What Anti-Virus Program(s) Do You Use?

[Bonn1997]

As my Norton Anti-Virus subscription is about to expire, I'm wondering if it's worth the price of renewal. One person tells me that the free product offered at Cclearner.com is better than any product you pay for but I'm skeptical of any free product. Any advice would be great! Thanks!

[kentauros]

1. AVG is also free

and I used it that way for years before I swtiched to the paid version.

Here's why I used it at all after having used both Norton and McAfee in the past. In the first scan it found some old trojans that neither of the "big guys" ever noticed. That sold me on it right there and I never looked back :)

[PeaceNikki]

3. AVG tells you that Real Player is a trojan.

Or that a Windows system file should be deleted.

Kaspersky is much better.

[graywarrior]

5. Does Kaspersky conflict with AVG?

[hobbit709]

7. Any antivirus program will conflict with another one.

You can use more than one antimalware program at a time but if you use two different antivirus programs, they'll spend more time fighting each other to work right-or totally lock up your system.
I've installed AVG on over a hundred different systems and the only one that got infected by a virus was the idiot that disabled AVG because it kept flashing a warning every time he started surfing the free porn sites.
Now AVG doesn't catch a lot of malware/spyware because technically those are not viruses.
That's why I always install AVG with Spybot Search & Destroy and Malwarebytes Antimalware on a system.

[graywarrior]

17. Thanks for explaining that.

And lol of the porn site idiot.

[hobbit709]

6. Real Player IS malware as far as I'm concerned.

AVG has never wanted to delete a legit system file on me. I use Windoze XP and XP X64.

[PeaceNikki]

10. Here you go...

http://securityandthe.net/2008/11/10/avg-virus-scanner-removes-critical-windows-file/

[hobbit709]

14. I guess mine downloaded the update that fixed the error.

I'd rather get one false positive every now and then than a load of false negative results.
About 3/4 of the infected computers I see have either Norton or MacAfee on them-the rest usually have nothing.

[mvd]

15. Same here

AntiVir has a reputation for false positives, but I'd take the higher detection, especially since I'm security-knowledgeable. And personally, I haven't had a false positive with AntiVir in a while.

If you use McAfee, make sure you have the new Artemis - which increases detection by a lot.

[Bonn1997]

25. I'm a little skeptical of free services, though. Should I be?

How do they make money? Is it just from advertisers? Is it wrong to assume that if it was a good service, they'd develop a good reputation and be able to charge for their product? I'm asking because I don't know much about this stuff.

[mvd]

32. Only thing different with most freebies is that they have fewer features

So you have to adjust based on if you need the extra features. Avast, AVG, and AntiVir make their money from the pay versions. With Comodo, I'm a little more worried about their free AV. The quality control seems suspect.

[Bonn1997]

39. OK, that makes sense. Thanks.

[trof]

35. I used it for years, too. Changed to BitDefender last year.

On the advice of my computer repair guy who had just finished getting rid of all the crap that AVG Free let through.
About 30 bucks, but well worth it.
Way better that AVG.

[woo me with science]

44. AVG let trojans in our computer twice.

I would not use it.

[Midlodemocrat]

2. Well, I got the trojan from Hell not too long ago.

and the only thing that worked was Kaspersky's.

I was running Norton at the time I got it. That and spybot and adaware and malwarebytes.

[Bonn1997]

4. So far it seems like Kaspersky is the best. Hopefully I'll get more replies but

I'll definitely look into Kaspersky

[FedUpWithIt All]

8. Avira AntiVir

http://www.avira.com/en/pages/index.php

I have been using the free version for many years.

[mvd]

13. That's what I run

Has the highest detection on many tests, including av-comparatives.org. I use the paid version which has faster update speed, no nag screen, and WebGuard. People might want to disable WebGuard as it slows down web browsing. The normal Guard should still catch any malware on execution.

[mockmonkey]

9. You might want to check your Norton page

to make sure that there isn't some little check mark that automatically renews your subscription to Norton. That happened to me. I had a two year subscription that I had no intention of renewing because their LIVE UPDATE stopped working all the time and I would have to re-download it. I wasn't expecting a two year charge on my account and it almost made me bounce some checks. That was the last straw with Norton.

I'm using the free version of AVG but they seem to be having update issues on/off for the last 6 months. I might try Avast next.

[Bonn1997]

24. Thanks! I hadn't even thought of that.

[Lady Effingbroke]

11. Free version of Avira AntiVir.

Avast also has a good free version of their antivirus program.

[Blue Diadem]

12. We've been happy with Avast.

We're into our 2nd year now with no problems. *knocks on wood* We've had several others both paid and free and always always had problems.

