Looking for Anti virus suggestions

[PFactorDave]

Decided to set my teenage daughter up with a computer of her own, so she'll stay away from my gaming machine...  Anyway, I'm looking for opinions and suggestions concerning anti virus/anti malware software.  I don't want to have to spend time fixing her machine when she screws it up...   

[Skuzzy]

Avoid McAfee and Norton like they are viruses.  They are!

ESET's NOD32 seems to be winning the battle.  www.eset.com

[TequilaChaser]

I concur either ESET's NOD32 or go full tilt and Install ESET's Smart Security 4 Home Edition for everything ( Anti-Virus Anti-Spyware/Malware, Firewall, Email Client Protection )

[Dragon]

Install ESET's Smart Security 4 Home Edition for everything ( Anti-Virus Anti-Spyware/Malware, Firewall, Email Client Protection )

+1

[Masherbrum]

I concur either ESET's NOD32 or go full tilt and Install ESET's Smart Security 4 Home Edition for everything ( Anti-Virus Anti-Spyware/Malware, Firewall, Email Client Protection )

ESET SS4 here.   Look no further.

[BluTrain]

I concur either ESET's NOD32 or go full tilt and Install ESET's Smart Security 4 Home Edition for everything ( Anti-Virus Anti-Spyware/Malware, Firewall, Email Client Protection )

+1 low resource utilization, easy to use, regular updates

[Ghastly]

Decided to set my teenage daughter up with a computer of her own, so she'll stay away from my gaming machine...  Anyway, I'm looking for opinions and suggestions concerning anti virus/anti malware software.  I don't want to have to spend time fixing her machine when she screws it up...   

I speak from experience here - a 17 year old can manage to infect a system no matter how good the AV on it is.  So make sure that you have a good fall-back plan for dealing with an infection that can't be (easily) removed. (i.e. backups, etc.)

<S>
 

[BaldEagl]

Avoid McAfee and Norton like they are viruses.  They are!

I'm curious why you keep saying that Norton and McAfee are viruses.  Please explain.

Definitions of computer virus on the Web:

virus: a software program capable of reproducing itself and usually capable of causing great harm to files or other programs on the same computer ...
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the owner. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus

: A program which can be transmitted between computers via networks (especially the Internet) or removable storage such as CDs, USB drives, floppy disks, etc., generally without the knowledge or consent of the recipient. ...
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/computer_virus

A dangerous computer program with the characteristic feature of being able to generate copies of itself, and thereby spreading. Additionally most computer viruses have a destructive payload that is activated under certain conditions. ...
www.datarecoverydoctor.co.uk/data-recovery-dictionary.html

A computer virus is a piece of code that is secretly introduced into a system in order to corrupt it or destroy data. Often viruses are hidden in other programs or documents and when opened, the virus is let loose.
https://www.fnb.co.za/legallinks/securitycentre/terms.html

is a self-replicating computer program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents. ...
atlantean.wordpress.com/computerinternet-terms/

A program that can infect other programs by modifying them to include a possibly evolved copy of itself.
www.geodiswilson.com/en/Global_tools/Logistics_Dictionary/C/

Programming code created as a prank or as a malicious action that secretly affects other programs and causes unwanted consequences.
my.uen.org/mydocuments/downloadfile

A virus is a software program designed to infect, destroy or interfere with a computer or software program.
www.spywareremoversreviews.or g/guide/ch10/chapter10.html

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I'm curious why you keep saying that Norton and McAfee are viruses.  Please explain.

Maybe because they make a false sense of security while hogging down major system resources? Not being able to fully uninstall them once theyre installed on the system?

Maybe because at least Norton used to be so buggy that virus makers actually targeted it as route to infect computers? I'm sure there are many other reasons aswell.

[Skuzzy]

If you knew exactly what Norton and McAfee were doing you would understand why I call them viruses.  They replace system files with thier own files which effects every single application on the computer, and not in a good way.

The regular uninstaller will not undo the damage they do.  The only way to truly revert back to what your computer was before those programs are installed is to re-install the operating system.

Do they warn you of the harm they are going to do to your computer when you install them?  Do they tell you the un-installer really does not undo what damage was done at install time?  McAfee used to require ActiveX to be enabled, which is one of the primary delivery mechanisms for viruses.

Most viruses are easier to remove than McAfee or Norton is.

