New anti-virus tool

vince3 · 18 Jan 2006 at 14:46

My free 90 day bundled e-trust is about to run out and I plan to change to Avast.
Is there a preferred sequence of operations when changing an AV product?
e.g Uninstall old, Install new or vice versa? Or it may not matter :confused:

Skilldibop · 18 Jan 2006 at 14:48

not really, but when you do uninstall the old, make sure you use the built in uninstall not add/remove programs. Sometimes the windows one leaves reg values behind that come back to haunt you.

vince3 · 18 Jan 2006 at 14:53

Ah - thanks for that. I would have assumed Add/Remove just looked for the built-in uninstall and linked to it.

vince3 · 18 Jan 2006 at 14:58

Hmm. There is no 'uninstall' in the Start Programs list for Computer Associates e-trust.
So it'll have to be Add/Remove or Norton Clean Sweep (I have Utilities 2005).
I guess I can use Norton System doctor to clean up the registry.

AJUK · 18 Jan 2006 at 15:02

A reg sweep would be a good idea, then reboot and install Avast. All will work fine then.

Wyvern971 · 18 Jan 2006 at 15:08

vince said:
My free 90 day bundled e-trust is about to run out and I plan to change to Avast.
Is there a preferred sequence of operations when changing an AV product?
e.g Uninstall old, Install new or vice versa? Or it may not matter

You may find that if you have 2 av scanners installed simultaneously that your network connection no longer works properly

vince3 · 18 Jan 2006 at 15:10

Wyvern971 said:
You may find that if you have 2 av scanners installed simultaneously that your network connection no longer works properly

Yes - I'd heard that - hence the question. Guess I'll make a start.

|Ric| · 18 Jan 2006 at 15:43

I would always uninstall one virus scanner before installing - if don't do this with norton it throws a complete wobbly

Caged · 18 Jan 2006 at 15:49

vince said:
Ah - thanks for that. I would have assumed Add/Remove just looked for the built-in uninstall and linked to it.

It does.

Skilldibop · 18 Jan 2006 at 15:50

|Ric| said:
I would always uninstall one virus scanner before installing - if don't do this with norton it throws a complete wobbly

Norton will throw a wobbly if you do anything. Breathe out of time and it'll throw a wobble. McAfee all the way. - tho recently Win98 has gayed up with auto update on startup, but i put that down to 98 being homo.

|Ric| · 18 Jan 2006 at 16:20

well my personal experience of McAfee is it is only a lesser of 2 evils, NOD32 has to be my favourite at the moment

It seems to help that its definition of virus protection is simply not just hogging your resources so you can't use it to get a virus

Skilldibop · 18 Jan 2006 at 16:28

What McAfee do you use? only symantec does that. Or norton internet scurity. you don't need real time protection unless you regularly go on dodgy sites, and for that ther's MS antispyware.

vince3 · 18 Jan 2006 at 16:30

Oh dear

I removed e-trust OK. Nothing nasty left in the registry, but the Start-up check stayed in the Startup programs and kept telling me to update my registration. That was disabled with Winpatrol. I'll delete it later.

Avast installation started OK but at the end announced it was incompatible with ZoneAlarm and that my browser (Firefox) needed to use a manual proxy. I followed instructions to set it up, but no joy - no net access.
Avast say they are working with ZoneAlarm to fix this but it all seemed too messy. Also I wasn't sure if I should use the proxy with Thunderbird or IE which I use occasionally, and what about FTP, SSL etc settings in Firefox?

So for the time being I'm back with AVG which I was using before the new PC and e-trust

I may check NOD32 which gets good reports. Anyone know problems like Avast's with that?

Skilldibop · 18 Jan 2006 at 16:38

i use AVG, it's free and it works, well. I'd say stick with it.

vince3 · 18 Jan 2006 at 16:41

Skilldibop said:
i use AVG, it's free and it works, well. I'd say stick with it.

I expect I will. And I like the 'comfort message' on emails in and out if you want.

SiriusB · 18 Jan 2006 at 18:49

I would suggest NOD32. Costs a little money but is one of, if not THE best AVs out at the moment.

I have had AVG a few times over the years and absolutely loathe it.

SiriusB