Which antivirus app do you like and why?

Another vote for AVG Free and Regular version.

I made the switch from Nortan to AVG and I found out that Nortan did squat for my computer because AVG caught stuff that Nortan never caught or even found.
 
Folks,

Did I miss something here? Why is everybody so against McAfee Viruscan? Please enlighten.

Thanks.
 
To all those people stating RAM usage, let me teach you something about Windows.

Windows uses virtual memory, always and constantly. So when you're running Task Manager, and you bring up the Processes list, and you see xxxxx for memory usage, guess what?

That's not quite right.

Too many people that run Windows don't spend enough time learning more about it and what it does - as well as how it operates. These are the same people that will get 1GB of RAM and then turn off/disable their pagefile and claim Windows doesn't use one.

You're wrong.

Windows always has a pagefile, even if it's just a temporary one. It can't work without one, seriously. Try it sometime. Turn off/disable your page file and you'll still have virtual memory usage showing up in Task Manager.

What's that, you say? You didn't know this? Silly Windows users, let me explain.

Open Task Manager. Click the Processes tab. Now I'm just guessing here, but I'd guesstimate about 90% of the people that will read this particular post of mine are using Task Manager with its default settings, which means on the Processes tab they have the following columns:

Image Name User Name CPU Mem Usage

But miraculously, you can change this. Pay close attention here, you're about to learn something really important - but to those that already know this stuff, consider it a refresher course.

:D

With the Processes tab selected, click View on the menu bar, then select Select columns. No one gives a crap about the User Name because you should obviously know who's currently at the PC, so uncheck that one. The important ones you want to add are:

Peak Memory Usage and Virtual Memory Usage

That Virtual Memory Usage one is the kicker here. You're going to be surprised, nay I say shocked to see just how much memory software on your PC uses.

Once you've checked off these two items (you can add whatever you want, but those two are essential, in my opinion), click OK and look upon your new Processes layout. You may want to resize the Task Manager window to get all the data inside without having to scroll the box.

While the Peak Memory Usage column is very useful, it's just there to give you an idea of the peak physical RAM usage that a program has reached since it's execution.

But that Virtual Memory Usage column is the one we're going to focus on. On a typical Windows machine you'll see the that the Mem Usage column should add up to the Commit Charge amount listed at the bottom right side of Task Manager. but sometimes for odd reasons it's not a perfect match.

Programs use Virtual Memory regardless of whether you have the pagefile enabled or disabled; this is a fact confirmed and verified just by looking at that column of Virtual Memory Usage on any machine with the pagefile disabled.

Why am I telling you all this?

Simple. It's to let you know that there are two primary things you should look for (as far as computer resources are concerned):

1) It doesn't have multiple apps associated with itself when running (SAV/NAV is the worst I've seen in this respect - it has 5 programs that end up running when you install it: the main AV app, the realtime scanner, a LiveUpdate app, and the two cc things associated with it also) NOD32, on the other hand, has two. Some other AV software has 3 or 4, but in my testing, SAV/NAV is the worst in this respect.

2) The amount of not only physical RAM is kept to a minimum but also the amount of Virtual Memory is minimal as well. Again, NOD32 typically comes out slightly ahead of the competition with just a bit less physical and Virtual Memory usage than the others, most likely due to its only have two components as mentioned in part 1 above.

I wanted to let you all know this information about Windows and it's relationship to Virtual Memory so it would help some people that desire to have the most amazingly tuned and tweaked PC they can find.

I myself use NOD32, bought and paid for long ago. I boot to the Desktop of my XP SP2 laptop with 49MB of RAM usage, thanks to using nLite to create an extremely stripped down XP installation. Why bother tweaking XP after you install it if you can strip out all the bullshit before you install it?

Oh yeah, that 49MB of RAM usage (that's physical RAM, by the way, I don't concern myself much with the Virtual Memory during the booting process) includes the memory consumed by NOD32.

I've been tweaking Windows to extremes for a long long long time. I need a vacation.

:D :D :D

The primary reason (for those serious tweakhounds, you know who you are) I say all this is that when you find software that consumes little Virtual Memory that means you hit the pagefile less and the system operates at a more efficient and snappy level. Everyone knows that RAM is hundreds of thousands of times faster than using any physical hard drive and it'll always be faster.

The less you hit the pagefile on the hard drive, the better the system works. Simple.

I recommend NOD32 because it's tight code, it's fast as all hell (as noted by others in this thread so far), it updates with incredible frequency, and in my experience it has never missed a single virus.

I used Symantec Corporate for a short period of time a few years ago. The result? I got a virus. My first computer virus infection ever because I was running an antivirus program. It happened like this:

LiveUpdate happened on Wednesday. A new virus appeared on Thursday morning. I got the virus on Friday afternoon. LiveUpdate didn't have the fix till the following Wednesday.

Why is this significant and why did I dump the shitty SAV at that time? Because lo and behold, Symantec had a fix for this virus as of Thursday night offered as manual download from their website.

Got that?

They didn't offer it on LiveUpdate where millions of users (like me) went hoping to find the fix/virus signatures to protect themselves from this virus (or any virus, for that matter) and they didn't have it on LiveUpdate.