[dana_b]

16. WebRoot antivirus/anti-spyware

only because I was stupi and let Geek Squad put it on. It's okay but nothing special. Go with the free one.

[Shell Beau]

45. That is the one I have. The guy at Best Buy told me to get it.

:shrug:

[City of Mills]

18. Antivirus360

I don't know how I got it, it seemed to just appear on my computer one day telling me I had 217 viruses and spyware, so I went ahead and paid th $50 to have them removed. It works good, it still catches viruses every day, and as long as I kick it about $50 every other week, it seems to get rid of most of the other popups which appear. Plus, it has a cool blinking system tray icon. I know it's working good as my hard drive is always spinning even when I'm doing nothing, and my computer is slower but that's the price you pay for thorough virus protection. Again, not sure how it got onto my PC in the first place but I'm glad I have it!

[mvd]

19. That would be funny if it wasn't so true

If anyone wonders, that's a ROGUE anti-virus.

[City of Mills]

22. Yeah, to be honest

I don't have that, and if I did, i'd remove it. One of the baddies in the Antivirus360, Antivirus2008 and Antivirus2009 family of trojan.zlob crud.

[dkofos]

20. I have used Avast for years and have not been infected yet.

[dysfunctional press]

21. same here. avast is free, and effective.

the automatic updates are no problem whatsoever.

[mvd]

23. dadkins on dslreports.com constantly goes to the shady side of the net, and..

he uses Avast. Says he always does scans with Kaspersky and nothing shows up that Avast missed. That's a really good endorsement, IMO.

[Orsino]

26. Here are some reviews.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

I'm on BitDefender, myself, though I can only recommend it by saying that I've never had a problem while using it.

[seemunkee]

27. I'm deploying Sophos in our company

Currently running Symantec and I had two people get trojan's today.
I'm in test with Sophos but I pushed the client out to those two people and it uninstalled Symantec and cleaned out the infections.

[mwooldri]

28. None! I don't need it.

Unless I'm booting into Windows, then that system absolutely needs anti-virus protection. I run Ubuntu.

And as for what's offered at ccleaner.com - the product formerly known as Crap Cleaner. It does a good job, I would recommend downloading it and using it on a Windows based computer, but it is not an anti-virus program.

Who is your Internet Service Provider? If you're on RoadRunner they supply CA's Security Suite - and I say that's good enough. Stay away from Norton unless your computer is blessed with lots of memory (and I mean lots). If your ISP doesn't provide anti-virus, then AntiVir (at www.free-av.com ) is my present fave, though avast! ( www.avast.com ) and AVG ( http://free.avg.com ) are pretty good too. You will also need a firewall - the one built into Windows XP is better than nothing, if you run anything earlier than Windows XP... http://www.thefreecountry.com/security/firewalls.shtml has a listing of some firewalls you can try - ZoneAlarm is the only one I've heard of and would recommend.

[ghostsofgiants]

29. Avast is free, thorough, updates frequently, and has a very small footprint.

[lukasahero]

30. ESET NOD32

Doesn't seem to slow the system down at all and is really pro-active. Got great reviews from the guys at Micro Center when I was building my latest pc.

http://reviews.cnet.com/system-utilities/eset-nod32-3-0/4505-3680_7-32955418.html

[mvd]

33. Eset 4.0 is now out

http://www.eset.com/

It's a good AV, and web speed was faster than AntiVir. Only problem is response time to threats is sometimes lacking when the heuristics don't detect, and they will base threat detection on priority basis.

[lukasahero]

38. Thanks for the info

I used to have Norton so anything is better as far as effect on system speed but I've been pretty impressed with how quickly NOD gets it's updates out there. I'll go check out 4.0.

[mvd]

42. You're welcome!

Some people have had problems with the new version, and if you also do, you can go back to 3.0.

[mnhtnbb]

31. My techie son put me on Kaspersky, which he said was the best of

the civilian anti-virus programs.

It has caught some bugs and quarantined/fixed them. I've never had a problem with it.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

34. +1

DS1 recommend Kapersky on another thread here over a month back, so I tried it out.
The 30 day trial was so good, I bought two years worth.

[mvd]

37. Only thing with Kaspersky is it isn't one of the lighter AVs

Great detection, though.

[trof]

36. I highly recommend BitDefender.

[whistler162]

40. Repeat after me.... Norton is evil and a Republican plot.....

;)

Well it is bad.

Clamwin is a good A/V.

ccleaner is more a cleanup and maintance program.

[CatholicEdHead]

41. Avast

[astral]

43. AVG Free is just fine.