Please recommend the best "Anti Virus" (1 Viewer)

[Scott Merryfield]

Your definition of "better" is far different than mine, Mark. After dealing with a virus situation at work last week, I have witnessed Norton's poor performance first hand. Our company will soon be evaluating alternatives because of Norton's shortcomings. I also had a bad experience a few years ago with Norton on my dad's home PC where the installation of the actual Norton application trashed the PC. I spent an entire day cleaning up that mess.

 

[Al.Anderson]

I did a quick Google search for virus utility comparisons. And Norton didn't come out on top for finding viruses in any of them. So the "doing a better job" claim seems subjective.

 

[Tommy_N]

I've had the opportunity to use Norton, Mcafee and the free AVG.


I'm currently using AVG. IMO it is okay, but not amazing. It does not slow my PC down at all. Which is good because if you want it to scan your PC automatically it does it everyday. There is no way to change the setting so it scans weekly.

I have 2 complaints about AVG:

1 - It is not as user friendly as Norton or Mcafee. The interface should be redesinged.

2 - It also doesn't seem to prevent virus from being installed. When surfing the web with Norton installed I would receive notifications if a virus was detected. With AVG the virus gets installed. In my expirence when you get a virus it doesn't remove them as well as Norton. Norton removes most viruses automatically and if it can't it provides instructions on how to remove it. With AVG you have to do a lot more research to remove viruses.

HTH

Tom

Oh and regarding Mcafee - It is hard to say why I didn't like it but I just didn't. I just didn't have a good feeling about it and I didn't use it long enough to really formulate an opinion on it. Once the free trial period ended I stopped using it.

 

[Rommel_L]

Tommy,

That's why it's free, you only get the basics. If you want the bells and whistles, get the retail version and compare how it stacks up against Norton and McAfee...

 

[Greg*go]

Another vote casted for AVG.

I just renewed my AVG Pro. Ordinarily it is $40 for 2 years, which is pretty nice. Most of the other apps are that price for 1 yr. And being a returning customer, I got 50% off! It was awesome. I've gone 3+ yrs without any problems with a virus using AVG free & pro.


All the PCs I take care of (about 7 from friends & family) all have AVG free installed and they don't have very many problems with virii on their PCs. And it's great because being free, they never get the warning that their version will be expiring soon. And it runs a virus scan in the middle of the night, so if anything gets installed that shouldn't have, it detects it at that time. I got the Pro Version to customize my update & scanning schedules. And at the time of purchase, I was using an email client that wasn't Outlook, and you had to get the pro version to scan emails, but I don't think that is the case any longer.

 

[Josh Larkins]

I have used AVG and Avast, my personal experience pushes me towards AVG. AVG seems easier to configure and Avast keeps crashing (?). Granted the only reason I'm using Avast is they have a x64 version for free. Cheers!

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[Chris]

I have never run into a product I thought was more garbage then Norton 2006. I get where people "believe" it's doing a good job, but the way Norton hacks around the registry especially with regards to local-network sharing is so innefficient is just mindboggling.

So far, I've had numerous incidents where I have had to clean up machines virus infected that are running Norton 2006. Why does it happen? Because Norton's updates are bulky (really bulky, like 12MB+ per liveupdate) compared to something like AVG (around 1MB or less, if set daily 64k) or Avast (less then 1MB).

This is the difference between night and day - the larger the update download, the more likely antivirus software stays behind. It means that for people without full broadband, Norton's system is worthless. And Norton's system is so reliant on three differnt components (LiveUpdate, LiveReg, Software itself) that it's easier to break.

Neh, give me Avast, PC-Cillin, anything.

If you really like Norton, though, look at Norton Corporate Edition - it's a totally different product, and it's hyper efficient. Virus downloads are small and daily. Etc.

Virus software that is a bitch to update is crap.

 

[John Watson]

I've heard that Sympatico in Ontario (Canada) refuses to let its customers run NAV. But they force the customers to pay for another system. Sounds wierd.

 

[Mike Fassler]

here is a website that will really answer your questions about which AV products
are better than others;


http://www.av-comparatives.org/

 

[Chris]

Mike-

There is one basic problem I have with virus testing sites (also check VirusLabs, who does tests) And that is that many (most) assume and do tests based on the most current possible definitions loaded into the product, etc.

