spam only works because of the tiny 1% of people that a)don't realize it's spam or b) really want to increase their weiner size. 183.5 billion spam messages in one day was ridiculous.

They got the guys responsible for the spam, but they still have a million virus infected zombied computers out there with their botnet still sending spam.

Who knows if those n00bs will ever get a clue, remove norton/mcafee, and install a real anti-virus program.

It only has to work in a small percentage to make money. I don't know the percentage of hits the spammers get but even if only 1 out of a million spam emails produces a sale then that would be approximately 169,000 sales a day. The only way to rid the net of spam is to rid the world of the gullible people responding to it. There's probably a law against that. Oh well.

Dozer42, I agree that getting the virus/malware problem under control is the key to getting the spam problem unde control. But what do you suggest for a real anti-virus program, and what is it that makes it better than Norton/McAfee? Aren't all blacklist/signature methods doomed from the start?

slow math day...that should have been 183,500 sales a day.

I recommend Zone Alarm...

Use Kaspersky. It is the best.

Most AV applications are junk and don't address nor solve the spam problem. The best spam filtering is done at the domain level by third party companies. Theses are the only real spam solutions. MX Logic is a good provider of this. Spam cost companies millions of dollar a year, and the "Can Spam" act in the USA legislature has bone less than nothing to help the scourge.

I strongly agree that running high profile security programs available at walmart is like painting a target on yourself. I prefer Kaspersky or Trend Micro.

Who told you you could remove macafee or norton?

Removal typically means a hard drive reformat, as both uninstalls result in a computer that is constantly error correcting trying to stay stable.

It's impossible, as near as I can tell. It should be unlawful to destroy a computer for refusing your product; these programs show up preinstalled on some computers.

You're right about uninstalling Norton at least. When I purchased a new HP notebook last year and tried to clean out all the garbage software I didn't want, the computer became fraught with problems. I settled the issue by formatting and installing my own OS and software. It works great now.

As for anti-virus software, I've been extremely satisfied with NOD32--and you can uninstall it.

I'm still seeing the same volumes. I don't think I will be laying my copy of SpamBully off. Within a short time, I am sure someone will replace that spam gang

The part AV software plays is to keep your Great Grandmothers computer from becoming infected and converted into a spambot.

I am generally pro net neutrality and I don't think an ISP has any business how I use my cable modem, however, I think every ISP has an obligation to look for spamlike behavior and shut down any account connected to a spambot until the owner can get the system cleaned.

One of the best ones out there is NOD32, Kaspersky is also very good.

Having Norton/McAfee on your machine is WORSE than no protection. Why? It slows your machine down horribly. Also, you've paid money, and you aren't protected, yet you think you are.

I've been doing on-site computer support for over 24 years now. One third to one half of our calls are viruses or virus related (Norton slowing the system down to unusable levels).

And yes, you can remove Norton/McAfee without a reformat. Just google the Norton Removal Tool, which rips it out by the roots. Symantec was forced to make the NRT after the lawsuits about not being able to remove Norton properly. Same thing with McAfee, just google for MCPR (McAfee Consumer Products Removal Tool). There's also a seperate removal tool for Norton Commercial, that one is called NoNav, it's great because you don't even need to have the lockout password that most corporations install. =]

Why is NOD32 so good? Because much of it is written in assembly language (native computer code). This makes for very tight, blazing FAST code. It also has a heuristic scanning engine, that not only looks for the signature of known viruses, but it actively looks for the patterns of what viruses do (the files they change, etc). It actually catches unknown viruses 'in the wild' and reports them back to the home company to add to the virus signature database.

No virus program can stop 100% of the viruses though, so use your noggin and don't click on those pop-ups that say things like 'Your computer is infected with a virus! Click here for your FREE virus scan!'. ROFL. So many people fall for that.

I usually use the free versions of AVG and Zone Alarm. I prefer avast antivirus, but it has issues with ZA.

Antivirus are just a little piece of the protection puzzle. Much more important is the firewall, or several of them (hardware and software). But the most important piece is always common sense.

What happened to that promise?

It's now worse than ever and spyware, adware is infiltrating computers everywhere.

MS can do it but all major Anti-Virus providers will screal Anti-Trust. MS has to walk a very thin line at all times.

- -
othing much, pretend I never said anything.


jk, lol

This is an article about Spam as an industry. Not about which consumer level AV you use. This is akin to comparing bulletproof vest when talking about Gun Control. Most spam is not from "spam-bots" it is created and relayed at the server level.