What is your story about the first AV that you used ?

Ashu Kumar

Level 2
Thread author
Verified
Oct 6, 2014
75
We always have stories to tell and share with each other on a myriad of topics. So i thought why not start a thread related to stories or reactions (funny,weird or serious) related to our first AV that we encountered.

I know that a thread is already present at MT on first AV/Antispyware (credits goes to @BoraMurdar) and this new thread created by me can be considered as an extension to the already existing similar thread. (a full feature film with a poster released earlier :D)

If you remember any such instance, please input your comments here.

Well mine story (actually an overshare) is as follows:

McAfee was the first AV that i used (in 2007). An uncle of mine gave it to me and he boasted of its performance and price. Frankly, I was overwhelmed by all of that :cool:. I said wow!. At that time, I was not much acquainted with big AV vendors except the Norton. Everyone used to talk about Norton only (Norton was an Antivirus next door :D).

I bragged about it to my friends and even gave them installation cd with key (single user license) and showed them how kind i was. :p
funny part is that McAfee expired within a week. i was confused and sad. :confused: :(
Ah ha! Then I realized why he offered me a giveaway (Benevolence in guise) :mad:.

Anyway, I am not telling this to belittle his generosity. He is really generous :) and that was my first giveaway (though with a short life expectancy :p).

That's all. :)
 

Ali80

Level 5
Verified
Nov 13, 2014
218
F-PROT Antivirus is first antivirus that i used. It was 1991 i think. I was just a little kid. Then the market was very limited. I remember that they were F-PROT, Norton, McAfee, NOD on Yugoslavian market...actually in the professional institutions. A couple of times F-PROT detected DOS directed virus. My dad told me that he used Norton. He also told me that many times Norton saved his work-his job.
 
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D

Deleted member 21043

I was not much acquainted with big AV vendors except the Norton. Everyone used to talk about Norton only
You know, it's funny you mention that because before I started learning about Security etc, when I just played games online etc before I started security, this and that... Norton appeared to be one of the most known to me too. For example, everyone I knew always knew about Norton, but even to this day I can ask people if they know who: Emsisoft, Avira, ESET, Avast are, and they won't know. :eek:o_O
 

Azure

Level 28
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Top Poster
Content Creator
Oct 23, 2014
1,712
You know, it's funny you mention that because before I started learning about Security etc, when I just played games online etc before I started security, this and that... Norton appeared to be one of the most known to me too. For example, everyone I knew always knew about Norton, but even to this day I can ask people if they know who: Emsisoft, Avira, ESET, Avast are, and they won't know. :eek:o_O
Woah, seriously? I would imagine that some people wouldn't know who those are except for Avast.

And here I thought Avast was one if not the second most popular antivirus next to Microsoft Security Essentials.
 
D

Deleted member 21043

Woah, seriously? I would imagine that some people wouldn't know who those are except for Avast.

And here I thought Avast was one if not the second most popular antivirus next to Microsoft Security Essentials.
Yes. Recently, I have asked people I know (they don't do computer science or know much about security :D ) and they know of and have used Norton and/or McAfee before, but not known of Avast, ESET, Emsisoft, Avira,... :confused:
 
S

Sr. Normal

They were the 90s. My first AV was Panda and it did the computet slowest than a monday with the mother in law.

The alternatives were Mcafee , Norton and not much else and it offended us that someone could create a virus
and we have to spend the money in a program that was consuming many resources, now already we are not so ingenius, now we see it normal.
Now even we like them.
 

BoraMurdar

Community Manager
Verified
Staff Member
Well-known
Aug 30, 2012
6,598
I won't merge the topics but there is almost the same one here :p Topics are moved by the river of time and new members coming everyday, so this question should be re-asked and re-discussed :)
Mine was Giant Antispyware, followed by AVG, Bitdefender, Avast and at last ESET

GIANT-AntiSpyware_73469g.jpg
 

Secondmineboy

Level 26
Verified
May 25, 2014
1,559
My first one was AVG on my own Laptop since my uncle installed it for me after reinstalling the OS,
but as it was slowing down my System more and more i got to Avast Which i use until now.

We had Norton on our Computers up until 2007 i think, until we got 2 trojans on all of our Computers.
 

jamescv7

Level 85
Verified
Honorary Member
Mar 15, 2011
13,070
My first antivirus actually came from Norton 2004 version where it cannot update due to fact no internet for about 6-8 years before therefore seems useless, not aware on computer viruses that time.