My key argument with Norton is a simple one: because it's downloads for virus definitions and product updates are so extensive, for many users - especially any dialup user - the product is totally useless.

Out of the box, on first install, Norton Antivirus 2006 LiveUpdate asks to download more then 74MB of updates. 74 MEGABYTES of updates. For a person with a dialup connection or even a slower DSL connection, that ammount of download is ridiculous.

Compare this to:

McAffee's DAT update: 4.5MB
AVG: 4.4MB for a full re-list
NOD32: Under 3MB

With most of them offering small segments.

Antivirus software should be fairly good if it's current. And yes, some AV takes on some spyware as well (for example: Avast! combats TryMedia plugs, which I like but which are recorded as "false positives" in some cases). But the biggest point is: software that is bulky to update and keep current is worthless as AV software.

I use NOD on my Win64 box, and then.. gasp, yep, I was a beta person for MS OneCare so I've been doing that on my main PC, though it's about to go.. and elsewhere in the house I've got one using Avast one using PC-Cilling and a laptop running AVG.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

It's default install settings are so secure it allowed a pile of spyware and small-time viruses onto my brothers machine, slowed down bootup and shutdown and processing time and allowed popup windows and adware to take over IE. Uninstalled it, installed AVG, picked up half a dozen items Norton failed to catch, problems solved.

Some people swear by Norton, but a lot of others just swear at Norton

 

[Tekara]

That's just really worth quoting.

 

[Mike Fassler]

Yeah I can agree with you on that, I just posted thast link as a referance for someone who may want to research the subject, personally I only use AVG and AntiVir currently. and the only other ones ive tried have been Nod32 and F-Secure.

 

[MarkHastings]

I've been using Norton since '94 and have NEVER had any sort of problem whatsoever.While I will agree that there are probably a lot cases where there are legitamate case, I would also argue that most of those "Swearing" people are swearing for the wrong reasons.

Example: Like I said before, my family members LOVE to open everything they get through emails. They are constantly getting bombarded with viruses, spam, and spyware, etc.

I put Norton on my dads computer and he hates it because it slowed down his system, but my point is, since he isn't going to surf 'safely', then I won't let him use anything else.

If you know what you're doing, you can get away with something else, but in the case of my family, they need Norton.

So in this case, my Dad is most likely swearing at Norton, BUT I bet his system is going to be a LOT more stable than it ever was.

Now, when Norton runs into anything suspicious (even with the most safest actions), it warns him and my dad usually gets nervous and stops what he's doing (or calls me).

Sorry, but that's why I hate the immediate Norton bashing. I believe you guys when you say that you have real problems with it, but I hate the other percentage of people who bash it for no other good reason.

 

[MichaelBA]

I'm sorry to chime in with an ignorant question, but... do any of these anti-virus things also clean an infected computer? I have a computer beset with pop-ups and other garbage. If I download and use one of the programs recommended above, will it also clean my computer -- or are these programs only preventative?

 

[Paul McElligott]

Yes... maybe.

They won't get rid of every single virus but they will identify the viruses. You can then go back to the website for the anti-virus for instructions on how to remove them.

 

[MichaelBA]

Wait, ...let me just honestly be a real dummy here, 'cause maybe some others feel as lost as I do about this stuff:

Is there any one program I can download -- whether free or not -- that will identify and get rid of everything bad on my computer?

Is it possible that I could actually buy an anti-virus/virus cleaning program and that it would fail to clean my computer of crap?

My infected computer is a Dell -- should I ask Dell what would be the best recourse, even if they have to charge me for their service?

 

[Bryan X]

Michael,

If you are getting a lot of pop-ups and stuff the anti-virus probably isn't your answer (although you still need to run one).

To try to get rid of all the pop ups, you should try and run Lavasoft Ad-Aware AND Spybot Search & Destroy. Each will catch something the other might miss. There are probably a couple other anti-spyware applications that you can run. Both the ones I mentioned are free. You don't have to have them running in the background all the time like anti-virus programs. You can just run a scan with them once every week or two. I do this and have 0 pop-up problems.

 

[MichaelBA]

I was afraid of hearing something like this, Bryan. I ran both Adware and Spybot, and they helped not a bit. What do I do?!:frowning:

 

[Rommel_L]

NO. There is no such thing. It's always have been a combination of anti-malware programs are used to totally eliminate the bugs in a PC.