Scheduler Settings, what's your strategy?

[endorush]

I do full scan every day at 9:00am.

Update is realtime every 5 mins.

Quickscan every day at 12:00 noon

Flashscan every hour at 5 minutes before the hour. (x:55)

What do you guys do for scheduler timing? I know it depends on your personal schedule, I tend to schedule the long scans while I'm at work. But in general, how frequently do you run each type of scan/update, and why? Whats the best strategy without affecting productivity?

Also, does anybody have any recommendations for a good anti-virus?

I have McAfee Internet Security 2009, but I can't get it to work correctly with MBAM. My computer just slows to a crawl and eventually freezes, theres definitely some conflict. I tried excluding the mbam files from McAfee etc, but not getting much progress. I had to uninstall McAfee to use my computer.

I could be doing something wrong. I dislike the McAfee interface, and I'm sure im missing some important factor.

But regardless, I'm looking at possibly a different anti-virus. I hear "Kaspersky" thrown around a lot as a good anti-virus solution. Does anybody recommend it? The price is kind of high, but you can never be too careful, right?

[exile360]

I use and recommend the Realtime option for updates, that way you've always got the latest definitions. I generally schedule a Quick Scan to run once a week and a Full Scan to run once a month, but if you do risky browsing (ie filesharing/P2P and social networking etc) then you might want to increase the Quick Scan to daily and the Full Scan to weekly. Also, you can check the option for a Flash Scan after successful update which will check the most critical locations for active infections.

As for antivirus protection, I personally use Kaspersky Antivirus and I do recommend it as an excellent AV solution. Here are all of my personal recommendations for antivirus protection:

• Kaspersky (free 30 day trial) The official support forum for this product can be found here
  
• Avira Antivir (free for home use) The official support forum for this product can be found here
  
• ESET NOD32 (free 30 day trial) The official support forum for this product can be found here
  
• Microsoft Security Essentials (free for home use) The official support forum for this product can be found here
  
• Avast! (free for home use) The official support forum for this product can be found here
  

Note: If you decide to use one of the trial versions of one of the paid antiviruses then you will either need to purchase it or uninstall it completely and install a replacement antivirus before the trial expires so that your PC is not left unprotected.

Also note that if using the paid version of Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware with your antivirus in realtime that it is generally a good idea to exclude Malwarebytes' files from your antivirus to avoid conflicts. The FAQ contains examples of setting file exclusions for some known AV products.

I listed trials of the paid versions so you can try them out before deciding whether or not you wish to purchase, just don't forget that if you decide to remove McAfee you must remove it completely before installing a new AV:

Remove all McAfee products:

• Download, but do not yet install, the antivirus you're going to replace McAfee with and save the installer to a location you can easily access, such as your desktop.
  
• Download McAfee Consumer Products Removal Tool from here and save it to your desktop but do not run it yet.
  
• Click Start and select Control Panel
  
• Open Add/Remove Programs
  
• Select McAfee Security Center and select Uninstall or Remove
  
• When it asks if you wish to remove all McAfee products confirm that you do
  
• Follow the instructions for removing it and reboot if required
  
• After that's complete, double click the MCPR.exe file you downloaded to run it and it will remove any remnants of McAfee from your system so they don't cause issues with your new antivirus software
  
• Reboot if required to do so by MCPR
  

Now install the AV that you'll be replacing McAfee with and update it and set up your exclusions for Malwarebytes'.

[kingaljr]

Updates every 2 hours.

Quick scan weekly.

Flash scan daily.

I also run KIS2010 with no problems whatsoever, I did add all the exclusions just to be sure. Also remember Kaspersky renewals run 30% off.

[endorush]

Thanks for the replies. I just got the trial for KAV up and running, exclusions set up, and so far there's no noticeable performance issues. I'll play with it for a month and see how it goes. KAV lacks a firewall apparently which KIS includes. I need to do some research.

Flash scan every hour is probably overkill, lol. Came home from work with 8 notepad documents on my screen.

[mountaintree16]

I second Exile's AV recommendations

And I personally use KAV.

My personal Mbam settings are:

-Completely manual updates

(1-4 times a day, depending on when I am using the computer)

-Completely manual scans

(except when I am testing, then I will turn on auto-update & scanning)

Edit:

I do run the realtime protection of course, if that wasn't clear. & Website/IP blocker is on. No IP exclusions.

[YoKenny1]

I prefer Realtime updates like exile360 recommends with a Flash Scan after the update but I follow that once per day with a Quick Scan and with avast! and MBAM I have been malware free.

[endorush]

Good stuff.

Regarding firewalls. Since I'm currently running MBAM Realtime with Kaspersky AV free trial (which I'm impressed with so far), I'm not using any 3rd party firewall. I'm running Windows Firewall. Is this bad? Is Windows Firewall leaving me wide open to things that third party paid services offer?

Any commentary regarding firewalls?

[YoKenny1]

Outpost firewall is good and they have a free and a Pro version.

[FutonDog]

Hey, Endorush:

I do daily updates at 5:30 A.M. and then a QuickScan at 6:00 P.M (coffee is done brewing at 5:40 and the newspaper is done at about the same time that QuickScan finishes, and the family is still asleep. Yes! ). Since I followed the MBAM update with the QuickScan, I don't elect to scan the memory after the update. I don't run FullScan (there has been many threads on this board from Malwarebytes staff about the absolute sufficiency of QuickScan). I don't do realtime updates, as some of the other posters do. My personal preference has always been to control, as much as possible, when my computer gets updated, be it AV updates, MBAM updates, Windows updates, etc. This way, if my computer ever starts "wigging out" (sorry for the technical jargon) on me, I'll have a better idea of what changes occurred and how they might be related. Besides, my family is on and off the computer day and night, so I don't like updates consuming resources, during these times. But again, this is a matter of personal style and preference. I reviewed my daily scan logs for the past month and noticed that, on average, there are about three version updates every day (sometimes it's higher -- I seen the DB version increment by 5, even 7 one day [this must have been a particularly nasty day for mischief and malice]). So, on average, my MBAM, in a 24-hour period, might be two version behind -- I've seen threads here where users have been hundreds of updates behind. For me, this is an acceptable level of risk. Plus, I also run real-time protection. I use Norton Internet Security suite for my firewall (I have an XP machine, so no native Windows firewall) and AV; the protection it affords has been satisfactory, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it either: it's heavy on resource usage. I just starting using Avast free on my new Windows 7 laptop -- I read some good things about Avast, here on this board, and on other sites. And I know many people also use Avira Antivir. Good day, endo!

[endorush]

I scrapped Kaspersky Anti-Virus trial and got Kaspersky Internet security. I'm running it with MalwareBytes realtime with no conflicts (i had to exclude several items of course, but it's stable now).

I schedule scan's to run pretty much hourly while I'm at work and sleeping. Why not? It's not like I'm scrapped for resources while I'm not at the computer. Realtime updates (5 mins) and Flash Scan after update.

My computer is 3 years old, and I'm running both these programs with unnoticeable performance hits.

Satisfied customer as of right now.