[TilDeath]

I'm curious why you keep saying that Norton and McAfee are viruses.  Please explain.

Definitions of computer virus on the Web:

virus: a software program capable of reproducing itself and usually capable of causing great harm to files or other programs on the same computer ...
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the owner. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus

: A program which can be transmitted between computers via networks (especially the Internet) or removable storage such as CDs, USB drives, floppy disks, etc., generally without the knowledge or consent of the recipient. ...
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/computer_virus

A dangerous computer program with the characteristic feature of being able to generate copies of itself, and thereby spreading. Additionally most computer viruses have a destructive payload that is activated under certain conditions. ...
www.datarecoverydoctor.co.uk/data-recovery-dictionary.html

A computer virus is a piece of code that is secretly introduced into a system in order to corrupt it or destroy data. Often viruses are hidden in other programs or documents and when opened, the virus is let loose.
https://www.fnb.co.za/legallinks/securitycentre/terms.html

is a self-replicating computer program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents. ...
atlantean.wordpress.com/computerinternet-terms/

A program that can infect other programs by modifying them to include a possibly evolved copy of itself.
www.geodiswilson.com/en/Global_tools/Logistics_Dictionary/C/

Programming code created as a prank or as a malicious action that secretly affects other programs and causes unwanted consequences.
my.uen.org/mydocuments/downloadfile

A virus is a software program designed to infect, destroy or interfere with a computer or software program.
www.spywareremoversreviews.or g/guide/ch10/chapter10.html

A Virus does not have to be malicious.  As time goes by new "words" are used in place of virus such as "spyware" "adware" etc etc.  Norton and McAfee, once installed on a system can not be fully removed by the average computer user without a full OS re-install, this is similar to a Virus although not malicious but full removal is very hard for the normal system user.

TD

[BaldEagl]

I was just curious.

As you probably already know I've used McAfee for years and use it now because I get it free from Comcast.  The older product was a PITA as were the earlier versions of Norton (I haven't used Norton in over a decade).

I was just checking my system resources on my old 650 Mhz PIII laptop and the McAfee Network Agent occasionally bounced to 2-5% CPU useage.  That translates to an occasional 0.4-1.0% CPU useage on my game machine (3.2 Ghz)  Memory useage for the entire McAfee suite is 66,256K with the System Shield accounting for 45,232K of that so that accounts for 25% of my total memory (256 Mb).  On my game machine with 4 Gb of memory it only represents 1.5% memory useage.  That's not bad at all IMO but I don't have anything to compare that against.

I've neven known McAfee to replicate itself or to perform maliciously.  The older versions used to cause install problems with some applications but I haven't run into that in years.  The newer versions are pretty tweakable in that you can customize them in a variety of ways to minimize footprint if you want to.  I just leave the full suite running at all times on all my machines with the exceptions of auto-updates and the reporting viruses to McAfee thing.  Even on my gaming machine I never notice any adverse effects while gaming and I've run games including AH with the suite turned on and with it turned off.

I did use AVG for a while.  I liked it until they updated it and it became a PITA.  I also used Avast for a while and hated it.  It was like watching a turtle race when it scanned.  I suppose if I actually had to pay for something, based on recommendations I'd go with ESET but for free McAfee works fine.

Anyway... again, just curious.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I've neven known McAfee to replicate itself or to perform maliciously. 

Ever heard of marketing? OEM deals? Same thing

[1701E]

Since the subject is up...how good is PCTools Threatfire and AV?  Just curious since I've been using it and had no troubles, buy ya never know...
I do love the fact it only uses 9,400K Memory (average, part of it fluxes between 700-950).

[Krusty]

Forget the virus argument, Norton and McAfee simply dont work well. I've since upgraded all of my family's computers to AVG or other "better" AVs than Norton and McAfee (which usually come free on computers so we used to use 'em til they ran out). However, on almost every occasion after "removing" the bloatware and installing something new, 1) the new stuff scans and finds multiple bad things that the old stuff never picked up on, and 2) can fix the file that's been quarantined for a year because Norton can't delete, move, or fix, the file in question.

They're incompetent as far as AV goes, that ALONE is why you should avoid them like the plague. All the viral qualities they posess are just many many other reasons why not to use them.


P.S. Yes eventually all the PCs over the years got reformats, last traces of prior AV gone totally, no worries about that!