Thursday, November 24, 2016

Software and Tools - Antivirus

The next thing on the list of things to do is a good antivirus package after you install your favourite browser and before you start serious web surfing.  Again, this is a personal preference and it all depends on what you want, need and are willing to pay for.  There are those who say it is all snake oil and useless.  They are welcome to their opinion and in my not so humble opinion it is needed.  It is another level of defense for you that will stop the known nasty software out there.  Why make it easy for hackers to take over your system and use your bandwidth to take down sites, steal your identity?  Will it be 100% effective, maybe not, but if they want to get into my system they will need to work on it and not have an open door.

There are a number of sites that do reviews and I have a list five sites I know.  There are a lot more, but, I don't know them, their methodology and if they got paid to do the reviews. 

For myself I was looking for an package that works in
  • Windows (I still have a machine left running Windows 10)
  • Android for our tablets via the Google Play store.
  • Android phone.  This is a low end model with limited resources.
  • Linux.
I found one common package that works very well in Windows and Android, but, right now my distro does not offer the Linux version of that product.  It does not slow down my machines, especially the low end phone and did catch crap that tried to get installed when someone sent me an email.  Avast works well enough, has a free version that does most of what I want and need.  The version does show ads, but, they are small and unobtrusive for me and don't slow my systems down.  For Linux I am looking at ClamAV as that is available in the distro of Linux I am using.  UBUNTU community has a good small page of various packages you can check out.

The Android screens looks like the following:



The Windows screens looks like the following:



Please remember, just because you are running an antivirus program you can surf wherever you want, click on anything, install anything and open questionable emails.  Nothing is 100% and safe surfing and email practices are required.  Antivirus software just gives you another level of defense.  You also should be keeping your software up to date and making regular backups (a future blog).

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