Okay beat a dead horse - Antivirus software

[Anodizer]

Antivir..  Made in Germany..  Free..  There is a pay version as well with more feature, but I'm not concerned with them..
Has never let me down in 7 years of using it..
That, along with Spyware Blaster and Spybot's Immunize AND Sunbelt Personal Firewall..  All free, all very effective..
Antivir is VERY resource friendly..  Spyware Blaster works much the same way Spybot's Immunize feature works..  
It never runs unless you run it..  And once you immunize, you close it..  Sunbelt Personal Firewall is also very resource friendly..
I've never paid for antivirus..  I can tell the Norton and McAfee are intense resource hogs and will absolutely slow your system down..
I've heard things about NOD and Kaspersky, but I've never personally used them..  If you were really wanting to pay for something,
I'd use one of those..  

People say they like AVast..  Tired it, didn't like it..  AVG is junk..  Had nothing but false positives with them..  And the viruses that did get through were never detected..
Not to mention AVG was never successful in removing any virus(in my experience)..  However, Antivir has NEVER EVER let me down..  

God Luck and Good Speed..

[cattb]

I use kaspersky love it, works great.

I use it also, used it for 3 years and starting my fourth. I gave up Norton many years ago and bounced around until I tried kaspersky. I still use Norton ghost for shadow copies.

Kaspersky does have a bit of a learning curve to begin with.

I have never tried ESET, mabe 1 day I will.

[humble]

Another NOD32 vote, only one out there worth buying...

[Bizman]

Been giving MSE a try lately. Lightweight, good reputation and free. The only thing I dislike in it is, if you don't use automatic updates, it will nag unless you change your Security Center settings.

[MADe]

For Vista and Windows 7

MSE, Microsoft Security Essentials, its free.
Vista Services Optimizer, free

[ozrocker]

I have Avast. After trying several different ones years back, it seems to do quite well. Never had an issue. better yet, It's FREE! Automatically updates, gives you option to go into game mode. Very simple to use, does not hog system.


                                                                                           <S> Oz

[TequilaChaser]

ESET SS4 ( Smart Security 4 )    for my Windows XP Pro OS partitions / HD's, I use the 32 bit version

for my Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit OS partitions/HD's I use the ESET SS4 64 bit version

very small footprint and uses very small amount of resources
( although on startup it might show as using alot if threatsense.net is turned on/enabled ie....real-time file system protection enabled at PC boot-up/turn on time..... but it is a rather quick scan and releases the resources once the bootp scan is complete -----> this is dependent on one's computer performace/speed/memory etc )

NOTE: I do not suggest anyone buying the Business version unless you absolutely need it and have a business with multiple PC's on a Server.... it can become a headache in of itself, unless you fully understand the inner workings.....

I have used NOD32 then switched to ESET SS3 then SS4 for a good while now....

hope this helps

[BluTrain]

ESET Smart Security 4 - Light weight, effective, efficient, and affordable.  If I recall, they have pretty decent pricing on multiple licenses if you have multiple computers.

[guncrasher]

For 3 puters with eset I pay less than 1 with mccaffey.


Semp

[llama]

Well, if you'd like the opinion of someone that actually tests all the major (and some minor) antivirus and security products against large sets of active viruses and spyware, and then tests framerate and CPU overhead on real-world games for a major computer magazine, then here are my brief thoughts.

The two best lightweight products are ESET NOD32 and Norton Antivirus 2010.

If you want a more detailed firewall and not much else, then ESET Smart Security 4 is the way to go. If you want still more, then Norton Internet Security 2010 is the one to get.

If you are techie and actually like getting prompted all the time by your security software, then Kaspersky is good - about as effective but more verbose.

There isn't a single free security product that I tested that was able to effectively block the common "custom-polymorphic" scamware viruses that are popular. NOT. A. SINGLE. ONE. That includes AVG, Avira, or Microsoft. There are many commercial products that fail this test too.

If you insist on being a fool and refuse to pay for security software, Avira Antivirus is the most thorough, but you should augment it with ThreatFire, which is also free. But running these two products aren't exactly lightweight.

I get all the antivirus products for free from all the vendors every year. Cost is not an issue when I pick something. With that said Norton AV and Norton IS go on my wife's computers, and ESET or Norton go on my client's computers.

Anyone who tells you, "I have X and it is fine" (where X = a security product) you really need to ask yourself,  "How does this person really know they're fine?" Most viruses are sneaky and silent - the good ones never reveal they are there to the user, so how, pray tell, would someone be able to say if their computer is fine without doing forensic testing?  The short answer is "You can't."

And how can someone really say one product is better than another without actually running them all on the same machine and doing speed and security benchmarks?

Think about it.

-Llama

[Dichotomy]

got Eset Node 32 llama... so far so good.

[Skuzzy]

Llama, you know I respect your opinion and respect you as well, but in my support role, I have had so many problems with Norton I cannot, in good faith, ever recommend it to anyone.

Some of the most irritating problems are corruption of our game files.  This occurs even if the application is disabled because Norton really does not stop scanning, they simply stop reporting.

