After the recent decision by UK spooks that Kaspersky should not be used on computers with sensitive data (wow that's a bit late !), it looks like Barclays Bank will no longer supply it for free to users of their online banking.
So, what to do next ?.
I have no problems with KIS, it seems to work and if Putin wants to see what I have in my share ISA, that's fine by me.
I will probably carry on with KIS but pay for it, unless there is a better alternative.
What do other people use ?.
A.
I mainly use Avast! free or if that won't work for some reason, AVG Free.
Cheers, T i m
I use nothing at all.
I pay for Kaspersky and have done for quite a few years now. Cheap enough licences on Fleabay.
I believe that's considered 'ok(ish?)' on BSD / OSX / *nix but then there are often other prices to pay.
I have those and Windows (XP, W7, W10) here and find myself 'making use' of Windows far more than I do OSX or Linux because the world is still very Windows centric and so I can (and do) enjoy doing more things with more stuff, but then I'm just an admin user and not a programmer. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
the is a whole new generation growing up who do everything on a smart phone, banking and buying online and think anti-virus is something you buy at a chemist
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I use Kaspersky or Trend Micro depending upon the price at the time I need to renew. Each often has deals on and it is well worth looking at their sites and third party sellers - my current Kaspersky licence covers 5 machines and cost me only a couple of quid more than they were selling a single user licence for on their own site at the time.
SteveW
Likely to be the same thing shortly - Avast and AVG merged.
Well they said this two weeks ago, only just got around to telling the customers have they? I personally do not really believe they are interested in your computer unless you have codes designed to shut down major infrastructure on the machine.
Somebody is doing a good job trying to ruin the reputation of a company when there really is no proof whatsoever. After all even Microsft anti virus products track you and get data fed back to them. I'd be more worried about smart phones apps myself. Brian
I just leave it to the Windows security stuff. I occasionally scan with Malwarebytes. Use a variety of browsers; Opera, Epic, Firefox & Edge. Tempting fate, but no serious problems yet.
There was a time when I used Eset/Kaspersky/Avast/Adaware oh f*ck, all sorts of crap designed to protect one against one's own shortcomings.
Kaspersky ATM; used it for many years; current subscription ends in a couple of months, which I'm not going to renew. ISTM the ruskis under Pootin are becoming increasingly untrustworthy, meddling in all sorts of things on the internet that they shouldn't be. No doubt the merkins do the same, but at least they're nominally on our side.
Quite what I'll go for in place of Kaspersky, I haven't decided yet. Kaspersky does seem to offer a lot of extras, but whether they're useful and absolutely necessary or just for the neurotic, I don't know. I don't understand many of them anyway!
I'll possibly go for Avast/AVG, as I imagine now that they've merged, the features and expertise will be the same for both. Avast was the first to pick up the bug in CCleaner a few months ago, a point in its favour. I run Malwarebytes from time to time, which has a good reputation. Another possibility is Norton, which I used very many years ago but found it was slow and took up an awful lot of space. It may be better now; I'll read a few reviews before I decide.
I've noticed a tend that the price of a new licence with some software may be reduced if you uninstall a program - or if installing a program for the first time (free trial) uninstall before buying the licence.
Often the uninstall launches a web page with a message " sorry to see you leaving - can we tempt you back with this (much lower) price"
Last time I looked (around 2008) there were over 140,000 Windows viruses. Total count for OS X so far: 0.
There are some trojans, but the user has to actively install and enable those. And the built-in Apple stuff deals with them.
Thus, so far, no need.
+1 Windows Defender on a Win10 machine plus occasional manual scans with the free Malwarebytes. The later installs the PRO trial versions which reverts to the free version after 15 days by disabling some of the functionality that I can live without.
Don't forget Norton/Mcafee which is almost a virus itself. Often installed on new machines, in the past it was almost impossible to remove all traces - even after removal a nag screen would be launched telling you that the machine wasn't protected and to download the software again. The wording of the nag screen suggested that world war 3 would probably break out if the download wasn't performed.
On a recently purchased laptop, Mcafee trial was the first thing that got removed - even before I started playing with the rest of the software.
Most of the anti-virus programs started out as just that but often morphed into some kind of computer management program and became serious bloatware. So many lines of code without mistakes - I don't think so.
When something has been good in the past it has been bought out by one of the bigger players and incorporated into their own mediocre offerings.
Many years back I used (Avast??? Avira???) and it ran fast, one "upgrade" later with a new user interface and it ran 10x slower. On uninstalling I was left with crap files (all named with random strings of numbers) in every single directory on my machine and with multiple entries still in the registry.
Bitdefender free.
I think the underlying question is whether Kasperski can any longer be trusted given suggestions of links with the Russian state. Is this a relevant consideration in your view?
Jumped ship from AVG Free to Avast Free when they introduced a silly little green icon on each search result that said the site was "safe". To do that it had to download the content to scan it. That instantly doubled the amount of download. You could jump through some hoops to turn it off but that brought up warning that you were "unprotected" and couldn't tutn off. It was also getting slow, but not in the same league as Norton.
ATM Avast free doesn't get in the way or noticeably slow things down.
Do you think if the companies have merged the products might become more similar if not the same?
My comment a few weeks ago when the worries about Kaspersky were in the papers was "Who cares if the Russians can see what's on my computer rather than the Americans?"
SteveW
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