Computer savy folks, whats a solid Anti-virus program? - Page 2

Nitrox · 07-11-07, 03:30

Just buy a mac

On Windows, I've had the best luck with Kapersky. As stated before, it might miss something here or there but it used the least amount of system resources and it doesn't take over your computer in the process (if you've tried completely uninstalling Norton you will know what I mean).

Did I mention you should buy a mac? (they also run windows now but you'll still need to use an anti-virus on the windows side of things (of course you'll never boot into windows again after you get one))

atticdog · 07-11-07, 04:03

avast works great

Sherman8r44 · 07-11-07, 08:03

I've had great success with AVG Free, but I can't really compare to its competitors.

artikxscout · 07-12-07, 03:21

I love Kaspersky When i had it, sad that it expired for me, but in order of preference, i'd go with kaspersky, nod32, and then trend micro. nod32 runs the fastest.

ZoneAlarm is still one of the best firewall software.

rjstaaf · 07-12-07, 10:46

I am sure I will get flamed for this but I have had pretty good luck with Symantec over the years. The dark years were the NIS products where Symantec started with the integrated suite concept. I run Norton 360 now on all of my Windows workstations and it is nowhere near the resource hog that NIS was.

I have not looked at all of the free security suites out there but I think what gives Symantec the biggest headache is the application control that it uses, not many of the other suites do that. Symantec has the CCapp program which is a proxy for applications. Every app has to go through that program to do anything. This does cause some overhead. As I said though Norton 360 has come a long way and I don't notice a problem with it on any of my current machines and none of them are state of the art by any means.

Screw Microsoft and Apple, the future is Linux

BlackElantraGT · 07-12-07, 11:30

I'm sure Norton has improved drastically of the years, but I quit using them long ago because it became a system hog. What really sealed the deal for me though was when I couldn't uninstall one of their products to install the newest version. Sometimes when something leaves a bad taste in your mouth, it takes awhile before you want to try it again. Unfortunately for Symantec, they have really strong competition, some that are even free to use. Unless they gave away the software for free, I don't ever see myself going back to using their products.

rjstaaf · 07-12-07, 11:59

What has kept me with Norton/Symantec over the years are features that weren't and still do not appear to be available in the free versions. One is the web filtering to keep the kids off of bad internet. These days I have a dedicated machine that runs a Linux based firewall and one of its features is web filtering.

Another feature is email spam filtering, seems that also is not generally offered in the free versions.

Norton 360 now has a backup feature. It will automatically backup user files to an online source or a local resource.

There have been bumps along the way but as I said, I have not had any major issues that I was not able to quickly solve. I was very close recently to switching when Norton 360 would not start on any of my machines but it turned out to be a Microsoft update that was to blame rather than a Symantec issue.

I totally agree though, when you get burned by software you tend to stay away...

pgp · 07-12-07, 07:43

If you pay for a major virus program once, you can get pretty good deals the following year through rebates. Usually they want a owners manual page or cd etc. I have been getting Norton products for years at low cost or free. I see this with all major players through a competitive and other rebate deal.

xtremekustomz · 07-12-07, 08:24

Spybot is awful. I used it and it found 4 problems. I downloaded Spysweeper and it found 94 just after I ran spybot. You have to pay for it but I haven't found anything any better as far as spyware goes. And you are going to have spyware on your system. That is what usually slows everything down.

WilliamHBonney · 07-12-07, 09:04

Avast is nice but it doesnt get everything.

BlackElantraGT · 07-12-07, 09:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by xtremekustomz

Spybot is awful. I used it and it found 4 problems. I downloaded Spysweeper and it found 94 just after I ran spybot. You have to pay for it but I haven't found anything any better as far as spyware goes. And you are going to have spyware on your system. That is what usually slows everything down.

I haven't found a free spyware program that can get everything. Between Spybot, Spywareblaster, and Ad-aware, it catches anything that a commercial program would find, if not better. The best part is none of these programs are system hogs.

The same thing goes with program suites. It might be strong with one thing (say anti-virus protection) but weak with malware/spyware or vice versa.

The free software works just almost as good as the paid subscription programs, as long as you keep the definitions up to date and actually do system scans like you're supposed to. Whenever I fix someone's computer, almost always their antivirus is out of date or they're not even running any kind of protection.

kpounds · 07-12-07, 09:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by WilliamHBonney

Avast is nice but it doesnt get everything.

When I looked at AV Comparative's test, Avast was very high in detection rates. None will get everything all the time, but some are definitely better than others.

Another good idea is to double-check your AV with an online virus scanner. Many companies now offer this for free, including the new
....<drum roll>....NOD32!!

List of free Online Virus scanners