Héctor Quiroga: Get the best anti-virus you can find

As a Colombian immigrant, I find the Internet offers a great opportunity to communicate with my family in South America at practically no cost. All I have to do is log in to my MSN account, turn on my microphone and Webcam, and there I am, communicating with my father in Bogotá. We can see each other and talk for a long time. We can also share pictures, videos or documents. Live is great, right? Wrong.

There I was talking to him, when an MSN Messenger message pops up. It was my dad sending me a file called photos.zip (a compressed file). I opened the file, anxious to see the pictures my dad was sending. It was then when my computer screen went blue and the computer shut off.

My dad is not the type to play jokes or to send a virus. But I didn’t worry much, because I was fully protected by AVG (which stands for Anti-Virus Guard), a widely used, much-praised, free antivirus protection. That’s what I thought, anyway.

I called my dad directly via cell phone and asked him about the pictures he sent. He told me he never sent me any files.

I rebooted my PC and Windows went directly to a recovery session. After 30 minutes, AVG reported I had been attacked by a Trojan virus and that not all my files were recovered. At this point, I panicked.

I was finally able to log in, but my settings weren’t the same. I opened the AVG settings and went directly to the test center. My version of AVG was up-to-date. Then I checked the event log and was informed that AVG identified the attacker as the Mimail.C “worm,” a type of virus that copies itself onto your computer and uses your data to send out spam or cause other problems.

In my case, it also eliminated all files with the extensions doc (Microsoft word documents), xls (Excel Spreadsheets), mp3 (music), wav (sounds), and jpg (pictures).

I knew I was in deep trouble. Much of what seemed lost included our tax information, all my school work, more than $900 worth of iTunes songs and my wedding pictures. I was not sure how to tell my wife that a virus had eaten our wedding pictures.

I went to the AVG resource center and the only “solution” to the virus was to upgrade to the AVG Internet Security 8.0 version. Its publisher, Grisoft, said it didn’t provide any online tech support for the free version I was using.

The Grisoft site said that version would restore all my files for only $50.99.

I purchased the upgraded version and with a click of a button I was hopeful that I would save my school work and possibly my marriage. AVG came back with a very nice banner telling me that all my wav, xls and doc documents were fixed and to click next for more.

The next screen told me AVG was unable to fix the jpg and mp3 files and that these files were quarantined on my hard drive. In other words, no wedding pictures. I called the toll-free customer support number, and after 20 minutes, it was apparent that the AVG people couldn’t help me.

I looked for a fix by considering antivirus software like Norton to correct the situation. For an extra $79.99 (yearly license) the Norton 360 product seemed to be the best solution. Before making my decision, I looked around for other antivirus software, like McAfee Total Protection 2008, but after reading the reviews on Amazon, I was discouraged to get this product, even though it was $30 cheaper.

Norton’s reviews and Web site expressly said its main product would fix this specific virus. The Norton reviews were not much better, but I was desperate. (It was also clear the trial version of Norton 360 would not take care of my problem). I decided to spend the $80.

After downloading and installing Norton 360, the software fixed all the files and restored them. I was able to get all my data back without any more issues.

Truthfully, I was disappointed in AVG’s performance. I got what I paid for: a free antivirus equals virtually no protection. Even so, the upgraded, full AVG was unable to restore all my files as Grisoft’s promotions claimed.

I learned my lesson. Never trust a file you’re not expecting to receive. Even if it appears to be legitimate, ask first before double-clicking.

And don’t go cheap on antivirus protection. Remember: penny wise, pound foolish.