AboutCarolyn Meinel Expertise I cover Windows, Unix, TCP/IP and Ethernet security questions. I do not cover Mac, Palm Pilot, or other networking issues.
Experience Books by Carolyn Meinel: wrote a chapter for The Hacking of America book (see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567204600/happyhacker)
My article Code Red for the Web for Scientific American was reprinted in the book Best American Science Writing 2002 (see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060936509/happyhacker). My book The Happy Hacker: A Guide to Mostly Harmless Hacking is now in 4th edition with a Japanese edition (see http://happyhacker.org/hhbook/).
Question Hi,
I'm not sure if the anti-virus programs on my computer are effective enough. Actually, 3 of them were installed for me. AVG free edition, McAfee and Norton 60days trial. I was told that McAfee is useless.
If I scan manually (for example a flash disk )with my AVG, if threats are detected, I cannot delete/heal them except when it is an automatic scan.
Also, it is not possible to use the norton to scan a flash disk. It is just there being useless because I don't understand its usefulness. It shows on the internet explorer page but I use firefox. I heard that kaspersky Antivirus is very effective.I need to protect my computer because I'm online, friends want to use their flash drive with my PC and I also may want to download stuff from them. At this point, what do you advice? Thanks.
Answer You are correct about your antivirus programs not working properly. Normally you can only run one at a time as otherwise they conflict with each other and prevent each other from cleaning out infections. You are fortunate that they haven't yet crashed your computer while fighting each other.
What you need to do is decide which Internet security program you want to run. You'll need to uninstall all of them first and then comes the painful process of reinstalling just one. I say painful because if you try to reinstall one from a file that has remained on your hard drive, it might have been corrupted by a virus operating while your antiviruses were busy crippling each other.
Since your computer is infested with viruses, your best bet is to buy an Internet security program on a CD. I say Internet security instead of just antivirus because to protect your computer you also need a firewall (the Windows one isn't all that great) and protection from adware and spyware.
Personally I use Norton Corporate Edition plus the Zone Alarm firewall and anti spyware/adware program. Individual users can't afford Norton Corporate, but if your employer uses it, you might be able to get it for you home computer through your employer. Many employers do this because of the danger when employees take work home and do it on their home computer. Another good product is F-Secure, which offers a free thirty day trial: https://store.f-secure.com/cgi-bin/dlreg/ml=EN?ID=FSISTB&desid=TRIAL
The only problem I have with the free trial of F-Secure is that you have to download it into your infected computer, so it's possible one of your infections might corrupt it.
If I were in your shoes I would go ahead and buy one of the Internet security Suites on CD instead. You can read reviews of several Internet security suites, including Kapersky, Norton and McAfee, at http://www.consumersearch.com/www/software/antivirus-software/
As you say, Kapersky is highly rated.
They probably didn't review F-Secure because it is primarily sold outside the U.S., but world-wide, F-Secure is usually the most popular and highly rated. Even though the company is headquartered in Finland, you can get their CD version in the U.S. I've used another F-Secure product for encrypted communications for a dozen years and am quite impressed.
