Jed’s fridge door notes (a.k.a. “so i won’t forget”)

Because I also “happen to use” Window$ for some things, I need an antivirus. I prefer my AVs to be small and unnoticeable but effective. In the strictest sense, I don’t really need it. I’m a boring old dork who doesn’t like clicking on things much. I don’t download and run programs for the heck of it. I know what apps I need to get a job done and couldn’t care less for the friendster/myspace/facebook generation’s opinion on what’s “hot and kewl”.

For the longest time my AV used to be nonexistent. Totally zero. This was during the days of the macro viruses and when we didn’t have full time net connection (aka dial-up). But now, things have changed. People around you like to play games and download things from the net without caring what site they are getting it from. Next thing you know, you’re infected and Winbloze is showing all the signs and symptoms of infection. From changing your search preferences to telling you that you can’t run Regedit because you’re not admin. Nice.

We tried AVG mainly because it’s free. After an incident wherein it let one through, I shifted to Avira.

I liked Avira from the start. Small footprint, unobtrusive and effective. No infections so far. And did I tell you that it’s free? I don’t need a full-blown security suite. I have configured my router to act as my firewall. I don’t need a firewall app that will rob me of precious memory and diskspace.

But there’s one thing about Avira that annoys me. During every update, a pop-up appears. Here’s how to disable it in Windows XP Pro:

1. Start – Run – Type “secpol.msc”
2. Click on Software Restriction Policy – go to Action (at the top) – Create New Restriction Policies
3. Right-click on Additional Rules (on the right) – Choose New Path Rule
4. Now click Browse and find the “avnotify.exe” file (C:\Program File\AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic\)
5. Make sure the security level is set to “Disallowed” and click OK.

That should suppress avnotify from giving you the pop-up window.

If you want to disable the splash screen during startup:

1. Open regedit and navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
2. double-click avgnt and add /nosplash to the end of the path (ex. /min /nosplash)