Windows Anti-Virus Suite

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I've been using Windows Defender for a while now, but notices it doesn't actually do anything with e-mail that comes in unless I open the attachments (which I don't). But I get tons of these stupid email and other spam. So I was looking for something slightly better than the standard.

I looked and trialled a variety of suites now;
- Bitdefender 2015: didn't install, then I had to do a manual install, then the CPU were going high. Don't understand why it is so well regarded
- Kaspersky 2015: generally ok, but update mechanism seems to be blocked by OpenDNS filtering which concerns me and I'm already on my limit of whitelisting sites.
- AVG: really don't like how it messes about the browser search and safebrowsing. It causes all sorts of interventions

I'm rapidly remembering my pet hate about windows and the intrusive security suites. So far Defender is the least intrusive, but it doesn't provide email protection that I can see.

Has anyone got any recommendations? I don't like to tinker, and to me this should be unobtrusive and just run and do its job in realtime for on-access, web, email at the very least.
 
I had Security Essentials for a few years ( very unintrusive) but recently I went back to Avast.

If you are using Outlook, it should be easy to setup some email rules.
 
ESET Nod 32 works for me, been using for a few years after the poor performance from Mcafee and Norton. Costs about £25 a year if bought as a two year package.. All suspect emails go into trash folder, if any get through I can just block them for future use.

Try a 30 day free trial and see how you get on.

http://www.eset.co.uk/
 
I used to run a product called Mailwasher. It was free for a single account. Now on Virgin Cable and account and they block all my spam.

Edit: Just Googled it and it is still available.
 
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Another vote for Windows Security Essentials here. I've been running with it since it was first introduced, it's not intrusive and I only know it's there when it picks something up.
 
Security essentials doesn't exist anymore, and it doesn't do email protection. Well note before point of access anyway.

Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll try out a few more and see if they fare better.
 
Security Essentials exists on my computer ok. Maybe its not available for download anymore?
 
Sorry I'm using windows 8.1 it is now Microsoft defender. Did MSE do email scanning?
 
I have used Webroot SecureAnywhere for me and my families personal computers. I've been using this for around 3 years and I've been happy with the product. It also has very very little memory usage overhead compared to many of the other non cloud based products on the market.

Note, You need to have an internet connection to utilise it to the program to its full potential. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2470312,00.asp


There are lots of good options out there. I'm sure you'll be fine!
 
That explains it then, I'm still using Windows 7. It scans all my Outlook files so yes, it picks up on dodgy emails.
 
That explains it then, I'm still using Windows 7. It scans all my Outlook files so yes, it picks up on dodgy emails.
How odd. Defender most definitely does not, well not unless you try to open them yourself. A real shame as I like the lightweight nature, but I've had the others pick up on the emails where Microsoft remains silent. And I don't want to accidentally pass on a virus to anyone else.

I will try some of the other suggestions.
 
I have used Webroot SecureAnywhere for me and my families personal computers. I've been using this for around 3 years and I've been happy with the product. It also has very very little memory usage overhead compared to many of the other non cloud based products on the market.

Note, You need to have an internet connection to utilise it to the program to its full potential. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2470312,00.asp


There are lots of good options out there. I'm sure you'll be fine!
I've installed a 14 day trial of Webroot. Wow, really like that one so far. It utilises barely any system resources, seems effective with my test files....So good so far, slight hiccup with my password manager but an exception was easy to make...Need to check more on the email side of things....
 
I recall reading a while ago that Windows Security Essentials was using the Avast engine and that Microsoft recommended changing over to Avast directly as the updated version(s) where more relevant. This was some two years ago (approx). It was certainly long enough ago that the details are somewhat hazy in my old brain anyway.

Having just checked via Google, this link is typical of several on the subject. Hope it helps...

http://www.howtogeek.com/173291/goo...w-recommends-you-use-a-third-party-antivirus/

Anthony.
 
Linux, BSD, OSX. Sorry it had to be said and you know exactly why.


I think it was a fair enough suggestion, I've only switched to windows about 3 months ago. Going through this was starting to remind me exactly why I didn't use windows for so long. Sure lots of choices, but all of them have some form of drawback or impact, dare I say virus protection on the Mac/OSX was easier, less intrusive and gave me more confidence.

I don't know how to proof it, but the level of spam attacks with malware attachments seem to have increased.

I might still move back, the lack of something so simple like a universal mailbox is really starting to do my head in. And I've got office 2016 installed and it is still not sorted, yet the Mac version does have it.

