Needed: "Thrifty" Anti-virus
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Yeah, I know. Hence the Joke Icon ;-)
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So I've been using/suggesting AVG free for any number of machines. Comes Oct 15th and they'll become spyware. Set up my firewall to keep it locked down, except for the occasional update - but they may be when they grab all the private data they've cached - so that seems like a poor option. Replacing it. I looked at a number of other on-line items with decent reputations, but, upon reading the TOS I found them to all be similarly busy minding my business. Any suggestions about thrifty (==free) alternatives (Mostly Win7)?
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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All this brought me to my mind: some time ago I was working for a morally dubious site, and part of the job was to keep updated on the competitors. Now, I wouldn't want those datas collected and sold and receive that content based avertisements...
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver "When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page." -- Mike Hankey
den2k88 wrote:
I was working for a morally dubious site,
. . . noted . . .
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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W∴ Balboos wrote:
Downside - since it's open source - is that figuring out how to circumvent it could be easier.
This pretty much sums up the whole argument about open vs. closed source. :laugh: The open source folks countering that "with open source good people can check the source code and submit bugfixes before they are exploited by bad people". Which then gets countered by the closed source people that "nobody that's using open source software is actually looking at the source code but only uses it because it's free".
This is not an argument with your reasoning, per se, but just more clearly explains how my post fits into and out of your comment. I was addressing the code's availability as a liability only in that it's availability enables the 'bad guys' to know their target explicitly. It's like a bank vault who's lock designs are publicly available. For most open-source items (Gimp2, Audacity, &etc) this is not a problem. One should always download from the parent site (or mirrors they supply) to avoid imitation versions, but that's true of everything. Since I don't rely upon these for security, knowledge of their code is not a weakness if I've a genuine version. And then, of course, one wonder how really unknown are the working of non-open-source AV products? A clever hacker wouldn't announce cracking it - just quietly exploit it.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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den2k88 wrote:
I was working for a morally dubious site,
. . . noted . . .
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
W∴ Balboos wrote:
. . . noted . . .
I was young and needed the money!
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver "When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page." -- Mike Hankey