Avast - A major ripoff!

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Earlier today I sent a request, via a support ticket to Avast to cancel my subscription to Avast Antivirus since their systems were recently violated... that's another can of worms!

This is the only way you can communicate with them - they claim that they do not have a billing department... yea, right!

At any rate, about an hour after I submitted the support ticket, I was charged for another years worth of the service.

Lately the system seems really buggy and continually recommends that I update Java Runtime Environment. The last time I did this, I found that Java was not updated and I had two new pups on my system... WT (^&^%!!

Don't waste you time calling for any help because it is non-existent...
By all means, avoid getting sucked into the Avast vortex with their offer to use Avast free. :evil:
D Scarlatti, Dell XPS8700 i7/8gb mem/1tb hd/Steiny UR22/Presonus ER5s/Nektar LX61 kbd ctrlr/Win 10 Pro/S1 4.6/ my music here: https://www.magix.info/us/profile/my-profile/media/

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Use Microsoft Security Essentials, light and free.

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UltraJv wrote:Use Microsoft Security Essentials, light and free.
... and not really very good, although possibly better than nothing.

A good choice (at the moment) is Panda Cloud Cleaner. Doesn't install anything, so there's no overhead - and obviously you need to manually start a scan - and it generally ranks as one of the top in real-world tests:

http://www.pandasecurity.com/uk/homeuse ... rd?id=1674

Check out the independent articles. Here's one: http://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php but read around.

There's certainly no need to pay money for antivirus these days unless you want all of the 'added extras' they offer.

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A very good alternative is the COMODO Internet Security Premium which is free and highly customizable. Even a sandbox and a sandboxed browser (Virtual Comodo Dragon) is included!

The most important thing is the firewall, anyway. If you don't have a firewall, you can have 100 antivirus programs and still get infested.

On a side note, yesterday I tried to download the free Ad-Aware Antivirus, visited the original site, clicked on the original "Download for Free" button and they lead me to a dragon game site in Korea... :nutter:

I was a bit shocked and thought that's not very reliable when a Antivirus company leads you to an advertising site instead of the download page... :uhuhuh:

But then I visited the German sub page of Ad-Aware, and it worked flawlessly and lead me to the CNet download page... :wink:

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koalaboy wrote:
UltraJv wrote:Use Microsoft Security Essentials, light and free.
... and not really very good, although possibly better than nothing.
It catches the craziest crap. I like MSE combined with Malwarebyte's Free. And WOT.

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Thanks for all the great help! :D
D Scarlatti, Dell XPS8700 i7/8gb mem/1tb hd/Steiny UR22/Presonus ER5s/Nektar LX61 kbd ctrlr/Win 10 Pro/S1 4.6/ my music here: https://www.magix.info/us/profile/my-profile/media/

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UltraJv wrote:Use Microsoft Security Essentials, light and free.
This + TinyWall.
Free banks for soft synths | ghostwave.fr | soundcloud.com/ghostwaveaudio

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koalaboy wrote:
UltraJv wrote:Use Microsoft Security Essentials, light and free.
... and not really very good, although possibly better than nothing.

By what measure?

It's free, and for me at least been 100% reliable. No input necessary from me, no overhead and no problems.

If people insist on clicking on sh1t and regularly visiting the pr0n sites then it's really their own fault.

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tehlord wrote:
koalaboy wrote:
UltraJv wrote:Use Microsoft Security Essentials, light and free.
... and not really very good, although possibly better than nothing.

By what measure?

It's free, and for me at least been 100% reliable. No input necessary from me, no overhead and no problems.

If people insist on clicking on sh1t and regularly visiting the pr0n sites then it's really their own fault.
WOT (web of trust) rates websites and tells about other's experiences with them. It's very helpful.

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tehlord wrote:
koalaboy wrote:
UltraJv wrote:Use Microsoft Security Essentials, light and free.
... and not really very good, although possibly better than nothing.

By what measure?

It's free, and for me at least been 100% reliable. No input necessary from me, no overhead and no problems.

If people insist on clicking on sh1t and regularly visiting the pr0n sites then it's really their own fault.
Man, you can't hate on the sexy pronz. I got to have my sexy pronz. but sexy pronz connoisseur such as myself should know to go to trusted pronz sites only.

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i've been saying this for years. good to know i'm not alone.

re COMODO, it's nice and i use it on all my systems, but it's awfully slow (brings down a i7-3770K + SSD system to its knees). that sandbox thing is a real CPU hog, and antivirus, while was one of the fastest back in the day, is now one of the slowest, and still doesn't detect anything but more common threats. plus, it's become ad-ridden since about a year, and constantly tries to annoy you with its message center, geekbuddy, trustconnect and such. its superior HIPS is really the only redeeming quality of COMODO, which is why i still use it.

for cleaning, i usually use Dr. Web CureIt and HiJackThis. the latter expects you to know what you're doing, but it's great for quickly disabling any infection (aside from rootkits), with Dr. Web killing the remainders while the infection is disarmed.

if you're hit with a rootkit, i'm afraid it's really hit and miss with ANY security product.
I don't know what to write here that won't be censored, as I can only speak in profanity.

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Microsoft Security Essentials is crap. It has has failed several respected AV tests on recent times and even Microsoft recommends to use it as a last resort. Still it is better than no AV.

AVAST Free is the best free AV out there, period. But if one is going to pay for AV then get Kaspersky or ESET both of which are the best AV's in the world.
No signature here!

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Also, if you'r DAW is connected to internet use Virtualbox + Linux for visiting p0rn and doing other general computing tasks that require connection to internet.
No signature here!

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UltraJv wrote:Use Microsoft Security Essentials, light and free.
IIRC MSE/Defender isn't even particularly light! The 3 'big' freebies (AVG, Avast and Avira) significantly outperform it when it comes to system impact. MSE is shocking when it comes to detection rates and mediocre by every other measure.

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Burillo wrote:re COMODO, it's nice and i use it on all my systems, but it's awfully slow (brings down a i7-3770K + SSD system to its knees). that sandbox thing is a real CPU hog, and antivirus, while was one of the fastest back in the day, is now one of the slowest, and still doesn't detect anything but more common threats. plus, it's become ad-ridden since about a year, and constantly tries to annoy you with its message center, geekbuddy, trustconnect and such. its superior HIPS is really the only redeeming quality of COMODO, which is why i still use it.
That's why for antivirus I use another program with better detection, not COMODO. But I like the firewall and automatic sandbox of COMODO. I rather click a few times these "false-positive" pop-ups ("Do you really want to...install your DAW" :lol:) away than infesting my computer with something...

And I haven't had any messages from GeekBuddy, trustconnect and message center for a long time; maybe I've even disabled most of them... :shrug:

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