Should I Buy Anti-Spyware or Anti-Virus Software? - Comments Page 14

Thanks Bob, your articles are wonderful and helpful, keep up the good work! I look forward to your articles helping me out of a computer bind again.

Thank you for your very helpful website.

I did the free scan from CA Antivirus after reading your article today. It had also been recommended by the Microsoft Tech that I had talk to by phone. I knew that I had some issues after getting the Blue screens you mentioned in another article. I have tried a number of scans over the last week, Norton, Webroot, Doctor Spyware, Windows Defender, etc. CA was the most through in finding issues, BUT when I downloaded the "free 90 day trial"...which also told me I had to remove Windows Defender, I clicked on "remove" on the CA scan and was then ask to pay $80. I contacted customer service and they said "pay" or no removal. So, I now have a list of the 65 threats on my computer, but I am not sure I want to give $80 to a company that misleads people about the trial offer. There is nothing on their website about the trial not allowing you to remove anything.

Their customer support is based in India and the company is out of Islandia according to their tech support person?

I am a computer absolutely non-techie person. Windows Defender nor One Care found any of the issues that CA found. Does that make sense? I need something simple to protect my computer and not major expensive.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm pretty sure you downloaded something OTHER than Computer Associates Antivirus. What you described sounds like a rogue program, and I recommend you remove it immediately. Use System Restore if neccessary. Then install one of the freebies I recommend here: http://askbobrankin.com/free_antivirus_programs.html

I am helpless right now.. I got loads of trojan viruses on my computer on monday and i have been struggeling to find a virus program that will manage to get rid of them. Spyware detector only found 2 different ones, but i can't remove the rest.Trojandownloader,trojan-spy etc. What should i do? Is a system restore any good idea?

EDITOR'S NOTE: I recommend you start with a good antivirus program, such as AVG, Avast or Avira -- all free. Then install Windows Defender to scan for spyware. At this point, System Restore might just roll back to a different set of corrupted files.

CA anti virus comes free from my ISP... After reading all the horrible things all the so-called big wigs said ( PC World, PC Mag , C/Net, as well as other testing sites......I have discovered CA's detection rates are dismal.....I know people love to bash McAfee ... but I've been using it with Firewall etc ..... no problems ..... BUT can I achieve similar results with one of the free AVs? I also use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware .. Great program!

EDITOR'S NOTE: The detection rate tests can be misleading, because the obscure viruses that your anti-virus program misses will probably never threaten you anyway. I used CA for many years (until I switched ISPs) and it always worked well. That said, the freebies do an excellent job, too. See http://askbobrankin.com/free_antivirus_programs.html for more info.

Well I persoanlly use nod32 in my laptop and used Kaspesky in my desktop.And i'm quite OK with them.
For the other users that ask me I recommend avira or avast.
AVG i really don't like.

Reasons: Avg fails to dtecetc mane even known viruses even with latest updates. Avast generates a lot of false positives. It identified my own three programs THAT I WROTE TO CLEAN MALWARE as viruses. Its just too much hard on the packers.
On Avira. The gphone.exe varient i was testing on recently successfully penetrated avira(free edition) with full update on my virtual pc.

Anyway...no Antivirus is perfect. If i rewrite a couple of codes of a know virus,pack it differently and mutate it a littlke much it can even fool nod32,kaspesky,bitdefender and norton too (TESTED). So along with antivirus (and of course updates) a little bit of caution I think is necessary

Just downloaded the newest version of AVG free on 10/13. To say that it slowed down my computer to a crawl is an understatement! I dumped it on 10/19 and I am now back to a more normal speed.

Beware of version 9! It is a killer!