[dba-Tech] Norton Antivirus Activation

John Bartow,

Why is MS-AS "a joke these days"?

My personal experience with MS-AS is that it's the best freebie and even
better than SpySweeper. As far as CounterSpy and Pest Patrol, I don't
know.

I don't go by what the reviews say is the top rated (unless it's a new
product, which then gets me to try it). I've actually used all of the
ones you mention except CounterSpy and Pest Patrol. I still find MS-AS
to be the best balance between getting the job done and hogging system
resources.

My experience with MS-AS is that it removes the stuff it finds, which
I've never been able to get Spybot and Adaware to do correctly. I don't
stick all my eggs into one basket either. I leave MS-AS running and run
the other 2 freebies periodically (monthly/bimonthly).

Scott Marcus

PS. Spybot's teatimer (while annoying) works rather well.

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John Bartow
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 9:29 PM
To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Norton Antivirus Activation

Francisco,
If they weren't better than the 3 freebies I wouldn't make an issue of
it,
but you are clearly mistaken. And I'm not a brand name adherent (as
anyone
that reads my posts would know). Do your own evaluation of all of them
at
the same time and you'll never make such a statement again. MS
anti-spyware
is a joke these days (I still use it PCs where they won't PAY for a real
time anti-spyware program). It holds up well to the statement "its
better
than nothing". 

I also use Spybot S&D and Adaware (and a number of other products) on a
regular basis and they just don't compare. Often times they will claim
to
have removed the malware but haven't or in the case of Spybot will want
to
do a scan at startup which rarely accomplishes anything. Don't get me
wrong,
I love those products. They will install and run in safe mode CS won't
<grr>. And they are better than MS's. But they don't hold up against
CounterSpy, Pest Patrol or SpySweeper. These three are consistently top
rated while others bounce up and down depending who's doing the rating.
CounterSpy actually uses the MS-AS malware database as ONE of its THREE
data
sources (because they had a contract before MS bought Giant) so how you
can
claim that MS-AS is better I just don't know! I hope MS does come
through
with a decent AS product but I'm not waiting for the day.

If you know about anti-spyware, you also know that at this point in time
no
one product will detect and remove all spyware.

As far as firewalls go, I agree, Sygate PF is great. I probably learned
about it from this list years ago. But its dead. Therefore I replaced it
with Kerio, which I probably learned about from this list too. So while
Kerio will only get better, Sygate will only get antiquated. And the
real
big catch is: how do I refer people to a dead product?
 





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