Quake3World

Anyone else use this or at least, bit defenders anti virus? It's got excellent reviews and indeed, since I've been using it it's very thorough with constant flagging of blocked viruses and spyware, and regular allow and deny boxes. However, scanning for viruses is taking AGES. The estmated time left is 5 hours, and it's taken over an hour to do 18% with 348,000 files scanned so far. When I used trend micros pc-cillin, also an excellent program, it didn't take anywhere near as long and I'm pretty sure it was a thorough app. Should it take this long? It scans boot sector, all files, heuristic detection, and incomplete virus bodies. I just want a virus scan which can complete within an hour.

for the two gazillionth time: avg for anti virii and ms antispyware.

Hey juggly, funny you should mention AVG, was just talking about it with someone who also uses it. He said it's as reliable as the others. I did actually try it about a year or more ago but wasn't keen. I guess I should try it again. And I do use MS antispyware as well as ad aware, spybot, spywareblaster and spywareguard.
MS antispyware though is great.

DRuM wrote:And I do use MS antispyware as well as ad aware, spybot, spywareblaster and spywareguard.

Good god.

How do you acquire spyware that necessitates all of that? I mean, the only way it can get on your PC is via an exploit or downloading something dodgy

In the former case, surely you're running a firewall and not using internet explorer except where absolutely neccesary?

And for the latter presumably you don't download executables from filesharing networks, and virus scan any cracks or other executables you might obtain?

I don't run any antispyware, and don't have any spyware onboard right now. I know this, because I'm clued in on the processes I have running and the firewall rules I have in place.

Having all those programs seems like gross overkill to me.

They all pick up different things foo, and my internet habits are no doubt different from yours. And yes I use bit defenders firewall.

p.s. i also don't have any spyware tools/spyware on board. you need to stop visiting those shady sites and hopping on those equally shady apps on their obsurdly shady networks.

ive had a hardware firewall for years and never run antivirus software. only thing ive used, and that was before i switched to ff, was cws shredder and hijack this.

edit: put it this way, i would be more concerned about using a gmail account than actually get hacked or overrun with spyware

why.

Foo wrote:I don't run any antispyware, and don't have any spyware onboard right now. I know this, because I'm clued in on the processes I have running and the firewall rules I have in place.

Malware can nest itself as a service inside svchost.exe or services.exe, something you cannot see from the Task Manager. Drop to a shell and use "tasklist" for that. BTW, this can only happen if you acquired the malware while working under an administrator account. Which you shouldn't unless strictly necessary.

^misantropia^ wrote:

Foo wrote:I don't run any antispyware, and don't have any spyware onboard right now. I know this, because I'm clued in on the processes I have running and the firewall rules I have in place.

Malware can nest itself as a service inside svchost.exe or services.exe, something you cannot see from the Task Manager. Drop to a shell and use "tasklist" for that. BTW, this can only happen if you acquired the malware while working under an administrator account. Which you shouldn't unless strictly necessary.

Yeah I know it can do that, but malware in that form is classified as a virus, and antivirus scanners will pick those up.

Ive scrapped bitdefender and downloaded a months trial of pc cillin internet security 2006 because I like the way it works and the layout is great, pretty much the same as 2005 but slightly modified.
Anyway, it keeps coming up with a message saying a process C:/windows/system32/winlogon.exe is trying to access the internet, allow or deny. After allowing, it came up with the same message a few times more. I've read winlogon is a necessary XP process but is also a virus. What do you think, should I keep on allowing it?

Ok, thanks Mr.T, I've been allowing it

Tormentius wrote:Allow it. Chances are its trying to access your own IP or localhost, both of which are fine.

Shouldn't it be smart enough to distinguish between the local/own IP and the rest of the internet?

Here's another question if I may. pc-cillin scanned my pc in just over an hour and scanned something like 100,000 files or so. So how come bit defender scanned 400,000 files in an hour but was nowhere near complete? ( hence I gave up on it). I mean it's a vast difference from what pc cillin scanned.

DRuM wrote:Here's another question if I may. pc-cillin scanned my pc in just over an hour and scanned something like 100,000 files or so. So how come bit defender scanned 400,000 files in an hour but was nowhere near complete? ( hence I gave up on it). I mean it's a vast difference from what pc cillin scanned.

Because if its only scanning 100k files, it's more or less scanning windows folder, all its lil folders, and the registry, as opposed to bit defender which is going to scan EVERYTHING. Bit Defender is an antivir you start, then go to sleep, and wake up to find it just finishing.
Kinda like defragging 15 hard drives...slow 20 gb hdds...

Ok, but, trend micro's pc cillin is reputable, agreed? So are we saying that the only way to get a decent scan is the bit defender way which scans a zillion more files, and therefore, trend micros process isn't that thorough and could miss viruses?

DRuM wrote:Ok, but, trend micro's pc cillin is reputable, agreed? So are we saying that the only way to get a decent scan is the bit defender way which scans a zillion more files, and therefore, trend micros process isn't that thorough and could miss viruses?

This is correct. Also, it's possible that PC-cillin scans only plain executables (.EXE and .DLL) while BitDefender includes mail attachments, Office documents (macro viruses), undsoweiter.

Hmm, ok. So do other AV programs scan as thoroughly as bit defender? Norton, kaspersky, McAfee? Honestly, I used to think all AV programs were much of a much but obviously not.

DRuM wrote:Hmm, ok. So do other AVG's scan as thoroughly as bit defender? Norton, kaspersky, McAfee? Honestly, I used to think all AV programs were much of a much but obviously not.

bit defender, and avg, are the only 2 that I have found reliable...

the rest suck up system resources like a motherfucker and always need to be running...

primaltheory wrote: bit defender, and avg, are the only 2 that I have found reliable...

Apparently you don't know much about antivirus apps either.

Tormentius wrote:

primaltheory wrote: bit defender, and avg, are the only 2 that I have found reliable...

Apparently you don't know much about antivirus apps either.

I've tried everything for the last few years, granted all the antivirs get the big ones, but when you get the sneaky little trojans that siblings get from whatever p2p program is cool at the moment, thats when they start to not be found, thus giving you a false sense of security... I make my parents use AVG and it finds somthing new to get rid of every week, back when they had norton I barely found anything!

So you're saying that if an antivirprogram finds something every week it's good? That's the same false sense of security. So you're getting one every week and you think you get them all that way but let's be honest that's not true.

primaltheory wrote:
I've tried everything for the last few years, granted all the antivirs get the big ones, but when you get the sneaky little trojans that siblings get from whatever p2p program is cool at the moment, thats when they start to not be found, thus giving you a false sense of security... I make my parents use AVG and it finds somthing new to get rid of every week, back when they had norton I barely found anything!

let it go man