Anti Virus

[DerbyBorn]

I have both MalwareBytes and Microsoft Security Essentials on my laptop,

I thought they did different things - now I am not sure. Please can someone
advise?

 

[philo]

I have both MalwareBytes and Microsoft Security Essentials on my laptop,

I thought they did different things - now I am not sure. Please can someone
advise?

http://lifehacker.com/5560443/whats-the-difference-between-viruses-trojans-worms-and-other-malware

Both good to have,
there is some "malware" that is not technically a virus.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

On Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:07:19 +0100, "Alias"

Personally, I would remove Microsoft Security Essentials and
replace it with Avast.

+1

 

[Paul]

I have both MalwareBytes and Microsoft Security Essentials on my laptop,

I thought they did different things - now I am not sure. Please can someone
advise?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Security_Essentials

"Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is an antivirus software (AV) product
that provides protection against different types of malware such as
computer viruses, spyware, rootkits and Trojan horses."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malwarebytes'_Anti-Malware

"MBAM claims to find malware that many other anti-virus and anti-spyware
programs miss, including rogue security software, adware, and spyware.

MBAM scans in batch mode, rather than scanning all files opened,
reducing interference if on-demand anti-malware software is also
running on the computer."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avast!

"File System Shield — Real-time protection against viruses and
other malware threats. Scans files as they run on your computer
to keep viruses from being able to execute."

"Free Antivirus

Blocks viruses & spyware Yes
"

In addition to the claims, you can read sites like "AV Comparatives",
to see how effective the tools are.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/summary-reports/253-summary-report-december-2012

http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/docs/avc_sum_201212_en.pdf

If you don't want to read the entire report, the summary table is good.
I posted a copy of it from page 3, here.

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/8307/avcsum2012dec.gif

HTH,
Paul

 

[Ken Blake]

I have both MalwareBytes and Microsoft Security Essentials on my laptop,

I thought they did different things - now I am not sure. Please can someone
advise?

Yes, they do different things. Microsoft Security Essentials is an
anti-virus program. MalwareBytes AntiMalware is an anti-spyware
program. They are both very examples of the kind of software they
are, and having both is very good.

 

[s|b]

+1

+2

 

[Ken Blake]

+2

-2

As far as I'm concerned, they are both good, and I wouldn't change
from either to the other.

 

[GreyCloud]

http://lifehacker.com/5560443/whats-the-difference-between-viruses-trojans-worms-and-other-malware


Both good to have,
there is some "malware" that is not technically a virus.

There seems to be a cyber war going on right now, so right now I'm
staying as much as I can off the net till the dust settles down.
I heard that one of the credit reporting groups got infiltrated by
somebody, and that Michelle Obamas, Joe Bidens, and a few Hollywood
celebs got their data taken/copied.

 

[Boscoe]

-2

As far as I'm concerned, they are both good, and I wouldn't change
from either to the other.

Avast is fairly good for malware, poor for emails(malware/spam). It
hasn't got a tool to back up files and it isn't easy to use. Microsoft
Easy Essentials/ Windows 7 scores highly for these and has an excellent
firewall, parental control, clarity of security threat messages, desktop
status widget clarity and good online support and very simple to use.

 

[philo]

There seems to be a cyber war going on right now, so right now I'm
staying as much as I can off the net till the dust settles down.
I heard that one of the credit reporting groups got infiltrated by
somebody, and that Michelle Obamas, Joe Bidens, and a few Hollywood
celebs got their data taken/copied.

I imagine there is a cyber war going on everyday.

I had an interesting case recently.

I got an XP machine on my bench yesterday.
After I got it repaired, AVG found the Bug Bear virus in the "in" box.

I don't think I've come across that one in ten years.
AVG could not repair it...but then I realized that the "in" box is all
stored in one file and more than likely there was just (possibly) one
infected email.

I figured I had better not delete the guy's entire "in" box...
then did a full scan of all drives with a "Bug Bear" removal tool and
found the infection had not spread anywhere and that there would only be
a danger if he re-opened that email...which was probably pretty old.

When he came to get the machine I gave him all the details.

 

[GreyCloud]

I imagine there is a cyber war going on everyday.

I had an interesting case recently.

I got an XP machine on my bench yesterday.
After I got it repaired, AVG found the Bug Bear virus in the "in" box.

I don't think I've come across that one in ten years.
AVG could not repair it...but then I realized that the "in" box is all
stored in one file and more than likely there was just (possibly) one
infected email.

I figured I had better not delete the guy's entire "in" box...
then did a full scan of all drives with a "Bug Bear" removal tool and
found the infection had not spread anywhere and that there would only be
a danger if he re-opened that email...which was probably pretty old.

When he came to get the machine I gave him all the details.

Good work.

