Thursday, December 22, 2005

Symantec and McAfee Admit They Worse Than Suck

Not only are they crap but they could make your computer more vulnerable than BEFORE you installed their expensive doucheware.

Tell me something I don't know.

My experience of Symantec/Norton and McAfee "anti"-virus products has been mostly a tale of bloated code, sapped computer resources, crashes, corruptions etc. Using Symantec or McAfee products to protect your computer is like watching FOX to get the news.

However, on top of the fact that their software is too damn big, too damn slow, uses up too damn much of a computer's hard disk space, RAM and CPU power, it has come to light and even been ADMITTED by these companies that their antivirus products "feature" vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to gain access to your computer.

What SHOULD you use? Try ignoring the hype and the cost of those expensive piles of crap instead and have a look at Grisoft's AVG Antivirus (free version here) and ESET's NOD32.

If you are used to that piece of crap Norton or McAfee you got free with your PC and have been paying to update, you will be shocked how fast and free of problems your computer will run with NOD32.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The problem with NAV and McAfee is that they both established themselves as big players in the '80s and into the early/mid '90s. They WERE great products in the DOS days. Unbeatable, actually. I depended on McAfee AV when I ran my BBS. And there was no disc problem that couldn't be solved by Norton Disc Doctor. Both products have indeed sunk to the level exactly described by yourself. Couldn't have said it better. If one does not believe it, set up a computer with a fresh install of Windows. Do a benchmark. Take notes of how it runs. Now, install NAV and watch it slow down to a grinding halt. Watch how you can go make coffee while your computer boots up. And the final insult? This shit doesn't even stop certain threats from coming through. In my experience, I have found that F-Prot (NOT F-Secure) is the most well written and effective AV software out there. Best of all, it is fairly priced and the licence allows you to run it on all machines in the house. That's something NAV put a stop to a few years ago. In their zeal to stem software piracy, they alienated muiltiple PC users and those who occasionally upgrade hardware and may need to reformat. Fuck 'em all.

-JCS-