Antivirus advice urgently needed....

Quote from Catoosa:

I did not have the long boot time until 3 years ago when I upgraded my AVG from the paid anti-virus to the AVG paid anti-malware. I have not found any way to change the settings to shorten the boot time. All of my settings are set to only scan or test when I manually start the test (complete test, System test, etc.). I can disable the AVG resident shield or the anti-spyware component and the PC boot time will then be normal, but of course I do not want to do that. Except for my extended boot time, AVG has worked great for me and at the best price on the market for what it does.
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OK, I misunderstood. I just have the anit-virus software. I have it turned on. But I could set to perform the detailed scan to take place at a particular time that was convenient for me. I also have a anti-spyware software, which I use manually.

OldTrader
 
Quote from gnome:

Maybe the culprit is the anti-spyware? I use AVG and have none of the slowness you describe, so there is something definitely a-foul with your rig...

Often when your rig gets slow, it's because there is a problem which the boot or process tries and tries over and again.. then eventually gives up and moves on. Get rid of the rub and your speed should return.
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Here's a tip to help understand what is actually loading during startup.
NOTE: this procedure assumes Windows XP

1) During bootup press F5. This will bring up a boot options menu. Select "Enable Boot Logging" and continue the boot.

2) When boot completes, look for the NTBTLOG.TXT file in the Windows directory. This log contains all the drivers attempting to be loaded during boot.

3) Rename the NTBTLOG.TXT file to something else.

4) Now reboot again, enabling boot logging, but this time boot into safe mode.

The difference between the 2 files, the one you renamed and the new ntbtlog.txt file from the safe mode boot, provides a major running start at determining what may be bogging down your boot process.

fwiw; after many years with AVG-Free, I have converted to the paid version of NOD32. Relatively recent, but no problems whatsoever. It's extremely lightweight and the protection is significantly better, IMO. And the company is located in San Diego CA, with phones, email, and live people. Ever try to contact Grisoft?

Osorico
 
Quote from VoodooMMI:

I don't use real-time virus protection because I think it slows the computer down too much. Instead, periodically, I will scan with
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

So far, no viruses.
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Replace that with

"I don't use protection when I have sex with many different people I don't know. Instead periodically, I ask them if they have STDs.

So far, no AIDS..."
 
Antivirus is for idiots..
just don't click on stupid shit!

Antivirus software, adware, spyware, and all that garbage GIVES YOU VIRUSES!!
 
If you want the mother of all protection... run your apps / browser inside a virtual sandbox.

I've had zero problems over the last few years since I changed to this sort of system.

I still use AVG but coupled with running my browser inside a virtual sandbox... my system is just about bullet proof.

There are many of them out there, but I use sandboxie.com.

If you got kids and want a good filter... K9 web protection is the gold standard... and it's free.
 
Quote from RL8093:

While this may indeed still be true, there is reason to be concerned even if you do no surfing or reading email. A few years ago, I had to reload windows - didn't see it as a priority to reload anti-virus software until the weekend (& I did not enable firewall).

To make a long story short, my computer got infected with some of the nastiest programs you can imagine by doing nothing other than being unprotected...

R
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Which version of Windows were you installing? Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 has a firewall which earlier versions of Windows did not have. A firewall is a must when connecting to the internet.
 
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