories and he feels MSE is excellent AV protection. Like Cougar says, a big factor is avoiding sketchy sites and quit clicking on every attachment in sight unless you know what it is.

Currently got kaspersky but the renewal is stupidly expensive.

Have you tried searching for a cheaper renewal price?

And we use Norton. Renewal is also really expensive, so I always search for a cheaper price – last time got a 3 user licence for 2 years for less than the price of a single yearly user.