I've been hoping someone could explain this to me for 3 years now: A company writes software to catch viruses and offers updates to protect those users when new viruses appear. However they do not always offer the latest signatures at the LiveUpdate site, but they do offer more frequent and more up-to-date virus signatures on a completely different site and not on LiveUpdate which is how maybe 99.999% of the people running SAV/NAV expect to be protected.

It didn't make sense to me 3 years ago when I got the only computer virus I've ever had, it doesn't make sense to me now.

So I don't recommend SAV/NAV to anyone, especially not companies.

Just my $.02 and a lot more spare change. As always, YMMV and most likely will.

Paul
 
I liked NOD32 for a time but I came to realize that it is stricly antivirus and does not block against malicious scripts, so-called "unwanted programs", trojans, and other types of threats.

Therefore I'm back on McAfee because I like the integrated security center, it does provide more comprehensive protection options and it seems to be a lot less bloated than Norton.

I have had a lot of terrible experiences at work with Norton installs gone bad where I work as a field tech, and they are impossible to fix outside of reinstalling/repairing the operating system. That is unnacceptable in my book.
 
yogiB said:
Folks,

Did I miss something here? Why is everybody so against McAfee Viruscan? Please enlighten.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Not this man. My experience at work has shown me the ups and downs of a lot of different A/V programs and that's why I rely on McAfee's products. The only other product I've seen that is as effective at removing the widest range of malware is Trend Micro's Sysclean Utility.
 
My experience and those of various other IT guys I know place McAfee squarely lower down the ladder. Just our opinions/experience. Not that they "suck", there's just better I think.
 
AVG is the biggest pile of shit I can think of. If you want a program that tells you that you have a virus and to run AVG but won't get rid of it sure go AVG. But if you want something that gets rid of the virus get something else. I felt super guilty reccomending these before I love Avast great software
 
Well I've thrown norton out.


Tried to reinstall it just now after formating to fix some errors...and what happens?

" You hae reached the maximum number of downloads "

I call the tech support line, I get a Korean woman who can't even speak english, Saying my stuff is out of date it won't allow the download. How did I download last week then, bitch? I donno, that funny she says. From what I could gather from her engrish it seemed she was being very condencending towards me and at point point even hinted at that I illegally aquired the software.

Which is god damn funny, because I purcahsed the download, and ran the vbox file that connects TO THEIR DAMN SERVERS.

Fuck Norton, arrogant pigheaded fucks.


Now I need less sophisiticated but free firewall and av.
 
ive been using Antivir(free edition), and its been doing a good job as far as i can tell. its caught a few things, and there are a lot of options you can choose on how to handle it. very low overhead too.
 
Komataguri said:
Well I've thrown norton out.


Tried to reinstall it just now after formating to fix some errors...and what happens?

" You hae reached the maximum number of downloads "

I call the tech support line, I get a Korean woman who can't even speak english, Saying my stuff is out of date it won't allow the download. How did I download last week then, bitch? I donno, that funny she says. From what I could gather from her engrish it seemed she was being very condencending towards me and at point point even hinted at that I illegally aquired the software.

Which is god damn funny, because I purcahsed the download, and ran the vbox file that connects TO THEIR DAMN SERVERS.

Fuck Norton, arrogant pigheaded fucks.


Now I need less sophisiticated but free firewall and av.
Click to expand...

Try Kerio for a firewall (free). I havent tried them in awhile, but I liked it better then ZoneAlarm if I remember correctly. They also have a bundle deal with AVG. I just use my hardware firewall and the onboard nforce3 one or the SP2 one.
 
I have a hardware firewall, but I like having software to.


I've got AVG, Zone Alarm, Spybot, AdAware...... I just need an Ad-blocker. God I miss that.
 
I use symantec corperate antivirus. I like it because it is updated very often and it consumes very little system resources.
 
buzzard34 said:
Anyone have a comparison chart handy? I have Norton SysWorks02 and I'm afraid its missing stuff (mainly because my Windows crashed :( ). I take it AVG is good, but how does it compare to Norton and Nod32 when using tests (IE, something like AVG catches 29% virii, compared to 14% for Norton)? I'm probably changing virus scanners, but I'd like to know what freeware and payware is the BEST before I jump ship.
Click to expand...

Can do!

http://www.schadentech.com/Reviews/Antivirus/conclusion.htm
http://www.antisource.com/topic.php/antivirus-reviews
http://www.all-internet-security.com/top_10_antivirus_software.html
http://www.anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

These were all the reviews I was reading after checking this thread for suggestions and compiling all the data. Currently, I'm trying out AVG on my laptop. If it does get infected, it's the easiest system to isolate to keep anything else from catching something. I'm looking into NOD32 but haven't downloaded the demo as of yet.
 
Wow! Never thought this thread would take off like this! Thanks to all of you for your suggestions. So far AVG has been nice, unobtrusive and a quick little bugger. So far so good.
 
I've tried AVG and so far like what I see. Norton never did anything special (LIKE ASK TO MAKE A FRIGGIN BOOT DISK WHEN FIRST INSTALLED), and I've got other stuff to help my system run smoothly. *Sigh* and when I first dabbled in PCs several years ago I had such high hopes for Norton...
 
