Free Antivirus?

[nforcer06164]

Okay, so Norton expired two years ago at our school computer lab. Not only does it suck, but it would also cost WAAAAAAY too much to replace for only one year on 38 units. As head of Operations at my school, it's my responsibility to find an antivirus alternative, one that's effective, and free. I've already considered AVG, and I plan to look up more choices on Sourceforge and Download.com. I've already got spyware covered, and we've already converted to Firefox. But we do get viruses, and I need to get something before I end up doing a recovery on half the lab.

Does anybody have some suggestions, or something that they use that I could look into as an option? Keep in mind that it has to be free, because there's no way my school would even shell out so much as $5 per unit for antivirus, not to mention pay it again when renewal comes up.

[QreepyBORIS]

RE: Free Antivirus?

VirusScan might be free for schools...or not.

Xoftspy is great, but not exactly antivirus.

Man, I donno. Ask Anti or something.

[Fusion4]

RE: Free Antivirus?

avast is really good, much better than avg check it out www.avast.com

[Tasselfoot]

RE: Free Antivirus?

You go to one extremely cheap ass school dude.

Not only did we have a budget for stuff like this.... but we had tech people to do it and think about it, not students.

[ImEric12]

RE: Free Antivirus?

Er... yeah, I'd resign. If the school, isn't willing to pay a little bit to protect their own network, then it's their problem.

You can probably get an educational bulk deal with Norton, though.

[shade11]

Re: RE: Free Antivirus?

Dont bother with AVG; my friend, and I have tried to test it out by putting a virus on our computers. AVG couldnt detect it. (we did get rid of the virus properly afterwards.)

If you want an effective free one you can try running an online virus scan on safe mode. but your best bet is Sourceforge, download.com, or tucows. If you need to find a good one despratley then try reading PC world once in a while. or check their online articles and the stuff they reccomend.

I agree with ImEric12 though. he proves a good point.

But if the school finally decides to pay up then try your best with getting Nod32. If not then do what ImReic12 said. . .

You can probably get an educational bulk deal with Norton, though.

What ever you do dont use Kazaa or LimeWire. That is not something you should do!!!!

[nforcer06164]

RE: Re: RE: Free Antivirus?

Tass: Our budget was exhausted last year on 40 new computers, to get rid of our Pentium 2 pieces of crap. Plus, with the school having a focus on leadership, there is a Computer Lab Assistants program, where students bascially take care of everything computer-related. We do have a tech who comes in, but very infrequently to do things we can't handle. I handle operations (as I said earlier), which basically means I'm responsible for every computer being up at all times. So if something gets screwed up and I can't fix it, I'm screwed.

Eric: Screw Norton. We tried contacting them, and it only caused us grief. I'd rather do something easier, that works just as well. And that doesn't mean putting SystemWorks on 38 units, either, though I could do that. Norton is a pain to install, start up, and run in the first place.

[Anticrombie0909]

RE: Re: RE: Free Antivirus?

Dont bother with AVG; my friend, and I have tried to test it out by putting a virus on our computers. AVG couldnt detect it. (we did get rid of the virus properly afterwards.)

Wrong. AVG is excellent. The reason why it couldn't detect it is because the virus you used was probably not in AVG's virus databanks, and thus not updated on your system. Seriously, I moved from McAffee to AVG, and it instantly caught 9 viruses and trojans that McAffee completely missed. The only thing I've found more reliable is PC-Cillin.

[deltro300111]

RE: Re: RE: Free Antivirus?

VNC all your computers to a host, with 1 liscense of norton on it, and make them take turns.

[nforcer06164]

RE: Re: RE: Free Antivirus?

Anti has spoken. I trust what he says. AVG it is. I may try avast as well on a high-traffic unit, just to see how it works in comparison, despite the tedious need for yearly registration. Thanks, everyone.

EDIT: I found something called AntiVir I'm going to try as well, in case somebody else here wants to look at it. I'm still going to look for other alternatives, but I think I'll be good with what I've got now. Thanks again for the help.

[Squeek]

RE: Re: RE: Free Antivirus?

Avast will eventually get on your nerves. It eventually makes you so secure that it decides to just bar your access to any kind of Internet connection. Fun times.

Oh, and Norton does this too. It's awesome looking at your incoming and outgoing connections and seeing "Norton" or "Avast" associated with them, blocking them all.

~Squeek

[shade11]

Re: RE: Re: RE: Free Antivirus?

YES YES GET AntiVir THAT IS A VERY GOOD ANTIVIRUS PROGRAM. Well It makes sense to actually get a free one. heck it is alot better than the built-in one one microsoft made.

Dont bother with AVG; my friend, and I have tried to test it out by putting a virus on our computers. AVG couldnt detect it. (we did get rid of the virus properly afterwards.)

Wrong. AVG is excellent. The reason why it couldn't detect it is because the virus you used was probably not in AVG's virus databanks, and thus not updated on your system. Seriously, I moved from McAffee to AVG, and it instantly caught 9 viruses and trojans that McAffee completely missed. The only thing I've found more reliable is PC-Cillin.

actually AVG was fully upgraded. it was actually a quite common virus I think. well I cant remember now cause it was quite some time ago.

[-Fallen-]

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Free Antivirus?

AVG.

[tnyhwk900]

Re: RE: Re: RE: Free Antivirus?

YES YES GET AntiVir THAT IS A VERY GOOD ANTIVIRUS PROGRAM. Well It makes sense to actually get a free one. heck it is alot better than the built-in one one microsoft made.

Dont bother with AVG; my friend, and I have tried to test it out by putting a virus on our computers. AVG couldnt detect it. (we did get rid of the virus properly afterwards.)

Wrong. AVG is excellent. The reason why it couldn't detect it is because the virus you used was probably not in AVG's virus databanks, and thus not updated on your system. Seriously, I moved from McAffee to AVG, and it instantly caught 9 viruses and trojans that McAffee completely missed. The only thing I've found more reliable is PC-Cillin.

actually AVG was fully upgraded. it was actually a quite common virus I think. well I cant remember now cause it was quite some time ago.

Was the virus a script worm with a modified extension? AVG has a flaw in that it can't detect those. I downloaded the Israfel.A script worm and changed the extension from .vbs to .ffdsj, and it couldn't detect it.

[Omegix]

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Free Antivirus?

The only thing avg detects on my computer is java rofl.