FREE AVG V8 SOFTWARE

[Marie C..]

How do I do that Neil please?

[Patricia Anne]

As a general note to this.
I used AVG (free) for years but in 2005/6 I had some serious conflict issues with it so I binned it and changed to Avast (free) which I have used ever since. It also upgrades daily and (so far) it has managed to catch every nasty sent my way.
I would recommend it to anyone.
Tricia

[keith9351]

Hi Marie
I use AVG 8 and ZoneAlarm together and they work fine.
If you go to ZoneAlarm and click on program control there's two folder tabs, click on programs and it will list the programs that have tried to access the internet along with permissions given.
Go down to AVG and one of the columns is titled access, click mouse and it give you the option to Add, Block or Ask, just change to what ever you want.

Keith

[Marie C..]

Thanks Keith,
I investigated last night after seeing your post. There was a long list of things. I ticked all the AOL things but this morn I still had to exit Zone before it would let me on,
At present it won't allow updates to AGV so must sort it. Shall I just tick everthing?
I didn't have this trouble with AVG7. I think it's Aol too that's the nuisance.
Marie

[Neil Wilson]

thanks Keith for your reply has it is a long time since I used ZoneAlarm.

Marie - AVG (any free version) doesn't include a firewall.

Its the old story - you get what you pay for - not knocking the free stuff but it pays to buy AV and firewall as an all-in-one package and have knowledge that your system is safe.

[MarkJ]

Thanks Keith,
I investigated last night after seeing your post. There was a long list of things. I ticked all the AOL things but this morn I still had to exit Zone before it would let me on,
At present it won't allow updates to AGV so must sort it. Shall I just tick everthing?
I didn't have this trouble with AVG7. I think it's Aol too that's the nuisance.
Marie

You must be missing something Marie. Not all the AOL stuff is obvious from memory. Lots of people use AOL and AVG with Zone Alarm - I used to do so myself and had no problems.
Turning off the firewall is not a good idea - nor is allowing everything through regardless of what it is. Another thing you must allow through is svchost - which is a Windows thing which must be allowed to access the web. Without that, you will not get any connection. If you set up Zone Alarm in the "easy mode" or whatever it is called, you were given the option to let ZA sort things out. It should work in that way, but I always preferred to see what programs were attempting to connect to the web and then select the appropriate choice from Allow Always, Allow Once or Deny (or something like that). Obviously, AOL and AVG need Allow Always, as does the svchost thing. Other programs need a little inspection and thought sometimes.

Mark

[keith9351]

Hi Marie
Sorry for delay had to go shopping. On my ZoneAlarm in the access column I have "AVG update download" and both Trusted and Internet are ticked.
I use TalkTalk as my provider, which own AOL UK not sure if that makes any different.

Keith

[Marie C..]

Thanks MarkJ and Keith,
Shall have another go. Tried several times today.
This trouble only started when I loaded the AGV8.
Having a laptop for golden wedding present so shall have a really good anti virus firewall etc in with it. Hopefully no problems then.
Shall be asking how on earth I transfer all my stuff from here to vista!
marie

[gibo]

Guys,
I note with interest the mention of turning off firewall to use the internet. This defeats the purpose! When you are on the net - particularly broadband - you not only have fast access to stuff but the world has an open channel to your pc as well! Complete security confidence does involve having up to date protection for viruses AND a decent firewall. I believe Vista does have a better "built in" firewall but still not wonderfull. I have used a free Firewall called Filseclab but it is incompatible with Vista (Ok on XP etc). I have another freebie firewall that I would recomend trying called Commodo. It is versatile although can be complicated. These freebies can be downloaded from www.filehippo.com Good luck !

[MarkJ]

Where did you see that? (ah - Maries comment!)
I very occasionally mention it if someone has problems with access to the web (to exclude a firewall issue) - but only under certain circumstances and for a few moments.

I always used to use (and still recommend) Zone Alarm, although it is a lot more "hassle" these days with its "added features".

Almost all routers have a firewall built in - which by default will prevent basic intrusion issues. I am sure you will know how they work gibo, so I won't go into detail here.

My personal systems are Linux, so much of the virus side of things is not an issue, but I do have a firewall. I also run regular rootkit checks. As a technician, I deal with a number of Windows machines and you would be shocked at the number I find with no AV program at all - or with an out of date AV program. I have seen some pretty shocking things over the years - machines with literally hundreds of pieces of serious malware on them (some even had DOS scripts on the desktop which were obviously something unusual - yet the owner had "no idea" that there was anything wrong!).

Mark