VIPRE : Java Glossary

An anti-virus program. It comes in five home versions, plus a business version for 5+ machines. The pricing makes no sense. The pro versions are cheaper than the standard. The Internet versions cost the same as the standard. standard VIPRE AntiVirus In addition, each year you must pay a fee to continue receiving updates. In addition the basic features, with the Internet version get autopatch (automatic security patches to installed software), firewall, email spam blocking and dangerous website blocking (similar to Firefox).

Advantages

• It was top-rated by PCAntivirusReviews.com.
• It installs without asking any questions at all. This makes it suitable for novices.
• Contrary to a review I read, there is nothing wrong with the application’s appearance. It is professionally done.
• By default, it checks for new virus definitions every 30 minutes and automatically installs them.

Disadvantages

• Though they advertise it has exceptionally low overhead for dynamic checking, I found it slowed my work to a crawl. The work I do involves large numbers of file copies and updating of small files, which is not typical of the average user. A smart checker would not bother to check copies since if the source had no virus, then the target could not either. I had to turn dynamic checking off.
• The firewall, by default blocks everything without comment. Your communications apps just stop working without comment. You have to look at the log to discover what it has been blocking and unblock it. This makes the deluxe version unsuitable for novices.
• It does not give you the option of choosing the drive to install to. It always installs on C:.
• I believe my Chrome browser has been compromised by malware that keeps asking me to fill in surveys. It did not detect a problem. To track that problem is why I installed it.
• By default it scans on every read and copy. I turned this off. It is excessive and really slows things down.
• It blocked the website padmanager.org, claiming it was dangerous. I am pretty sure it is not. To access it, I could not simply override the warning, I had to go into the firewall configuration and mark it as an exception. But after I had done that, the screen allowing me to report the mistake had disappeared with no alternate means to report the error.
• It said that it protected me from 59 websites in the last hour. This is nonsense. I did not even visit that many websites. I did not tell me what those websites were at any time.
• It crashed my machine so badly even Ctrl-Alt-Del did not work and SATA (Serial ATA) bios was scrambled on boot and something weird done so one of my DVD (Digital Video Disc) drives was not recognised. It erased Bare Metal boot manager. That was the last straw. I uninstalled it.