I have symantec antivirus corporate 10 i got from work. Do you think i should consider AVG free or NOD32 over what I have now?
 
blank said:
I have symantec antivirus corporate 10 i got from work. Do you think i should consider AVG free or NOD32 over what I have now?
Click to expand...

I would. I just don't think symantec is putting out as good a product as they used to.
 
@ br0adband - THANK YOU for taking the time to write that up for us. Even if no one else found that useful, I DID and I appreciate it!! :D

@Mage - Good thread man ;)

Now, that being said,
I personally use AVG and ZoneAlarm. Free, effective and low overhead.

I did buy ZA Pro (needed the extras) and may upgrade AVG mainly just to support it's development. I find nothing lacking in the free version.

I used to support Symantec products (yeah more than just NAV) and did for a long time...then I finally saw the light. Each new version gets worse. NIS especially just slowed my PCs down with all of it's extra crap, cost me too much money and didn't really work worth a shit. The ONLY time I have had a problem with viruses is while I was using NIS. (Exhibit A: See the end of br0adbands' post.) I am happy to say all of my PC's are Symantec free and running better and safer than ever!! :D

EDIT:
I don't see McAfee as being any different so I haven't even bothered to try it.
 
Stellar said:
Not this man. My experience at work has shown me the ups and downs of a lot of different A/V programs and that's why I rely on McAfee's products. The only other product I've seen that is as effective at removing the widest range of malware is Trend Micro's Sysclean Utility.
Click to expand...
Is that why Mcafee's products always score at the bottom when compared to other "competitor's" products? Mcafee doesn't catch very much compared to even the free ones.
 
blank said:
I have symantec antivirus corporate 10 i got from work. Do you think i should consider AVG free or NOD32 over what I have now?
Click to expand...
That's what I use, because I have it. If I didn't have access to Symantec Corporate, I'd be using AVG.
 
I use AVG Free on all of my computers. One time I had to take home a friend's heavily virus infected hard drive. Once it was hooked up, I used AVG to scan it. Despite several attempts by my friend's viruses to infect my PC, AVG stopped them cold. AVG then removed those viruses from my friend's hard drive and now his PC is in tip-top shape.

Oh in the ten months I've used AVG, I have not recieved a virus. When I used Norton or McAfee, usually got infected every two-five months. Could be chalked up to user experience but eh.
 
ANTIVIR PERSONAL EDITION
DOWNLOAD IT!
IT IS FREE!
IT IS THE BEST HANDS DOWN... VS. PAID OR FREEWARE AV SOFTWARE!
IT IS BETTER THAN NOD32, NORTON, AVG OR ANYTHING ELSE!
TRY IT BEFORE YOU CALL IT CRAP, I HAVE TRIED THEM ALL... I LIKE ANTIVIR THE BEST!
WWW.FREE-AV.COM
 
I've used symantec 8.0 corp and Nod32. I like Nod32 just because I'm more confident it's working better. I've had it for about 6 months now, and no virus.

I've had a few slip past with symantec.
 
Symantec Corporate 9.0. Before that, ran version 8, and before that, version 7. It just works, quietly, effectively and efficiently.
 
i've used numerous versions McAfee, Norton, AVG and Avast over the years. Inevitably, once in a while I'd get some incredibly persistent and new-ish nasty on my system that none of the above would even acknowledge. I'd uninstall whatever i'd been using, and install the NOD32 trial software, and it would kill it immediately and with 100% effectiveness. No hassle, just a clean system. After about 4 or 5 instances of that exact sequence of events I laid down the $40 and bought NOD, have had 0 issues since, and i'll never switch again.
 
I use Trend Micro Internet Security 12 (not free, sadly), and the main reasons I am using it is because of its low memory usage and silent updates (no popups to alert for an update like the previous version). It works very well :up:
 
NOD32 all the way..
fast scaning.
and reguler updates..sometimes 3-5 times a day..and not hoggin up memory :)
 
NOD32 because it can detect more viruses when I scan my clients computers then AVG, Norton, or Mcaffee.
 
djnes said:
Holy Large Fonts Batman. I hear a banhammer coming.
Click to expand...

Yeah right... Here we are having a civilized conversation discussing our opinions and experiences and as always some dumbass has to butt in screaming their opinion in my face like they are THE authority on this matter. wtf? :rolleyes:

@BurntToast - Speak (don't scream) your opinion and step off the soap box!
(You may also want to review #9 in the [H] rules...)

--
Now back to an otherwise awesome thread...
 
I use Symantec Corporate 9, I got it in college and I like it a lot. I haven't had a virus in a few years though, so it hasn't been much of an issue. I do most of my anti-virus tracking manually anyway.
 
Windows One Care. But some would call me biased.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
amd ati FO SHO said:
avg free won;t work on win64

anyone know a alternative free av for win64
Click to expand...

I've not researched the subject of 64-bit antivirus, but you might give ClamWin a shot anyhow. It doesn't have on-access scanning in the current version however. http://www.clamwin.com/
 
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