Decent Anti-Virus?

SachaJ

Always used Symantec Corporate AV but getting sick and tired of rtvscan making **** of my system resources....

What else is good to use?

Heard AVG is alright....

The Bollox

I use Avast! and Zone Alarm. both, I find, are very good

ActorSeeksJob

There is a sticky that could answer all your questions

All the following are ranging from great to excellent, and some you have to pay for

Kaspersky
Avast!
Nod32
AVG
AVira
Bitdefender
AOL Active Shield

Hope that helps.

Keano

The Bollox wrote:

I use Avast! and Zone Alarm. both, I find, are very good

I use both these also. Excellent

Ruu_Old

I am using avast!, you just have to register once a year to keep it free. I was using AVG which broke twice on me so I got sick of that and Anti-Vir got annoying with those bloody popups asking me to buy a premium version everytime it updated.

Gillie

I use AVG which does what I want it to do however I notice that I am receiving a lot of SPAM since I installed it. Might be nothing but I heard other ppl say this too!

aidan_walsh

avast! and Comodo Firewall here.

eggplantman

SachaJ wrote:

Always used Symantec Corporate AV but getting sick and tired of rtvscan making **** of my system resources....

What else is good to use?

Heard AVG is alright....

macafee is good its decent enough its the one i use

marco_polo

Gillie wrote:

I use AVG which does what I want it to do however I notice that I am receiving a lot of SPAM since I installed it. Might be nothing but I heard other ppl say this too!

Is it spam from AVG? Because otherwise I can't see how there could be a possible connection.

aidan_walsh wrote:

avast! and Comodo Firewall here.

I am running Comodo Firewall for the last week it seems pretty good to me so far.

I don't find Symantec too bad, for sure the weekly scan is a nightmare but at least it runs overnight. Its download / email scanning etc seems pretty effective it has caught a few dodgy things for me in its time. Its a work laptop so I couldn't uninstall it even if I wanted to. I find it is definately a better product than McAfee or Norton.

I would go with AVG if you want a good free A-Virus, or even better Avast for a small yearly fee (am I correct on this point?)

byte

I use Avast! also, find it great.

Marco Polo: Avast is free, you just need to update the key once a year (which they email to you)

sweno

Nod32 and Comodo..... never had a problem, plus they dont eat resourses unlike others *COUGH* Symantec *COUGH*

311

I've anti vir subscription on my xp laptop and kaspersky sub on my new vista pc.

anti vir seems to update itself all the time ,with 1 mb files on the laptop. I never see kaspersky do much though.

I don't think I have any viruses ,definetly not on my laptop.
I hate viruses less than people warning me about them.

Edit : forgot to add ,between the advice of Master Aidan Walsh and Ruu ,I'm fairly happy with my knowledge of antivirus sotware.

highlight100

Avast is the one for me

SpicyNoodle

I have been using AVG for about 8 months now with no complaints. Avast is another good one, which I have yet to try.

mneylon

We use f-prot on all the office PCs

Soundman

AVG here

Though one problem I have found with it is that the firewall can be a bit of an issue when it comes to allowing the computer get a default gateway. Have been talkign to a few techs who have said the same thing. Spent ages today trying to sort out the gf's laptop wireless issues. Kept coming down to the Default Gateway not being assigned properly. Was almost tearing my hair out when a tech in the library reminded me about AVG's firewall.

Skittle

Another vote for NOD32 here. Dumped Norton and McAfee and never looked back. Both are bloated pieces of crap.

AlmightyCushion

I'm using avg but I've heard nod32 is really good but it costs money so nuts to that.

SachaJ

don't mind paying a few quid here and there for stuff like this it's worth it. I have Zone Alarm Internet Security Suite (just for firewall, junk email, spyware) as well which I find quide good, but might be on the hunt for a replacement when I switch over to Vista next week.

dave_t

Nod32 is the best!!!

mneylon

AlmightyCushion wrote:

I'm using avg but I've heard nod32 is really good but it costs money so nuts to that.

This may come as a shock to you ....

Oddly enough a lot of people actually need to get money from time to time to you know, pay bills and stuff ...

pyxxel

blacknight wrote:

This may come as a shock to you ....

Oddly enough a lot of people actually need to get money from time to time to you know, pay bills and stuff ...

