Just picked this up for my teenager to replace her aging Acer.
https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/ASUS-ZenBook-UX305FA/
As I've only ran Apple products for as long as I can remember can anyone point me in the direction of a good security software.
Also which MS Word/Office package is best at the moment?
Anything else you would recommend I get on it?
Just use windows defender - don't bother paying for anti-virus.Originally Posted by pitbull666
Set her us on a normal user account and have a separate admin account to set crap being installed.
Depending on how old she is - she might get office365 free via her school or college so worth checking.
So you mean I have the admin account to stop her adding crap? If so yeah I had planned on this! She is 15 and I do trust her but I'm fully aware what kids are like and can end up adding a load of rubbish.
Windows defender does that come pre installed or do I need to get it?
As said she's 15 and on the run in to her GCSE's I haven't enquired about software via school but it something that has never been mentioned or seen offered
I'd recommend ESET Smart Security: link.
As has been pointed out, as a student it's worth getting discounted software. I did a course at my local college and got a tremendous discount on a suite of software from Adobe.
Defender should be installed.
I would also download spybot (free) and CCeaner (free) - all self explanatory
B
The zenbook is a fantastic ultra-book style laptop. SSD, fanless, light as hell, slim, 10 hour battery life... Superb for holidays, business trips, etc.... I got one last year but unfortunately SWMBO has commandeered it so I never actually get to use it (said he typing away on his old tatty Dell)! Kicks the equivalent mac into touch (just read the comparison reviews). Just remember it doesn't have a lot of drive space.
It's not even discounted - in a lot of schools, colleagues and universities it's free to students depending on what the licence the place holds.
This might be really bad advice. Microsoft does not make a very good antivirus solution. In fact, its one of the worst.
That's an interesting comparison chart, thanks. One of the things I like about ESET is that it's almost fit and forget. It just sits in the background and does...whatever it does. Other software I've used imposed serious overheads although they worked OK. They either slowed my PC down for a period as they did their thing or there were frequent pop-ups that needed attention. Is there a comparison of those aspects available, please?
Yes, Virus Bulletin, the people responsible for that graph, also test for a metric they call "Performance impact". Its a measure of the increase in time it takes to perform common tasks. ESET is ranked rather high in this aspect (11%), Lavasoft as the worst (over 2000%).
https://www.virusbulletin.com/testin...00-antimalware
Thanks for that...I've saved a link to their tests. Having looked at the results for both virus and spam, I'm not unhappy with my choice...but may have another look and comparison when it comes up for renewal.
"Which" magazine recommends AVG as a free one. I've put it on my mac and laptop. You could upgrade (of course) to a more complete package if you want. I've upgraded free for a month - and then I'll let it lapse
AVG used to be the enthusiasts' choice, but no longer. Slower and not as reliable. I paid for Kaspersky.
If you happen to be a Barclays online customer, they have an agreement with Kaspersky whereby you are eligible for a free licence - http://www.barclays.co.uk/Helpsuppor...P1242557966961
What's the date for this analysis?This might be really bad advice. Microsoft does not make a very good antivirus solution. In fact, its one of the worst.
I think it's out of date... more recent reviews place the MS product as a realistic free alternative.
See this review done in Jan 2016
http://www.alphr.com/security/6745/b...ftware-you-can
"Security Essentials has come on in leaps and bounds – it performed better than third party security software from Avast and AVG in our most recent tests. If the other features supplied by Avast or AVG appeal to you, then by all means switch, but there's no need to install anything else to boost your protection levels."
Hi Ian, the graph is dated April 2015.
Microsoft is no longer being tested by Virus Bulletin, but here is the most recent result [November 2105] from AV-Comparatives (who are very pro Windows Defender).
I'd follow this advice from the article you linked. "In our independent tests over the past two years, it [Windows Defender] has consistently allowed more malware than other free packages (and most paid-for packages as well) to slip through the cracks. Its performance has improved dramatically recently, but it hasn’t proven itself over time yet..."
Antivirus testing results are also available from West Coast Labs, ICSA Labs, Dennis Technology Labs, and AV-Test Institute, if you're interested in reading more.
As others have already mentioned, if you are with Barclays you can get Kaspersky Internet security for free for up to 2 devices. I've been doing this for the past 3 years and never had a problem. It used to be for up to 3 devices, but they changed it last year.
Also as others have already mentioned, if your daughter is a student she can get Office 365 University for £59.99 for up to 2 devices for 4 years (the plan I'm on). If she can pair up with someone and buy it together it works out to just £0.625 a month per computer. Not that expensive, and you also get 1 TB of OneDrive space. Some schools do offer some form of Office for free though, so it might be worth checking that way first.
AVG basic protection is good and free
We use it on all our work PC's and we are an IT company
I used to use AVG Free until it got annoying with all their messages, pop-ups etc. As an IT company you may be able to supress theses...any suggestions as to how a home user might do it, or has it returned to being more user-friendly, please?
Avast is also a good free anti-virus.
It's 0365 - so it's worth checking here first:Some schools do offer some form of Office for free though, so it might be worth checking that way first.
https://portal.office.com/start?sku=...0-7c6e01e6022e
before paying for it (enter any *@ac.uk address to check).
Wish I'd read all this earlier. Went out sat and paid £20 for a year of bull guard
At the risk of repeating some of what others have recommended:
- Most important of all: Set up an automated back-up solution. Depending on how much is to be backed up you could use either a Cloud based back-up, USB flash drive, external hard drive etc. but it must be automated. People get lazy and don't manually back up often enough.
- Setting her up with a User account whilst retaining control of the Admin account is secure but it's not going to allow her to install programs or make alterations without you being there to approve them - all a little too restrictive for me. Let her learn.
- Install a decent Anti-Virus or Internet Security program. Don't necessarily be driven by a free one as, trust me, the time taken to disinfect or rebuild a machine is worth far more than the cost of a good Anti-Virus program. I use both ESET Smart Security and Kaspersky Internet Security on various machines - both very good.
- Install Malwarebytes and pay for it so you can schedule updates and scans. This is about the best anti-malware program available.
PM inbound.
Last edited by Skier; 22nd February 2016 at 19:13.
She can have access to the admin account but the general user account and admin account should never be one and the same.
On free/cheap software (Not AV, that has been covered expertly by others): LibreOffice is a good alternative for MS Office and is used increasingly by governments (last I saw was the entire Italian Defense department moving 140 000 PCs over to it). It uses the open document standard (which is also the standard of the UK government, btw), and reads and writes modern MS Office formats (Word, Excel, Powerpoint). Opens various 'historic' or 'vintage' formats as well. And it's free.
For photo viewing and (not so) light editing I'd pick Faststone Image Viewer (also free), one of the best out there.
Note that both are also available as portable apps, so you can run them off a USB stick or from a single directory without installing them in Windows. Good for testing them - if you don't like the program, just nuke the directory and it's gone. Like it, get the real Windows install so it can be the preferred program for automatically opening files.
http://www.libreoffice.org
http://www.faststone.org/
Have fun.
Thanks guys some useful info :)
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