Tag: antivirus

Why I swapped VLC for Screenbox on Windows 11

VLC on Windows 11

For as long as I can remember, VLC media player has been a staple on all my PCs and laptops. VLC is the ol’ reliable of software – feed it virtually any media format, and it just plays it without fuss.

But recently on Windows 11, I noticed a frustrating issue: launching VLC took anywhere between 10 to 30 seconds. Double-clicking an MP4 and sitting through a 15-second delay just to watch a local video quickly wore thin.

So, last week I replaced VLC with an app that uses the same VLC engine, but which opens instantly and is arguably prettier, Screenbox.

Continue reading Why I swapped VLC for Screenbox on Windows 11

Windows Defender got stuck!

Screenshot of Microsoft Defender
All is quiet on the Windows front

For the last few weeks, I’ve been getting a daily email from Microsoft Defender telling me about a threat it had found on my desktop PC.

Only, I’d already deleted the offending files manually, but Defender got stuck—thinking they were still there, but unable to find them to remove them.

Here’s how I eventually fixed it.

Continue reading Windows Defender got stuck!

No Windows Security after upgrading to Windows 11

My laptop desktop under Windows 11

This weekend I upgraded my Acer Nitro 5 laptop from Windows 10 Home to Windows 11 Home.

It mostly went well.

Microsoft Security was missing!

A strange consequence of the upgrade in fact was that most of my Modern Windows Apps were missing and needed to be reinstalled from the Microsoft Store: 3D Viewer, Clock, Maps, Microsoft OneNote for Windows 10, Microsoft To Do, Paint 3D and Windows Security.

Continue reading No Windows Security after upgrading to Windows 11

More on AVG and Symantec

Interesting article on the Lockergnome blogs: AVG Announces Free One-Year License For Faulty Code.

It would appear that AVG was showing false positive results for genuine Windows files.  I experienced that too with both Windows files and WinAmp Pro, which after one AVG update told me was a virus or trojan.

Worryingly, after I moved to Symantec Norton Anti Virus 2009 it identified a couple of files as containing trojans, that I know I scanned with AVG after downloading and AVG falsely informed me were clean.

So far, I’m having a good experience with Norton Anti Virus 2009.  Good work Team Symantec!

Norton AntiVirus 2009 vs ZoneAlarm Pro 7.0.483.000

So, this evening I thought I’d give Symantec Norton AntiVirus 2009 a go.  I uninstalled AVG Free 8.0, rebooted, started the installation process which was surprisingly fast until …

The system locked when it got to starting services.  I waited.  And waited.  Reboot.

Nothing!

Reboot again.

Nothing (again)!

System restore.  The Norton AV installer ran on reboot and got further this time: it was trying to connect to the Norton online account (or something similar).

System restore further back.  Reboot.  But then AVG wouldn’t work and I got this message:

@AvgErrorCode_0x0253 %FILE% = “C:Program FilesAVGAVG8”

Downloading the installer and doing a repair fixed it.  Phew!

ZoneAlarm

And then … then I discovered that it would appear that Norton AntiVirus 2009 has an issue with ZoneAlarm Pro 7.0.483.000 — which I know is going to prompt Tim and Mike to leave comments to the effect: Why are you using ZA anyway?!

What I’m trying to determine now is whether the latest version of ZoneAlarm Pro (version 8) works with Norton AV 2009 … does anyone know?