[rcprimak]

mhenriday is right. Revo Uninstaller can perform complete removal of Comodo, Zone Alarm, and a few others. If this were Norton or McAfee, however, special tools would be needed. Not in the case of Comodo. Revo works just fine. Also works on AVG.

[haycon]

Thanks for the Revo tips. Timing is everything, the day before the column I tried the upgrade and when it failed I went to Comodo's forum. The string is well over a year old so there was a lot to bore-through. So I waded into the registry and started carving. After finishing my third computer I wasn't a happy person.

So that's why I made the observation to check User Forums before using. Wonder if "reviewers" do that?

Thanks again.

[OneTrueFriend]

Before installing a new programme, or making any changes, it is a good idea to create a restore point.

[dgleet]

It doesn't. Neither do the other anti spy/virus programs mentioned: AV2010 detection no longer works. I have a suspicion that the perpetrators are reading the security forums and changing their payload. I've let AVAST know what's going on.

[mhenriday]

For more objective and less idiosyncratic judgements on the efficacy of anitvirus programmes than can be provided by one's own experience and that of one's friends, I use Shadowserver's virusstats. As the figures can and do vary significantly from day to day, I generally check the monthly stats first, in order to determine how well a programme compares with its peers over the long run (few of us change our antivurs programme every day). Unfortunately, I've not been able to find similar sources which test firewalls....


Henri

[rcprimak]

The Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool has successfully removed AV2010 from many computers worldwide. Where do you get your information that the Tool fails to remove AV2010? Is this your own experience? Maybe what you have/had is/was something else? Also, remember, MSRT is updated every month. Try the next version, due out in a couple of weeks.

If MSRT doesn't work, some folks have said that Malwarebytes has worked for them. If nothing works, you should reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows. That's the only safe way to make sure the problem is completely solved. In this case, I might not even trust a Ghost or True Image backup archive, as these might also be infected. But if you have a clean backup image archive, maybe try rolling back to that previous system state.

[ChrisBieda]

In our home, there are several PC's, some running XP (both Home and Pro), some Vista (I just haven't gotten around to installing my beta 7 yet). I read all the "best of" articles, but for someone like me, I recommend eschewing the "best of" and adopting a biodiversity strategy: A different (yet free) antivirus on each machine.
* AVG
* Avast
* Anti-Vir
* Comodo
* ClamWin

No doubt in some cosmic sense one is "better" (on average) than the others, but I refuse to believe that any one is ALWAYS better against every threat. It just doesn't stand to reason. So, instead, I use a deliberately chaotic strategy, believing that a particular virus may get by one or more of our networked machines, but that it is the rare, indeed hopefully impossible, virus that can get by ALL of them, leaving me with one working machine (at least).

Another strategy I heartily recommend is adding a Linux installation to ALL Windows machines, setting the default boot to Windows, but taking enormous comfort in the fact that I can always invoke Linux (I use Ubuntu) if my Windows gets hosed and use Linux's ability (available in Ubuntu, and I'm sure in most, if not all modern distros) to read NTFS-formatted disks and partitions. That way, I can always access my data, and with tools like OpenOffice under Linux, I can even manipulate that data (Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations). Not strictly a security program, more of a security protocol, but definitely free, and a Linux installation will readily fit in 10gb of diskspace, usually less, so a practical one as well.

[anandspeak]

I user AVG 8 on Windows Vista and the default windows firewall. Recently installed SP2.
And I think, i have been happy living with the setup.

[azdirector]

Cox Communications here in Arizona offers a free security suite from McAfee. I use this in addition to malwarebytes.com. Have you any reviews or information regarding the free Cox Security Suite? Would Avast be more effective or will the McAfee suffice? Thanks!!!