Still think regular backups aren't important?

[giza]

McAfee Anti-Virus Causes Widespread File Damage

This is a stable product that's been out for many years and has a fairly good reputation. But a single update got botched and now entire filesystems are getting trashed.

I'll also shamelessly plug my own article on backup basics, which can be found here: Backups Made Easy.

Comments

[rigelkitty.livejournal.com]

McAfee's been choking my systems for years. I avoid it and Norton like the plague.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, what have you been using for virus protection? I'm trying to get an idea of what the best alternatives are out there.

[lionman.livejournal.com]

For home users who want something with no cost attached, I've been pointing them at these:

http://www.grisoft.com/doc/1

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

Most folks I think end up up with Avast!

[rigelkitty.livejournal.com]

At home, I was using Trend's online scanner, but when the last worm-scare happened, it got clogged and inaccessible. Now I'm using AVG Free which slows my mail down a little and blatantly updates every time I boot up, but is otherwise peaceable.

[atpaw.livejournal.com]

I agree, McAfee has severely raped Windows computers since the dawn of mankind. Soooo... Sluuuugggiiiiish. Norton is becoming too smart for its own good these days too - it complains every 20 seconds with an Always On The Very Very Top popover if your firewall is turned off, for example, and it's near impossible to dumb Norton down enough to make it play nice with LAN games. NNNNGH!


I use AVG as my weapon of choice. As Rigel says, sometimes it wants to update, but otherwise it's good.

[lionman.livejournal.com]

I've snatched a copy of your Backup Article to share with clients as talking points when they ask about the details of backups.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Cool!

I've been meaning to get business cards printed up that say "I FIX COMPUTERS" in large friendly letters for some time now, and then offer my brain for free as a public service. (and a way to make contacts, of course)

[lionman.livejournal.com]

http://www.vistaprinting.com/ offers some free cards as an introduction, and all you pay is $4 shipping, I think.

[giza.livejournal.com]

I've actually had my eyes on http://www.designyourowncard.com/. I've ordered stuff from them before and generally have been impressed.

[doco.livejournal.com]

And here I was, stumbling past the Symantec booth at CeBIT the other day, unable from muttering "startkeylogger... stopkeylogger... startkeylogger.." to myself all the time - only to read _this_. :P

[furahi.livejournal.com]

Well, it was a bad DAT file that misidentified some harmless files as virus.
I know in the end it may screw you (though I always advise against letting the antivirus delete files just for the heck of it), but there's a big difference between an accident and intentionally doing things behind your back =P

I just hope they test their DAT files more thoroughly from now on.

Interestingly enough, my mom's McAfee didn't download the affected DFAT files, nor did it download the newer, fixed ones. If I ask it to update it says it's up to date with a version that's about 2 behind the bad one.

[me-is-1337.livejournal.com]

All I have to say is: Poop. Poop. Fiber.

-----------------------
They say that living well is the best revenge. But having your enemies forcibly sodomized is a god way to go, too.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Don't make me reach over into your cube and slap you silly.