Appliances, cyber and mechanical

A recent scenario had me installing some proprietary 'vudu' software on a network. They insisted on using McAfee antivirus and it was relayed to the client that my feelings about McAfee went deeper than mild dislike. We settled on one machine per location and in just a few weeks this software was no longer needed. During the process of installing, I approached the tech on the other end about the dilemna and he said it was a bundled deal and he didn't have any input about the matter.

Folks, McAfee is worthless. Red Dragon, Ashby Rhett Culpepper III, and several other tech types have verified the same thing over and over. Ashby even upgraded McAfee, ran it, then uninstalled it. He then installed Norton's and found over 1000 infections that McAfee missed. And just click on Sunday's comments to see Red Dragon's battle.

"How about Norton's," you ask? They make a good product, but I will only endorse Norton's Antivirus. Their bundled NIS and SystemWorks have created major problems on networks. Bondo Elvis says that they've corrected their errors. Still, these full blown utilities seem to slow machines down. Anyway, Norton's Antivirus seems okay. That said, it's not used at the Beach House.

AVG is used here and has been for several years. It's light, stays in the background, runs on schedule and is easily updated in automatic mode. Great stuff. So far the only complaint with the new 7.0 version is that there is one piece of proprietary software that might have problems so far. This will be interesting because the promoters of this proprietary software are basically a bunch of crawfish living in a large Texas pond that aspire to be NASA types. So, we'll see. In the meantime the rest of the world is using AVG and loving it.

Everyone be careful around that stove tonight and tomorrow. Now, must go and finish laundry, house cleaning and then work. Mother is due this afternoon!

"After enlightenment, there's laundry."
-Zen Proverb