Customer brought in a Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop with malware on it. I got it off. It has Trendmicro Pc-illion Internet Security 14 on it and when I try to uninstall it I get a message that the subscription goes to 9-09, do I really want to uninstall? I think this is the corporate version. In general I hate all CA products. Is this merely irrational prejudice left over from my IBM days when their mainframe products both sucked and had no support to speak of? Anyway, Ive heard that the corporate version of pcillion isnt bad. My basic question is whether I should take off the CA and put on the programs I generally put on computers.
1. AVG 8.0 free
2. Spybot Search and Destroy resident
3. Zone Alarm Free.
By the way I tell my customers to always say remember and allow when Spybot and Zone Alarm asks them anything UNLESS its painfully obvious that its a bad program. If I dont tell them that then theyll mess up for sure and have to call me to figure out what they did wrong. This way they get some benefits from the programs.
Here is my rationale for the programs I use and how I set them up. Please comment on anything and everything.
Despite the fact that download.com rates Adaware higher, I like Spybot resident better because it is resident. This is important since there is malware thats very difficult
remove once it gets on a computer. I also like all the new features of Spybot at version 15 and 16. They seem to take care of everything Adaware does and more. I think that Adaware got worse and more difficult to use at the newest level.
But&. Ive seen situations where Spybot resident seems to use lots of CPU. Has anyone else seen this? That is why I dont use Webroot software, especially the all-in-one stuff. Beside the fact that it costs money, Ive put it on customers computers and it seems to startup slow and use lots of cpu. Also when I just upgraded to Spybot 16.0 I got a BSOD when I tried to run the scan. I didnt get it when I ran it in safe mode. If I put it on Ill test it on the customers computer to see if it happens there.
I also think that AVG got worse going from 7.5 to 8, but Im sticking with it for now. I turn off their automatic daily scans because theyre a pain. I usually set a weekly scan.
So thats it. Should I uninstall Trend Micro and install these programs and do you think theres any other combination of programs that will better protect my clients computers?
Thanks,
Al
