Antivirus protection recommendations welcome

[angelgirl]

I'm due to renew my subscription for Antivirus Protection.
Would welcome any suggestions/recommendations with what to choose.
Currently I use Norton. I have very little knowledge of this so any advice welcome.

Thanks,

Olivia

[paularoid]

Free ones,.... in this order

Avira AntiVir

avast!

AVG

[DaveM]

I have been using AVG for years with good results. The last couple of upgrades, however, really slow down my computer, especially when running a full scan. Is Antivir any better in this regard?

I also used a thing called Threatfire for a while. It is supposed to catch viruses by their behavior, rather than comparing a process against a database. It did in fact work rather well, but generated so many false alarms that I finally got rid of it.

[sharoney]

i use avast the free version and am happy with it.

[Amy in Vermont]

The latest upgrade of AVG Free crashed Outlook on my machine, so my e-mail is currently unprotected locally. Not really a worry for me, but others might want to consider this.

I have lond been a proponent of Norton/Symantec, which I can now get free from Comcast. Check with your ISP to see if they offer anything.

[Roady]

The last few years I've used McAfee because I received it free from my employer. When I got a new laptop recently it had a two month free trial of Norton so I decided to once again give Norton a try. In the past I've found it miss viruses other software was able to pick up and was just too slow and cumbersome. Even had I liked this new Norton I wouldn't have bought it because of their intrusive pop ups ever day wanting me to buy this or that and telling me my free version expired in ____ days.

I get a newsletter called Windows Secrets for about 10 bucks a year with some good tips. One article by Fred Langa, who some of you might know when he ran his own Langalist newsletter, was about the free Microsoft Security Essentials software. He summarizes his testing of the program on 9 machines:
By Fred Langa

After half a year of real-life testing, Microsoft's Security Essentials anti-malware application is batting 1.000.

All nine test computers — a mix of Windows 7, Vista and XP systems (including two portables with 20,000 miles of travel) — remain malware- and virus-free

He did not recommend it for super advanced users because you really can't do a lot of tweaking with this program.

In the 2 months I used Norton it found nothing! I find that hard to believe with the traveling I do on the internet. MSE found 3 trojans on my machine since I installed in last week.

Just my 2 cents.

Roady

[paularoid]

First off I should have included Micro$oft Security Essentials in the list (probably at either the number one or two position) but more -EXTREMELY- important info on that later.

A little background on -my- experiences with the "free" AV programs out there are probably in order:
First I used AVG for a number of years and was extremely happy and pleased with it. AVG got a little full of themselves (in my opinion) and started to cut back on the "free" portions of their program and it started to become a resource hog on my system. Others mileage may vary on that though so to each their own. At the time I was still on Win98 and WinME and AVG refused to work with anything earlier than XP. I was left with no choice so I then tried out, liked, and did very well with avast! avast! still puts out and keeps definitions for an older version in addition to their newer version which is "5". Version 5 doesn't or didn't in my case work well with older versions of Windows and it crashed my system a couple of times. I then switched over to WinXP (quite happily) but I didn't go back to avast!. Instead I went with Avira AntiVir and I've been extremely happy with it. It gets better reviews than many of the commercial AV progs.

I never gave the Micro$oft suite of programs much credence until recently because it was afterall from Micro$oft and they were never really in the business of virus defense. Microsoft Security Essentials now however has become one of the better ones..... but there's a catch. There's a fake one out there and you've got to be careful that you're really getting the right one. Get it directly from Microsoft or one of the leading and well-known vendors or software houses. Go to this link and read about it:
http://www.lockergnome.com/theoracle/2010/10/26/would-you-fall-for-this/

In -my- opinion for whatever that's worth if you're going to PAY for a commercial program you'd be best off with the ESET NOD32. I've seen it and tried it out for a trial period and I've always tried to stay up on this kind of stuff and ESET NOD32 seems to be the best all around and over all over a lengthy period of time from a number of sources. If I were going to pay for one this is the one I'd pay for. It's the least demanding of resources of any that I've tried..... and I've tried a lot of them. It doesn't give you any crap.... it just works. It's not pretty,... but I don't need pretty for an AV program. I need something that works and NOD32 works.

