AOL restricts free security software to friends and members

Um, Check Your Facts

So, free isn't free enough? See http://safety.aol.com/isc/BasicSecurity/ for more info. Don't just assume ISC Incident Handlers are right all the time and maybe do a little fact-checking before posting a "story" like this, eh?

Crap AV for Crap ISP

Sounds like a good match. AOL doesn't need explanation on why it's bad; its badness is known as much as Microsoft for 'quality' software.

Now McAffee ... well, back in '94 I bought the thing because back then, my XTreePro Viruscan was not able to eliminate the NATAS virus (though it did detect it, a major feat for a 5 y/o un-updated AV). McAffee did kill it .. .but only because it was up to date.

Then 2 days later, I made a floppy disk and took it to school to kill the virii there. Guess what? My McAffee went down in flames, courtesy of ... DIR II. Yes, a 7+ year old virus was apparently better than my great AV.

I switched to Norton Antivirus shortly after that, and basically stayed there until switching to Panda recently.

Now that may be my own experience, but my high school had lots of virii on their PC's, and they used McAffee. The problem went away when they switched to Symantec corporate.

AOL + McAfee = No malware

If you combine AOL and McAfee Antivirus, your system will be clean of any malware. But not for the obvious reason. No, it's not because McAfee will do a perfect job. It's because your machine will have no juice left over to actually *DO* anything. Everyone knows AOL alone will bring your system to a crawl. And anyone who has ever used McAfee knows that it, too, is a massive resource hog. Bring the two of them together, and your computer effectively becomes a brick. But let's go one step further.Let's combine AOL, McAfee, and Windows Vista. Then you'll *REALLY* never get anything done.

Seems free to me....

Being no great fan of either McAfee or AOL I have to say the product appears to be free, the only requirement is an AOL e-mail address which is free to sign up for.

Ive already got an AOL addy and the prospect of something for free was very tempting but past experience with McAfee has left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth so I will pass on this offer.

avast ye viri

AVG is all well & good, but avast! is much much better ;)

Kaspersky updates

I tried a few times, including trying to update to a known Kaspersky server via the command line - no luck.

Thank goodness for thepiratebay.org !

RE: Seems free to me

"Being no great fan of either McAfee or AOL I have to say the product appears to be free, the only requirement is an AOL e-mail address which is free to sign up for."

AOL email addresses are free, but only for 1 month then you have to pay for them).

I had 3 addresses when I jumped ship due to really pathetic customer service - they agreed to leave me with one for free then sent me a direct debit mandate. When I queried this I was informed that AOL email addresses are kept active for 28days then would be terminated unless I pay £4\month for the email address.

This constant miscommunication through their services desk combined with lengthy phone calls to queues combined with crap products which don't work like McAfee led to my leaving AOL.

To top things off - after I had completely left AOL for about 6 months I was called from their sales dept to advise I qualified for certain benefits as my subscription was almost up. (McAfee being the 'certain benefit')

Virii is not a fricking real word

Dear Dumbasses,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plural_of_virus

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virii

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.html

Just to clarify...

AOL has offered two free anti-virus solutions for the past year, one powered by McAfee and the other by Kaspersky ("Active Virus Shield"). Though we have stopped offering the latter, anyone can download the new "McAfee VirusScan Plus - Special Edition from AOL" at no charge from AOL.com. (Go to aol.com/safety.) All that is required is a free AOL screen name. It includes protection from viruses and spyware, as well as a robust firewall.

Unrelated to this, some current users of Active Virus Shield have been experiencing problems receiving updates (aka DAT updates) over the last week. We have narrowed down the technical issue and expect it to be resolved shortly. In addition, Active Virus Shield users will receive an email soon with instructions on how to move to our new free offering.

Drew Weaver - Director, AOL Safety Products

Get your updates From Kaspersky

You can make a simple hack and get your updates from Kaspersky servers. here is how: http://www.aviransplace.com/2007/09/05/how-to-make-active-virus-shield-obtain-updates/

Fixed!!!

Close the scanner.

To ensure that AVS continues to update just open

"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\AOL\AVP6\Data\aol-updcfg.xml"

Delete the first two lines which point to the aol update servers

Leave all the kaspersky servers in the list.

Save the file.

Restart the scanner.

This ensures that you will continue to receive updates from Kaspersky. I don't think it breaks the licence but I'd appreciate anyone else's opinion on that.The problem hasn't affected every installation, I like this AV very much, quick and isn't bloated with unnecessary features, Kaspersky have quietly become a lot of techies favourite AV. McAfee software seems to use a lot of resources and its bloat means that I wouldn't touch it...

re: Virii

Dear phil,

Please pull your head out of your ass. Linking to wikipedia, there's a way to win a debate. The word "virii" has been used for decades, at least, in the U.S. (and, by the loudness of the debate, most likely in other parts of the world as well). If "wiki" and "blog" can become words after a few years of use by a minority of people, I think "virii" has earned its place as a word through decades of use, even if it wasn't a "real" word originally.

On another note, I find it oddly amusing that you and your ilk vehemently oppose the word "virii", but love trying to force "new words" such as "wiki" and "blog" and "google" (as a verb) onto the unwashed masses.