Avira Antivirus

[rgs2001uk]

this is one for those who live in thailand and are using true.

on connecting to the internet using true (version 2) as the true homepage is loading, avira anti virus flashes up about 6 or 7 times to tell me it has found the following,

tr/downloader

html/ricegen

heur/html malware

js/agent 689

exp/aa gen

i am getting fed up hitting the deny access and waiting for the next warning message to come up to hit deny access again.

my question is, are these just harmless files that are in some way related to trues homepage, and i should just ignore them, or is there something more sinister taking place?

thanks. rgs

[Phil Conners]

One of my staff was using Avira on his PC and it decided that some of the key files in Windows was a virus and deleted them. After that Windows started giving so many errors that we had to reinstall it. We now only use free AVG (http://free.avg.com/). Haven't had any virus problems with AVG ever.

[1900]

Oh I have. AGV Free is not what it once was. Easy enough to prove, just run AGV and then Avira, that is if you know you have a virus. Avira updates every day, sometimes twice a day. AVG doesn't update but every three or four days. Sure, maybe the AVGs are larger but it only takes a second to get a virus. What stinks about Avira is when it finds something it displays a pop up and the scanning stops. I, myself, would rather go for some coffee while I scan, not sit there waiting for the pop up.

I got THE nastiest virus known to man through my firewall port. It's called smitfraud. Could not rid the sucker till I downloaded the smitfraudfix program. None of my virus scanners could catch it. 30 viruses come in package form. You can get all of them eventually but the core infections remains: THE most annoying pop up every 15 seconds. smitfraudfix zapped it.

That's how I know AVG bites the big one. It never found but 12 of the 30 virus', Avira found the rest.

[JSixpack]

i am getting fed up hitting the deny access and waiting for the next warning message to come up to hit deny access again.

So change your homepage. Why set it to True, of all pages, anyway?

Avira's quite good for a free product; I use it on one machine and like it. On another I use the new and free Rising anti-vir:

http://www.download.com/Rising-Antivirus-F...4-10674783.html

which is pretty good (though not as good as Avira according to some testers) and has a cool interface. It also handles some spyware.

The new AVG is so bloated and intrusive I can't stand it now.

Edited August 20, 2008 by JSixpack

[tigerbeer]

so what is the best free AV out there? i use Avira Free and its so far been proved very good.

[vagabond48]

so what is the best free AV out there? i use Avira Free and its so far been proved very good.

I am still on AVG 75. They will supposedly stop supporting it at the end of August. I don't want to go to AVG81. I was quite happy with AVG75. I do some potentially harmful browsing and have yet had a virus or worm that was detected. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't have any. I understand the detection rate "might" be highter with the other AVs. I liked AVG75 because I could use XP schedule tasks function to schedule AVG update checks as often as I wanted. My PC is also protected by Spybot. I prefer not to install AVG81 because I don't want to be forced to take their spyware and it is my understanding it cannot be separated so you are stuck with larger resource hog even if you are able to turn the spyware function off.

The 2 other popular free AV that are mentioned are Avira and Avast. Both seemed to get equal recommendations and criticism when I read the reviews at download.com. It gets confusing.

Can Avira and Avast be scheduled the same way I have AVG75?

Thanks

[jackiem]

I found AVG is the best free anti virus out there.

Kaspersky if you can afford to buy it.

[vagabond48]

I found AVG is the best free anti virus out there.

Kaspersky if you can afford to buy it.

how did you determine that?

are you on 81?

Edited August 22, 2008 by vagabond48

[mickba]

One of my staff was using Avira on his PC and it decided that some of the key files in Windows was a virus and deleted them. After that Windows started giving so many errors that we had to reinstall it. We now only use free AVG (http://free.avg.com/). Haven't had any virus problems with AVG ever.

Maybe I got confused but I thought as of march '08, AVG stopped supporting the 7.5 free edition in favour of 8.1 (pay)?

I uninstalled AVG and switched to Avira Free and have been very pleased with it.

As to the OP's Q, I do wonder if Avira identifies some bona fide parts of software as trojans etc. i.e. are there legitimate trojans in programs?. It's happened 3 times with programs I d/l from a shareware/utorrent site. Not having paid for them and took Avira's advice. I have since realised that some twisted folk offer these free cracked programs with a trojan/virus thrown in, so I reckon Avira is on the case.

I imagine that the ones it's picking up on the True page would be trackers etc rather than virus, but like the man said, change your homepage. I like 'about blank' - nothing to load up and straiught to your toolbar

[Phil Conners]

AVG 8 is also free, get it from free.avg.com. They try hard to make you choose a pay-version ("complete" vs. "basic") but the free one is there, on the left side.