COLIN LAMB wrote:
>
> I switched to AVG about a year ago and like it a lot. I had McAfee and it
> worked, but after awhile I begin feeling like McAfee was a virus. They
> have numerous unwanted mailings to tout their programs. It was taking
> control of my computer whenever the merchandisers wanted to for their
> benefit and not mine.
>
> AVG sits there and works and lets me update on my schedule - without mass
> mailings.
>
> Two of the reasons I switched were because my computer was infected with a
> virus which
> caused all sorts of problems and disabled the virus protection program.
> The next day I got a mailing from McAfee warning me of the virus. The
> other problem was that I originally had the free version then updated
> online. These two conflicted and caused a number of problems. They should
> have written the software to prevent that.
>
> I suppose there are many good things with McAfee, but virus protection was
> supposed to make my life simpler. It did not.
You could try GNU/Linux, of which I'm not aware of any viruses existing,
although since I don't use it myself, I'm certainly not sure of this. However, I
know lots of people who do use it and none have ever had a virus.
I personally don't use a PC at all, but a Sun Ultra 60 workstation with a pair
of UltraSPARC processors, which are thankfully totally incompatible with the
x86/Pentium family of CPUs. I don't use any virus protection software and that's
not because I'm being stupid, but simply there is no need.
Unix software is almost always free and of excellent quality. I have only two
commercial programs (Matlab and Mathematica). I can still read
Word/Powerpoint/Excell files if someone sends me them, but would not wish to
create such files (even though I can). I run a firewall (a free one of course).
I run a spam filter (free of course). There is an excellent spirit of community
support on Unix systems, so questions posted on newsgroups are often answered
very quickly - faster than you will ever get a sensible response from Microsoft,
even if you do pay support fees.
Sun workstations are a bit specialised and are quite expensive even used, but
GNU/Linux will fit on older PCs that are unsuitable for Windoze. It does not
need a high spec machine, since unlike MS Windows, GNU/Linux is far more memory
efficient and needs far less CPU power for comparable performance.
--
Dr. David Kirkby PhD,
email: drkirkby@ntlworld.com
web page: http://www.david-kirkby.co.uk
Amateur radio callsign: G8WRB
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