Looking for Anti virus suggestions

[Masherbrum]

I found AVG to be a "virus as well".   Talk about difficult to Uninstall.   

[Skuzzy]

AVG is not all that great, but just about anything is a cut above Norton/McAfee.

[Masherbrum]

AVG is not all that great, but just about anything is a cut above Norton/McAfee.

I agree with you.

[Denholm]

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).

PCTools makes some great products. I don't know much about Threatfire and AV, yet their Spyware Doctor application is great at sniffing out hidden bugs.

I would buy Eset Smart Security 4.

[Krusty]

I found AVG to be a "virus as well".   Talk about difficult to Uninstall.   

AVG has been steadily growing more and more into bloatware and nag-ware. Back in version 6 and 7, it was okay, but they're adding more and more processes, constant ad banners to get the full software on the program home screen, and once they hit a certain point you can't get new definitions/etc without upgrading to the "new" version... So, you can't keep version 7, for example, because you eventually are forced to upgrade to 7.5, then 8.0, then 8.5...

Quite annoying. Like ICQ and Winamp back in the day, started out quite compact then seriously took a wrong turn.

I've recently moved away from AVG because of these long-escalating issues. Trying Avast, may move to nod32 eventually.

[Jayhawk]

My McAfee is soon to be replaced with something else.  I was not aware of how it affected your computer (until now) but I recently had a bad experience with it.  I got a trojan on my computer a few weeks ago and it shut down McAfee, it was completely useless.  I was able to get a free program installed and it removed the virus with ease.

[Yossarian]

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.

I was reading reviews on pcmag.com of the latest Norton product, it had an excellent review - IIRC it said that the performance issues are basically gone now, and that it had the best detection rate of anything tested (don't quote me on this, though ).

EDIT:

My McAfee is soon to be replaced with something else.  I was not aware of how it affected your computer (until now) but I recently had a bad experience with it.  I got a trojan on my computer a few weeks ago and it shut down McAfee, it was completely useless.  I was able to get a free program installed and it removed the virus with ease.

I'm trying to find a replacement for McAfee too at the moment...

[Denholm]

The newer Norton is indeed better at detecting. It has not, however, cleaned up its act of embedding itself into the system in such a way that it cannot be removed.

Talk to Llama, he actually tested NOD32 against Norton 2009 just last year. He can tell you much more about it.

[TequilaChaser]

for giggles.......an if people want to really see how their anti-virus or all-in-one security programs measure up..... and I am wondering what it cost them to buy the top spot for Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2010 ?

http://www.av-comparatives.org/home  <--- check out all the different summary reports ( if you are in to that sort of thing )



or check out this site:

http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2009/12/av-testorg_releases_real-world.php

heheh, this second weblink did not have ESET included, because ( my opinion ) they already knew it would beat all the others out  

edit: and a 3rd test results website:
http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge/results.php  if you can believe what you read on the net



anyhows.....this is all just a lil funning around.... I am sticking with my ESS 4

[Ghosth]

Threatfire is very good in my opinion.

Very small, easy to configure, sits quietly in the background and when a virus trys to do something locks it before it can do it. Then tells you about it. I've run it on 3 systems at default sensitivity for over 2 years now.  In that time I only had it let a virus get past it once. And that was probably my fault as I had the auto updates turned off.

[Tigger29]

I've been using Avast for a long time.. except for about a year not too long ago I was using Symantec (Norton) Corporate A/V after finding it on a disk I got from back when I was in school...

Symantec Corporate worked great with very low overhead but keep in mind this is completely different than Retail versions of Norton.  I had to switch back to Avast though after installing win7 as that old version of Symantec isn't compatible.

The thing about Avast is you have to disable VRDB (Virus Recovery Database) as it is kind of like System Restore... just eats up resources.  It's supposed to help you fix things after an infection occurs.  Personally if I can't fix an infection then I'm just going to reinstall windows.  Anything 'critical' I keep backed up anyway.

To be honest though, I've never had to fix an infection on my systems... but I do fix a lot for friends and family... especially my dad he's king at screwing up his system LOL.

[Krusty]

The thing about Avast is you have to disable VRDB (Virus Recovery Database) as it is kind of like System Restore...

That's a good point. As a new switcher to Avast, I noticed that RIGHT away, and shut if off. Very much like Windows "indexing" for file searches. It's a "must shut off" for me.

[AKDogg]

I found Webroot Spysweeper with antivirus works very well and is very low on resource usage.  It even has a game mode that not disables the scanner but lets the game access files without it interfering.

[DREDIOCK]

My McAfee is soon to be replaced with something else.  I was not aware of how it affected your computer (until now) but I recently had a bad experience with it.  I got a trojan on my computer a few weeks ago and it shut down McAfee, it was completely useless.  I was able to get a free program installed and it removed the virus with ease.

Didnt happen to be the Malware Defense virus was it?

My nephew called me over the weekend because he got this and the less then two months old Nortons (which I specifically told him not to get to begin with) not only wouldnt remove it. But wouldnt even run to remove it.

After about 10 min on the phone with him I told him he'd just be better off bringing it over here and leave it overnight so that I would have a working computer handy to DL any files I might need to get rid of it for him.

He tried deleting files to get rid of it but only ended up making it more difficult to find
To rid him of it I first had to finally get it to boot up in safe mode
then on my machine I had to DL, on my machine,then tranfer over to his machine and run this. (god I love flash drives)
To end the processes that belong to Malware Defense
http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/grinler/rkill.com

Then and only then would it let me install and run
Malwarebytes Anti Maleware. Which I ran twice to get rid of everything

Full instructions to help with this and a host of other things at
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-malware-defense.

Very helpful site.

Then uninstalled Nortons and installed NOD32 trial, ran that. Amazing how much smoother his machine ran just from switching the two out. It was a noticeable difference.

Ran that to make sure he was clean. Cleaned up some of the services he had going, mostly just switching from automatic to manual, got rid of the 4 separate toolbars he had going in his browser, Went into MSConfig and cleaned some of that up. AOL, Quicktime, etc all those thing he doesnt need running at startup.

Now his machine probably runs better now then when he brought it home from the store.

When he came to pick it up he thanked me and asked if he could do anything for me to repay the favor.
"Yea, throw Nortons in the garbage And pay for ESET before the trial period ends....Returning my collapsible picnic bench you borrowed 2 years ago would be nice too." LOL

[hyster]

i installed microsofts security essentials the other weeks after using avg internet security for over a year.
the reviews i read for microsofts were good so i gave it a try. so far is picked up a lot of trojons and stuff (i do a lot of downloading) and picks up on dodgy sites as well.

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/software/utilities/anti-malware-software/microsoft-security-essentials-640587/review?artc_pg=1

but seeing as its microsoft product i still have my doubts about it, so would be nice to get a few other opinions.