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[mcf]

Hi,
I'm in the midst of upgrading my computer and I down loaded the free version of Avast antivirus.

The registration of Avast is suppose to be free and they send a reg number to your email to enter yourself. I've tried this twice and nothing came to my email. I've emailed Avast, but no reply.
Has any one else been able to register Avast successfully?

[surfjunky]

I know I did try Avast many years ago, but there was something (cannot now remember exactly what) put me off of them.

If it doesnt work out for you with Avast - may I recommend Avira - http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus


SJ

[Craig]

I'm currently trying it on one of my PC's, had it running now for a couple of weeks and so far no noticeable issues and I had no problems receiving the email, sorry I can't be of more help.

I have also tried Avira, through a free trial in a magazine and I liked it as well, I extended the product beyond the trial and have never had any issues with it.

Edited to add, I just had a look at my registration email and there's a URL if you have any issues with it, I know it's not the same as never receiving the key, but it may (hopefully) help;

http://www.avast.com/eng/faq-registration-license.html

[danddwah]

We've been running Avast free version since January this year after I received some advice here:-

http://www.globalfriendsonline.com/index.php/topic,7384.0.html

We had no issues registering it and, touch wood, have had no problems.

Our desktop pc runs on WinXP and has the following defenses installed:-

Avast Free edition
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (initiated manually)
Windows Defender
Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool
Keyscrambler
Web Of Trust
Adblock Plus
No Script

Ccleaner (not a defense but regularly cleaning out temp files is a good practice)

But what we also do is we have two user accounts - one for our site admin and one for clicking and we don't mix.

Our clicking account doesn't have adblock activated but as it does not have administrator privileges then it's harder for the viruses/trojans/nasties to install themselves.

From our experience Avast picks up 99% of any issues, it is rare that Windows Defender "catches" something but it does occasionally which is why several layers is a good idea.

Hope this helped,
Dave

Came back to add - Deb's laptop (Vista) has had one trojan in this time but, like most people, she doesn't have several different user accounts. She was complaining of sluggish response so a manual scan using Malwarebytes Anti-Malware picked it up and cleaned it first time.

[mcf]

Thanks for the replies    I finally got the key on the third    try using the ONline registration method.

But what we also do is we have two user accounts - one for our site admin and one for clicking and we don't mix.

Our clicking account doesn't have adblock activated but as it does not have administrator privileges then it's harder for the viruses/trojans/nasties to install themselves.

Does this mean that in XP you set up a non-admin user for your clicking ? So I take it viruses are more easily installed if you are using an admin account in XP ??  ??

She was complaining of sluggish response so a manual scan

I've noticed that too when the antivirus is "live".

About Malwarebytes, is this like Spybot or Adware ? (I've notice Spybot hasn't had a new version in along time.)

[Craig]

Malwarebytes is a very good program in my opinion, it even has a tool that lets you remove files that you couldn't do manually, for example, I uninstalled a program, but a few days later whilst doing another job, I noticed that some elements of it were still on the PC, when I tried to delete them manually it came up with a message saying something like this is a protected file or something, it was a very long while ago so I can't remember exactly, but I used Malware Bytes to remove it, you find it in the "Tools" section of the user interface, I think it's called File Assassin.

Malwarebytes has it's own security forum and it's excellent for helping you get rid infections, tips and advice on staying safe online etc.

The only reason I stopped using Malwarebytes on the desktop PC was because the paid version if AVG kept reading it, or parts of it, as a threat and kept giving me false positives, AVG expired ages ago and it is my intention to re-install it again if I use that PC. Currently though it's sitting gathering dust and hasn't been used in months.

Regarding user accounts, as I understand it, most infections look for user accounts that have admin privileges so they can gain access to a greater part of your system, using an account without admin privileges to surf the net protects you from some of those types of infections. I think this holds true with all Windows OS's and is not specific to XP, not sure about Macs though.

HTH 

[danddwah]

Does this mean that in XP you set up a non-admin user for your clicking ? So I take it viruses are more easily installed if you are using an admin account in XP ??  ??

This goes for all Windows OS not just XP. If every Windows user setup user accounts without admin privileges then there would be less viruses (or is that virii lol) about.

I too have no experience of Mac's since SE30's in 1991.

[Spitfire]

Avast and other anti-virus I found are memory hugs. I had to removed it and others. I am using ClamWin which does not take all the memory as the others.