Anti-Virus Software

[Mango_RW]

We all know that Anti-Virus software is a must have, but what are you chosen favourites.

I have experience of all major brands but have found Kaspersky Anti-Virus and the best around. Detection rates are phenominal it even has malware checks, updates every hour. I had the results from a comparision between Sophos and Kaspersky, and kaspersky won hands down, Sophos missed a hell of a lot of viruses!

Norton - generally resource hungry & has missed things kaspersky has picked up.

Sophos - seems way to flimsy for my liking, it lets you know the virus is there but does nothing until you scan, it would be nice if it prompted you to remove it there and then. Never have liked don't why - just dont!

AVG (Free) - not bad at all, apparently based around the Kaspersky engine. If people are looking for a decent freebie head for www.grisoft.com

Uk Supplier : DTE Software Systems Ltd - sales@d-t-e.net

[Geoff]

ClamAV works pretty well on my Linux machines.

http://www.clamav.net/

There's also a Windows port called ClamWin.

http://www.clamwin.com/

Only drawback is there's no on-access scanner (that might be a plus though depending on the circumstances).

[Dos_Box]

I think you are wrong about Sophos. We run it in every school in Lancashire and it's only drawback is the fact that it won't do anything until configured. Then it WILL detect, disinfect, or just plain shed as is my perfered option.
Mixed in with our central Sophos enteprise server, and enterprise manager in the school itsefl it provided a completely self updating, scanning and reporting tool for schools. Norton is fine for a home machine, but I've been running AVG Free edition now on my laptop for 8 months and find it excellent.
Anyway, Sophos is tops for schools IMHO.

[eejit]

We use Symantec Antivirus Corporate. The local borough have a "borough-wide" license with them. To be honest, I wouldn't use anything else now. Deploying it is a piece of cake, it's detected anything that's come in and automatically updates the clients quietly.

[mark]

We have Sophos across the authority too. Agree with Dos_Box - out of the box config needs tweaking.
High Schools paid to join the scheme, it was a good deal. The CC guys set up an install script for each school, you allocate server space for it - it updates from a central server and your server feeds all your clients.

Only problem with Sophos was it's non compliance with industry standards making it incompatable with Citrix - my opinion is a couple of years out of date now tho'.

Personall I use AVG as well - just been with it a while now and always found it to be good. Nice small footprint.

The only other server AV i've looked at is Trend, which is recommended for Citrix and also because of it's extremely small footprint.

Really don't like Norton - the non corporate version. Peter Norton is a bit iof a God IMHO but that suite of stuff stinks. Still nice to get tools etc from Symantec for removal tasks.

[ninjabeaver]

I've also running Sophos through out the school. It does the job after the small amount of time configuring it.

I personally use NOD32 for my AV on the laptop and home PC's. Quick, quiet and very effective. 100% in the wild detection so far which is the best I've seen,

NAV and McAffee are just system drains and I no longer recommend either of those products to anyone. Either AVG of NOD32 combined with ZoneAlarm Free for home users.

[tarquel]

(really should be doing some work lol)

AVG = for home - yep yep

Have got SAV (corp) for the Servers - Is brilliant but too exp for all the PC's in the school. Have been use AVG on the workstations until they changed the licensing to *state* that you cant use it in a govermental/educational establishment - beforehand they hadn't as far as I saw

Although the workstations arent protected currently (bad considering our county network policy of *having* to have all networked pc's on the school/powys lan to have a up-to-date A/V isn't it? lol) and I'm gonna pretty much TELL the ICT Co-ordinator that its vital...

...tho I HAVE been wating for Martin to get back to me on the pricing Mark - its only been like nearly two months lol Well, first asked him before my op lol

Regards,
N.

[StewartKnight]

I think Sophos is pants myself. We have a the same arrangement as Lancs, that all the schools get Sophos for free, and it's not worth that! The remote admin thingy has never worked, and I know it's not just me, because techies from other schools have offered advice & looked at it & can't get it to work. I've had to install it manually on every machine.

And it's always stopping because of a virus that keeps attacking the machines that Sophos can't stop.

The only plus point is that the lightening bolt greys out, so you know that the machine is infected.

Having said that, in Sophos defence, the kids do keep de-activating it, because the ICT teacher told them it was like a VNC type of program (pillock), and they won't believe me when I tell then it's not!


Stewart Knight
Network Manager
Appleby Grammar School

[tarquel]

I'd imagine there's ways around that to stop them doing it

Reg tweak maybe like VNC progs?

Cheers,
N.

[mark]

Yeah I just noticed kids can disable it! can't you hide it like you can VNC?

Our install is suddenly choking the machines - I think the default config was set to do a complete scan every 12 noon - shame our lunch is 1pm! - The install Grrrl is onto it

[tarquel]

@Mark: Jules?

Tell her that when martin finally gives me the price (or lets me have it for free) - I shall investigate also Shouldn't be "too hard" to repackage and edit

Nath.

[Geoff]

The remote admin thingy has never worked, and I know it's not just me, because techies from other schools have offered advice & looked at it & can't get it to work. I've had to install it manually on every machine.

Had it working flawlessly for ages. If you want to start another thread (I think that would be best for sanitys sake) we can probably work out why its tripping up.

[Dos_Box]

I've found Sopos excellent with its admin tools and method of operation\distribution.
Sounds like something not quite right to me. We had quite a few school in Lancs like that about 4 years ago. All are OK now though.

[Ric_]

I like Sophos too - SAVADMIN works great for deploying and managing the config. Sophos EM pulls and distributes updates like a dream.

FYI - the greying of the lightening bolt does not indicate a virus, it indicates that Interchk is not currently active (usually because it is out of date).

I use Panda Platinum at home and it seems to stop me getting viruses (not that I try to find them) and it seems to download a hell of a lot of virus IDs.

Panda suite was given away free with PC Pro a couple of months back and this month's PC Pro has the F-Secure suite. All free for a year!!!

[andy]

Here, here! to the "I like Sophos" side! Have had 1 tiny problem on one machine in the last 18 months. Emailed Sophos - they emailed back same day - problem sorted - job done.

Andy.