Anti Virus Software

Graeme · 12 Jun 2006

I need to purchase anti virus software and was wondering, from your personal experience, what is the best one out there. I currently use the free AVG version but am thinking of getting Norton or McAfee...well I dont know any more after them!

Any help greatly appreciated, thanks

gcol · 12 Jun 2006

I hate Norton - it slows down your machine. Currently I'm using Trend PC Cillin and although the antivirus is excellent, I've had some hassle with the firewall. Sometimes it starts and sometimes it doesn't. I gave up with Trend's support team and now use Zonealarm for my firewall alonside Trend antivirus with no trouble.
When my subscription runs out I'm gonna get Kaspersky - that's supposed to be the best one.

JohnD · 12 Jun 2006

I've been using Norton for years, generally happy with it though I recently got a free Norton Internet Security with a new barebones PC and Outlook Express is now very slow to respond to keystrokes; that might be connected, or it could be something else, I can't tell.

I find I get very few virus alerts now; it might be because I keep my email addresses out of sight. I only get spam on an address I foolishly provided to the members' page of a club; the Webmaster has now retired to France and I can't get it taken off.

gcol · 12 Jun 2006

I stand corrected.
http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

Looks like Bitdefender is cheaper and is slightly better than Kaspersky.
http://www.bitdefender.com/

Bear in mind that these two are antivirus only (not firewall).

Steve · 12 Jun 2006

I am also a happy norton user. Currently using internet security 2004, still works fine. 2006 has some newer features, but I find it a bit fiddlier to use. All have auto updates. Subscription costs about £30 a year IIRC. First year included. (Although I found that when i reformatted my PC, the subscription renewed when I re-installed. worth remembering

)

Graeme · 12 Jun 2006

Your link to that top ten reviews is fantastic gcol! That has every answer I was looking for, thanks alot. I see Norton is well down the list as well, I may well go for Bitdefender if they sell it here. Interesting site that as well, have saved that in my favourites, cheers.

Thanks to everyone else for replies as well

MalcMJM · 20 Jun 2006

I have been using AVG professional for some time now and very happy with it, it is also so much cheaper than many others and you get a 2 year subscription with them

djinn · 1 Jul 2006

I use Bitdefender internet security,includes 12months updates less than a tenner

Spark123 · 1 Jul 2006

I have mcafee (3 license) security suite to cover two desktops and a laptop. It just sits there in the background doing its own thing. My only gripe was the privacy is a pain in the backside and I only used it once before I got annoyed and uninstalled it. Spamkiller doesn't work with AOL so I paid for two things I will never use, AOL just seems to bin all of my emails anyway!! IIRC mcafee is about £90 p/a for the 3 machines or £50 p/a for one, sometimes if you wait for the PCworld sale it is £25.

Percy Vere · 5 Jul 2006

I had F-secure 2006. I uninstalled it last night as it slowed my PC right down to less than a crawl. Previously I've used Norton (slowed and took over the PC), which needed professionally uninstalling and AVG (stopped working for some reason).

SteveStrat335 · 9 Jul 2006

AntiVir by Avira is the best of the freebies in terms of low system resources & high detection.

It is an AV only, although they are beta testing with a combined firewall at the moment.

http://www.freeav.com/

PS to un-install Norton, you need the special tools from their website

Softus · 9 Jul 2006

If you want my view I detest both Norton and McAfee; and I use the word 'detest' very carefully (and rarely) indeed.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been called upon to unpick one of those two products when they've gone wrong, or when their browser-based interface is all scr*wed up by an Internet Explorer fault, or when a customer has been forced to upgrade to the latest version running on a rather old (but otherwise fine) machine and finds that the fingers that are stuck into every pie on the machine slows it down to a crawl.

If you liked AVG then why not just pay for it?

NeilyH · 2 Aug 2006

In my own opinion, their is no best anti virus out there because they all work differently in the way they detect modified headers, stubs and entry points into an .exe. Each a/v company has a different engine for scanning files on your pc of which some are total s@it. Have a look at a few as posted above, because it takes a virus writer less than 5 minutes to slide a new virus past the companies if he uses a packer which is private. Simply put, he compresses the .exe file and adjusts the entry point into the .exe file and the anti viruses use known databases for the viruses etc. I could waffle on about heuristics and the sort but i have already waffled enough

My own preference is NOD32 anti virus which catches more virii in the wild than any other, and its very hard to get anything past it.

Neil

Hotwire · 3 Aug 2006

Ive used Kaspersky in the past and its a nice piece of kit, nothing got past it. I had adaware and spybot installed but when i ran them there was never anything found. I think i had use extended defenitions selected in Kaspersky which covered the ad ware crap. The only gripe i had with it was it would slow some apps down if they were searching through the hard disk. Saying that though, it was possible to disable kaspersky for various lengths of time via the system tray icon.

empip · 4 Aug 2006

Don't forget folks some of the stuff found by your malware scanner in, for example, your registry, may merely be a 'black' list placed there by another anti-malware program.

EG.

HKU\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains\

When I run 'SpyBot search and destroy', Immunise function plus ticking for 'Permanent blocking of bad addresses'
The above area of my Win98 registry has :- 'Keys added: 2324' A lot of entries !!
Other Malware checkers have picked up on some (not all) those entries and offered to delete as 'bad stuff' ... If not careful the notso merry-go-round begins !

Been using this for ages... very useful..

[url=http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=965]LINK to Regshot[/url] said:
RegShot 1.72
is a small registry compare utility that allows you to quickly take a snapshot of your registry and then compare it with a second one - done after doing system changes or installing a new software product. The changes report can be produced in text or HTML format and contains a list of all modifications that have taken place between snapshot1 and snapshot2. In addition, you can also specify folders (with sub filders) to be scanned for changes as well.

Anti Virus Software

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