Could this be a configuration issue with Norton?  I certainly cannot rule that out.  However, does that mean people do not understand how to configure Norton and ESET does a better job with its user interface/configuration front end?  Certainly possible.

Then I have one more bone to pick with Norton and McAfee for that matter.  Removal.  If you do not know you have to go to the WEB sites of the companies to get a special tool to remove the applications, you will be forever under thier spell.

ESET, I have had zero problems reported from anyone using it.  Everytime I deal with anyone running Nortin, I have to cringe.  It is a painful process.

[Krupinski]

I've never had a problem with Norton until 2 days ago. I picked up some malware from a website, ran a full system scan and Norton found nothing. Four hours later (after the scan) Norton detects it...

[llama]

Llama, you know I respect your opinion and respect you as well, but in my support role, I have had so many problems with Norton I cannot, in good faith, ever recommend it to anyone.

Some of the most irritating problems are corruption of our game files.  This occurs even if the application is disabled because Norton really does not stop scanning, they simply stop reporting.

Could this be a configuration issue with Norton?  I certainly cannot rule that out.  However, does that mean people do not understand how to configure Norton and ESET does a better job with its user interface/configuration front end?  Certainly possible.

Then I have one more bone to pick with Norton and McAfee for that matter.  Removal.  If you do not know you have to go to the WEB sites of the companies to get a special tool to remove the applications, you will be forever under thier spell.

ESET, I have had zero problems reported from anyone using it.  Everytime I deal with anyone running Nortin, I have to cringe.  It is a painful process.

No offense taken, Skuzzy. You know I think you're one of the Good Guys.

I understand why you don't care for Norton, but I haven't ever seen the corruption you're speaking of. That said, my test machines are in top condition and are built with good hardware, and it is fair to say you're taking care of computers that aren't. ;-) Plus, there's a situation that YOU are likely to see that I am not. Keep reading.

Removal is another sore spot I can empathize with you about. Dedicated removal tools are a royal pain, and it seems silly to me that a "normal" uninstaller can't do everything that needs to be done. The fact that even more normal utilities (like Nero, for one) now sometimes need dedicated removal tools is insane.

So why do I still like Norton, when ESET does such a great job without headaches?

The answer is Symantec's "Norton Insight." It is amazingly clever and I believe the way of the future. Here's the summary:

Right now, many virus executables are unique. Not just slightly unique, but VERY unique. In fact, some infected websites spit out unique variants of the same family of virus for every unique visitor in real time, and the number of sites doing this is growing exponentially. The variants are different enough and numerous enough that it is getting harder and harder to push out definition updates fast enough to catch up. And relatively soon, it will become impossible to do so.

So what do you do? How about this? Have all the Norton products take fingerprints of every executable they see (sort of like MD5's, but faster to compute), and regularly phone home with these fingerprints to a master database that Symantec maintains. Over time, you see the following: non-unique executables like word.exe are very common, in use by millions (or thousands, or hundreds) of users, and odds are if they aren't caught by the definitions, they aren't infected. However, if in all the millions of Norton users, a computer encounters an executable that NO ONE, or just a few dozen, have ever seen before, AND it isn't in the definition file, Norton products know to be very cautious, alert the user of the potential problem, and suggest the user allow Norton to quarantine it. 9 times out of 10, this is really the right thing to do.

All this happens almost instantaneously over your internet connection as you download new files, BTW.

Now as a software developer like yourself, regularly pushing out new versions of executables and DLLs to around 15,000 users (my guess), I can see how Norton Insight's behavior of quarantining your files for the first few AH users who download and install patches would be annoying (if not disastrous), but after the first few users, this behavior should stop.

But as a user facing these new generations of threats, this technique is probably the way to go, and it is already starting to be copied by other AV programs.

So what should you do as a developer? When I last spoke with Symantec developers, they told me there was a program for 3rd party developers to notify Symantec when new executables are coming out, and not to treat them as potential viruses. I don't know what is involved, but I could try and find out for you if you like.

So I think this reply explains both why I like Symantec and (at least one of the reasons) why you hate it. Its just that we're looking at this problem from two different sides.

-Llama

[Bizman]

I would like to quote here a Windows Secrets article by Robert Vamosi, issue 247 published 2010-06-10, but it is in their paid section. To be short, he raises up some facts about antivirus testing. The testing is not standardized between testing organizations. The detection tests are valid only for the date of the testing due to updating and new viruses. The computer loadout depends on the machine that runs it. The list goes on...

In issue 245 from 2010-05-27 Ian Richards asks, "How much security software do you really need?" No security program is 100% perfect, not even a multitude of them. The worst enemy of your computer's security lies, or better said, sits in front of your keyboard. And concerning a firewall, outbound "phone-home" type malware is not as common as many seem to believe. That said, the built in firewall in Windows after XP Sp2 is adequate.

With my clients I have noticed that the best security suite is one that the user fully understands. For the majority it means a lightweight antivirus program with an interface in the user's language, Windows' firewall and most importantly safe computing habits including right browser choice and cache flushing. The firewall in an ADSL router is a good bonus to that.