Perhaps its just a coincidence where Norton was popular even before since its considered as a common piece of security software. ;)
 

Oxygen

Level 44
Verified
Feb 23, 2014
3,316
Note : I was extremely tired while writing this so It may contain errors.

The first antivirus I used was Norton back in 2004 when I was around 10 years old, I had little knowledge about Computers. I could remember getting infected constantly, so then after months of constantly getting infected I started to learn from all of the mistakes that I made. Here we are 2 years later in 2006 - I remember switching to McAfee.... I can easily say that was a mistake as it seemed to mess with my computer : No Internet, Slow Computer - I later uninstalled McAfee and went back to Norton. I have been using Norton since 2004 up until 2011. Since the day I stopped using Norton I have searched for a replacement, but I can't stay with one because I end up uninstalling it in a short period of time... Norton was the only antivirus I stayed with for years without constantly switching. So getting infected actually made me want to learn more about computers and how they worked... It's something I have been doing ever since I first used a computer. Once you start doing something you might as well go for it and never quit.

Throughout the years I switched antiviruses seeking for that one that best suites me, but always found that I couldn't find one. It's not easy to find something that doesn't exist as I was looking for one that was "perfect" :p Yeah, I was a noob back then.



That's all I could remember, but if I remember anything new I'll keep adding to this.
 

MikeV

Level 19
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Well-known
Sep 9, 2013
925
My first AV was Avira free back in early 2000 - 2001. I didn't know anything about antivirus software or security. Of course my machine got infected.
On my second machine i installed Nod32 antivirus (2002) It was very popular AV with Kaspersky and Norton. But still got infected with a virus called ''winshed.exe'' and Nod couldn't do anything about it.It was so painful to format the pc and install all software and projects i had from the beginning,that i decided to spend more time to learn about security and antivirus software. Since then (and watching tons of reviews on youtube) i used almost all (free or paid) software to see what is better for me.
 

Cats-4_Owners-2

Level 39
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Well-known
Dec 4, 2013
2,800
I've enjoyed the interesting tales and the reminiscent quality each story has conveyed!:):)
I remember our first paid anti-virus was McAffee. Back in the prehistoric times before XP, the only visible choices seemed to be between McAffee & Norton. I thought wanted to be 'different',:rolleyes: and chose McAffee after our short trial of Norton expired. I had neither an idea nor a basis with which to choose back then, & mainly remember how there were so many pop-up adds,:mad: so ditching Internet Explorer for Netscape Navigator was the best we could do with dial-up. *Skip ahead (or rather back to the early 2000s. AVG was the first :eek:"free antivirus" I'd adopted because of good reviews (or advertising)!;) It found "infections" and I remember thinking "This is Great!!".:):) Next came Avast (before they used an "!";)..I think):confused: along with somehow discovering Spybot Search & Destroy which I used with Avira free because it felt lighter than AVG. Then, I tried Ad-Aware anti-spyware (B4 they had an AV) along side Avira to sweep away the cookies. When MalwareTips captured my attention (it sounded so much like Malwarebytes!:p) with posts about common sense & more secure browsers, my eyes became opened to the many choices which included what was right under my nose,o_O Windows "Native Anti-virus & Firewall". Coming from years of using XP we hadn't known these were even reasonable options for Windows 7 or 8! We used MSE & Defender (respectively) before replacing Defender with "Avast!" & (later) installing "ESET NOD 32" in place of MSE. Windows Firewall is still in use on both. This, thanks to the helpful experience and awesome advice of both members and staff on this amazing resource of a site!:D ..you know who you are!!:p:cool:
 
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Ashu Kumar

Level 2
Thread author
Verified
Oct 6, 2014
75
Thank you everyone for jogging your memory and sharing such wonderful instances. :)

but even to this day I can ask people if they know who: Emsisoft, Avira, ESET, Avast are, and they won't know

Yeah ! so true. Other unsung heroes are : Qihoo 360 and Baidu AV. I told it to my friend, and he was astonished.

They don't know ESET but they heard for NOD

Yeah ! most people know about NOD32 but unknown of ESET, or vice-versa. It's commonplace.

Norton was popular even before

Norton: An AV next door. :D

I was extremely tired while writing this so It may contain errors

Oh my gosh! why i didn't think of this statement. :D Even i was too tired while creating this thread. but i didn't want to put off it lest my faulty memory would make me forgettable about it. :D
 

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