Hmmm my thoughts too. I worked for Symantec here in Dublin for 4.5 years until this May, and I know a lot of the guys from the Antivirus Lab (now called Security Response) in Dublin personally. I know they get good salaries but they also work really hard for them. I also know that some of them sometimes despair at SOME other departments in Symantec. SecRes is one of the few excellent groups in the company - and I can attest that Sym has a lot of very dedicated and good people working for them.

So, why do their AV products turn out as they are? Yes they are bloated, eat resources etc. A lot of it is marketing decisions, and you know how marketing can ruin the best ideas. They put flashy bells & whistles on everything so it looks pretty for unexperienced noobs, but laden down the software with unnecessary ballast.

Talking about free software, I'm the first advocate for it, but obviously there is no such thing as a free lunch and every coder needs to earn their crust somehow. A lot of income is generated by licensing to the corporate market and this way, consumer versions can often be kept free; however, we all pay for it in the end anyway cuz the cost is relayed to you via the products the corporations sell to you.

Personally, I'm scratching my head how Symantec can employ a few hundred SW engineers for security risk and threat research alone (and they are all busy and do good work) and other companies with far less resources get the definitions almost the same time. There is hearsay about all AV labs cooperating to some extent, something the corporations don't like hearing but it would explain a few things and make sense anyway. Draw your own conclusions.

PS, I use Norton 360 atm cuz I got it free. It works well but I don't like it much cuz it really is for the clueless - you've got a hard time finding options for customisation. When my subscription is up I will probably go for a free option, however I would have no qualms about paying a subscription for an ongoing service, which virus protection definitely is.

That's MY 50 Euro worth!

Soundman

SachaJ wrote:

don't mind paying a few quid here and there for stuff like this it's worth it. I have Zone Alarm Internet Security Suite (just for firewall, junk email, spyware) as well which I find quide good, but might be on the hunt for a replacement when I switch over to Vista next week.

Zone Alarm works fine on Vista if that is your concern.

SachaJ

really? I read a couple of places where they said it wasn't the best

marco_polo

SachaJ wrote:

really? I read a couple of places where they said it wasn't the best

I think Comodo V2.4 is worthy of consideration as a free firewall. Has probably overtake Zonaealarm as the best frebie. And it it a completely free no pro versions or anything like that.:cool:

Jimoslimos

I'm using avast. Just got to remember to turn it off when doing a scan with ad-aware.

Never again will I touch norton or mcafee:mad:

windy bee

I'm a manager in an I.T. Consultancy firm and without a doubt the best is NOD32, it costs about €40 per year but is well worth it, I would sell 95% NOD and recommend it way above McAffee or Norton (both are absolute shlte). AVG is better than nothing but NOD is the best. Second is bitdefender.

SachaJ

I'd never even heard of some of these products before this thread.....

So what the best Internet Security Suite? (email filtering, spyware, software firewall etc).

Symantec is definately getting the boot. Numerious times I've had the rtvscan.exe almost stop my pc. Absolutly kills outlook....

marco_polo

SachaJ wrote:

I'd never even heard of some of these products before this thread.....

So what the best Internet Security Suite? (email filtering, spyware, software firewall etc).

Symantec is definately getting the boot. Numerious times I've had the rtvscan.exe almost stop my pc. Absolutly kills outlook....

As far as I know the the big commercial ones such as symantec, mcafee, Norton are the only ones that have all inclusive multipurpose AV suites. You may have to mix and match a few smaller products to get the desired level of protection. I do not know much about some of the less well known commercial products and if they contain full security suites or are just standard Anti-Virus programs.

There is no "best" product out there, even the strongest AVs will have some shortcommings, it would depend on which features are most important for you.

If you want to steer clear of Symantec, McAfee etc. perhaps this list would be a decent starting point.

- A good antivirus program (Anyone of these - Kaspersky, Avast!, Nod32, AVG, AVira, Bitdefender - depending on exact features you want and budget)
- Comodo or ZoneAlarm Firewall (reccomend Comodo but ZA is good too maybe a bit easier to use)
- Anti spyware (SpyBot S&D and Ad-Aware )

- For even more protection Win Patrol is nice and eaasy to use too. It warns of any changes made to start up program, windows services, system files, IE start pages etc.

SachaJ

Many thanks for the replies.....

If I decide not to use ZoneAlarm, I think I have all the other bases covered besides email filtering/spam control. Anyone know a good product for this?