The cyber warfare that I'm talking about are the ones in China and
elsewhere that are always coming up with new tools to hack away at big
time servers... like banks. I've also read over a year ago that a lot
of governments pay big bucks for the latest hacking tools, where the
average user won't even know that they have been compromised leaving no
tracks whatsoever.
That's why, for a while, I'm not surfing the web much.

 

[philo]

Good work.

The cyber warfare that I'm talking about are the ones in China and
elsewhere that are always coming up with new tools to hack away at big
time servers... like banks. I've also read over a year ago that a lot
of governments pay big bucks for the latest hacking tools, where the
average user won't even know that they have been compromised leaving no
tracks whatsoever.
That's why, for a while, I'm not surfing the web much.

In my case, my savings account was hacked about three years ago.
It was nothing to do with anything I did...it was entirely the fault of
US Bank.

A whopping $5 was withdrawn and it would have been missed by a lot of
folks I imagine. The reason I caught it that is all my transactions come
out of my checking account and *no one* is authorized to withdraw funds
from my savings account except me.

Although I got it all sorted out, the bank handled the whole thing very
poorly...but it was due to an employee who was too lazy or clueless to
care. I eventually contacted someone else and it was all taken care of
in a couple of minutes.

My guess is that a lot of people, even if they noticed the $5 would have
just thought it was some bank fee...but to me , it stood out like a sore
thumb.

BTW: US Bank told me that such things virtually never happen...yet their
fraud office is open 24/7 !

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

-2

As far as I'm concerned, they are both good, and I wouldn't change
from either to the other.

My personal experiences with systems "protected" by MSE leads me to a
completely different conclusion.

YMMV, but I've spent far to much time disinfecting systems with up-to-
date MSE installations for friends and relatives for me to *ever* trust
it, some more than once until I started to replace MSE with Avast. On
the other hand, I have yet to have even one of those systems come back
with an infection after replacing MSE with Avast.

 

[Johnny]

My personal experiences with systems "protected" by MSE leads me to a
completely different conclusion.

YMMV, but I've spent far to much time disinfecting systems with up-to-
date MSE installations for friends and relatives for me to *ever* trust
it, some more than once until I started to replace MSE with Avast. On
the other hand, I have yet to have even one of those systems come back
with an infection after replacing MSE with Avast.

I used the free version for two years, and liked it so much I bought the
full version.

I like it because it will warn you if you are about to go to a malicious
website.

 

[Roy Smith]

On Wed, 13 Mar 2013 14:30:48 -0400, Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote:




+2

+3

 

[Ken Blake]

there is some "malware" that is not technically a virus.

Yes, but I wouldn't say "technically." Malware is MALicious softWARE.
There are several kind of malicious software besides viruses. Here's a
quote from Wikipedia, and note the last sentence in particular:
"Malware includes computer viruses, ransomware, worms, trojan horses,
rootkits, keyloggers, dialers, spyware, adware, malicious BHOs, rogue
security software, and other malicious programs; the majority of
active malware threats are usually worms or trojans rather than
viruses."


And let me add to the above that *technically* a virus doesn't have to
be malicious and is therefore not necessarily malware. The definition
of a virus is self-replicating software. Software can be
self-replicating without doing anything malicious, and in fact there
have been several demonstrations of non-malicious viruses. But of
course any virus that any of us is likely to run into with be
malicious and is therefore malware.

 

[ODay]

Avast is fairly good for malware, poor for emails(malware/spam). It hasn't
got a tool to back up files and it isn't easy to use. Microsoft Easy
Essentials/ Windows 7 scores highly for these and has an excellent firewall,
parental control, clarity of security threat messages, desktop status widget
clarity and good online support and very simple to use.

Stick with Essentials.
Avast nags a lot.
Essentials seems to just work.
I surf all over and alot and occassionally get bad websites but never
any infections.
I am not a MS fan but Essentials should be well integrated into Windows
since you would hope that MS knows Windows pretty well ya think.

 

[BeeJ]

There seems to be a cyber war going on right now, so right now I'm staying
as much as I can off the net till the dust settles down.
I heard that one of the credit reporting groups got infiltrated by
somebody, and that Michelle Obamas, Joe Bidens, and a few Hollywood celebs
got their data taken/copied.

They probably use Apple Macs.

 

[BeeJ]

http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/docs/avc_sum_201212_en.pdf

If you don't want to read the entire report, the summary table is good.
I posted a copy of it from page 3, here.

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/8307/avcsum2012dec.gif

HTH,
Paul

data too old! anything recent?

 

[Paul]

data too old! anything recent?

What did the av-comparatives.org site say ?

Right now it is Mar 2013, the report is from Dec 2012.
The software won't have changed that much, for it to
make a difference. Only utter neglect of an AV database,
would doom a product in that short a time.

Paul