Dave, in my opinion and experience AntiVir is less demanding than AVG. Your mileage may vary however so don't shoot me if I'm wrong. Also Dave, in my opinion Threatfire is an excellent idea but when I've talked to other people that used it they've had the same experience with it that you have and/or it has proved to be a real resource hog so they removed it.

Sharoney, avast is good. Stay with it. It's better than most at protecting you from "drive-by" infections. I know that from experience. It's better than AntiVir for that but AntiVir is less resource demanding on my equipment so I sweep up with Malware Bytes every so often so I don't usually worry about the drive-by infections much.

Roady, I've been keeping up with Fred Langa since before he joined up with Woody at Windows Secrets. He used to put out "The Langa List" and ran it for ages until the merge. He won't steer you wrong. He's a good guy and he's got his head on straight about all things. Pay attention to him and follow his lead. He speaks truth. His recommendation of Microsoft Security Essentials is the only one that I'd need if I were shopping for a good AV program. I may decide to switch over to that as soon as my (free) registration for Avira runs out but that'll be a while.

For EXCELLENT reporting on almost ALL of the major AV programs go here to "AV-Comparatives":
http://www.av-comparatives.org/
They run them all through exhaustive tests and report truthfully about all the do's, don'ts, ifs, whats, and wheretofors about all of them in a completely independent and unbiased manner. They are truthfully and completely neutral in their evaluations which are EXTENSIVE!

Something that's related but not strictly for antivirus activities is anti-spyware types of things. I recommend Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. I used to recommend Spybot Search & Destroy but they've gotten long in the tooth and they don't update as often as I'd like and therefor it isn't as effective as it once was. Malwarebytes is updated numerous times per day and it's smaller and faster is -the- end last resort for many disasterous situations.

ALSO - A good deal of my computer work for other people involves the removal of Norton/Symantec and McAfee AV programs because for many people they just cause too many problems. I say that if you're paying for it and it works well without any problems then by all means stay with it. If you're having problems with either one of them then dump them and don't look back. Both of those programs embed themselves so tightly and deeply into your system that they can be -extremely- difficult to remove and often require the use of special tools just to wrench your system free from their clutches. The choice is yours but that's my opinion. I have absolutely no use whatsoever for either of them.

Again,... on -ALL- aforementioned items... YOUR mileage may vary. :rolleyes:

[angelgirl]

Thanks for all this information. Its very helpful.
Now decisions.... decisions....... decisions.......:confused:

O x

[aforeyego]

paularoid wrote:

In -my- opinion for whatever that's worth if you're going to PAY for a commercial program you'd be best off with the ESET NOD32. I've seen it and tried it out for a trial period and I've always tried to stay up on this kind of stuff and ESET NOD32 seems to be the best all around and over all over a lengthy period of time from a number of sources. If I were going to pay for one this is the one I'd pay for. It's the least demanding of resources of any that I've tried..... and I've tried a lot of them. It doesn't give you any crap.... it just works. It's not pretty,... but I don't need pretty for an AV program. I need something that works and NOD32 works.

I totally agree! NOD32 is a great AV, I have it on my PC for several years now.
1A support, 1A to all mentioned above.
My O/S: XP SP3.

[paularoid]

paularoid wrote:


I totally agree! NOD32 is a great AV, I have it on my PC for several years now.
1A support, 1A to all mentioned above.
My O/S: XP SP3.

I'll take that as a compliment to my powers of evaluation. :cool:

[aforeyego]

I'll take that as a compliment to my powers of evaluation. :cool:

you definitely deserve a http://www.smilies.4-user.de/include/Schilder/plus10.gif