So to be fair, I do think he has a point. It doesn't have to be this hard. Main thing from stopping me is the form factor. On thameslink trains it is nearly impossible to use a normal laptop, with the very different design of the Microsoft Surface Pro I normally get about two or three user stories out of the way and coded on my journey home or to work work. Otherwise it is just time to sleep and listen to music ;)
 
Well that is webroot gone as well. I had five nasties come in today, I recognised them instantly but webroot did nothing. I opened the attachment and it still didn't react. Not good at all. Shame, but hey ho on to the next.
 
Bingo ESET Smart Security 8 picks out those email nasties no problem. Moves them to another folder etc. webroot didn't pick up those at all.

View attachment 40601
 
I'll be interested to know how you get on with that.
Scores on the doors so far....60 infected items over two email accounts :eek: None of the other products picked those up at all.

The system scan did pick up two more infected files which was ok as they were test files ;) But more interestingly it has also picked up a lavasofttcpservice.dll with komodia.a which non of the others picked up. A little investigation is that it could be a false alarm, but I think there was something around the komodia certificates that got compromised and shouldn't be trusted. I don't recall having installed Lavasoft either which is a bit of a concern.

But so far very impressed with what it picks up, very impressed indeed.
 
Well that is webroot gone as well. I had five nasties come in today, I recognised them instantly but webroot did nothing. I opened the attachment and it still didn't react. Not good at all. Shame, but hey ho on to the next.

Please tell me you did this in a sandboxed enviroment
 
Please tell me you did this in a sandboxed enviroment
Oh yes; I accessed my mail in a virtual machine, on a different subnet and disabled the internet after downloading it. Also took a snapshot before I did this and then revered back to it.
 
Sorry to see that Webroot didn't pick those up. Also sorry to see you're receiving so much dodgy spam. Stop signing up to filth! :)

Be careful with your shapshots.... it's madness to test and read emails unless you're working in a UAT environment, at home. I'd use diverse pipes into the house and ideally work within a 2N+1 design just in case!
 
I was very surprised it didn't pick up on those, so far I'm really liking ESET very low performance impact (non-noticeable) and good email integration.

It is not so much me signing up as other people systems being exploited, mainly social engineering. The server picks up many an email but they are getting better and better as making it look like real ones.
 
Yes it's easy even to type in Facebook into google and sometimes one of the top few links will be a blatant dodgy site- which unless your browser is reasonably up to date to flag that the cert is untrusted- can cause all sorts of issues. Some good phisherman out there these days
 
Exactly, facebook and linkedin etc are my necessary evils. Many people seem to hand over their address book way too easy and thus my email addresses to dodgy apps, scam artists etc...
 
Thanks for the feedback.

On a related front, I've been horrified how many android apps now demand access to address books. Just uninstalled a launcher from my phone (smart launcher) because the latest update required access to contacts (WHY? You're just a launcher!).
 
Exactly, another source where your data gets harvested and your email addresses and phone numbers end up in the spam piles....I refuse to give access to apps for those reasons, and many an app that has no need for it at all then won't work. Very lazy programming.
 
I used AVG, and currently in Kaspersky, also using windows defender on my media server. All 3 worked well for me. AVG is customisable, so u can turn most of the web browsing things off. But I do find AVG is too sensitive.

Kaspersky suppose to have the best detection rate as well as performance. I only got it because it came free with my bank account. But we had a dodgy email came through - hotmail. And my partner clicked on the zip file and opened the link but Kaspersky didn't stop it. Which leads me to be concerned about its detection claim. However luckily no harm came of the zip file as it was a phishing site.

Windows defender seems to be very basic, but my media server has no critical data on it and all I need is the firewall and virus data base to be good. So it works
 
Security Essentials used to have great detection rates, but is quite low now. We moved to ESET earlier this year with work and I has been excellent!

It is built into Windows 8 but is disabled if you have other AV installed
 
Your anti-virus software may be make you vulnerable to NSA/GCHQ surveillance:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/22/gchq-reverse-engineering-warrants/

Additionally, anti-virus software increases the attack surface of the machine on which it's running and the companies producing it are not renowned for securing it properly. When exploited, because the software runs with administrative privileges, bad things can happen. I recently read a report on one company transmitted unencrypted information about the machines it's software was running on.

That said, I think anti-virus products are relatively important on a Windows computer and I'd recommend http://www.av-comparatives.org/ for comparing anti-virus products. They regularly benchmark a wide spectrum of AV products.
I tend to favour using Linux and combined with very careful browsing habits (scripts and plugins disabled on websites by default). I also use OpenDNS as they are pretty good at dropping DNS records for sites used to propogate malware.
Email wise, just NEVER open untrusted attachments.

Choose your AV products with care and don't be complacent with your browsing/email habits.
 
Most virus & malware infestations are caused by a human interface error
 
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