Antivirus recommendations?

Post by **Big Kev** » Mon May 29, 2006 10:51 pm

After a recent HD crash i got a new drive and I've been spending the w/e putting everything back on....... until I got to my McAfee antivirus software.

It installs fine but it's not updating. Can't say I'd noticed before but it looks like v7 isn't supported for updates anymore.

So I had a look on amazon for the latest version. Cheap enough but terrible reviews.

I've never been a fan of Norton. We have that on the works PCs and it's forever popping up windows for this and that.

Any other suggestions?

Montey · Post by **Montey** » Mon May 29, 2006 11:05 pm

OK, AV tip number 1: Don't get Symantec. I don't want to put too much detail for fear of libel, but lets just say that the Symantec A/V engine has a security vulnerability right now that is very very bad. Just to give you an indication of the code quality.

If you want what I consider the best A/V application then I would say Sophos. However, I will caveat this by saying that its update code is very slow and resource hungry. But as a piece of code overall it is very neat and tidy. It's signature sets are very well constructed and managed.

I personally would avoid McAfee, and would probably put Trend Micro as my 2nd choice.

Having said that. I am using ClamWin at the moment. It can't clean viruses but it can detect them. It is also free, so the price is right.

Norton destroys more PC's than it does viruses (unless you count Microsoft Windows as the first commercially successful virus, in which case it has a 100% strike rate).

Post by **J_luo88** » Mon May 29, 2006 11:13 pm

I use Kaspersky atm... is that any good Montey?

nutty · Post by **nutty** » Mon May 29, 2006 11:26 pm

Easy one,

AVG http://www.grisoft.com/

I dont use any virus software atm (my email server stops that, and I dont run programs I dont know about), but when I do a client install, AVG goes on.

Its free, and fantastic

Montey · Post by **Montey** » Mon May 29, 2006 11:26 pm

Yeah, to the best of my knowledge Kaspersky is not bad. It's been a while since I heard anyone bitch about it.

F-Secure is normally not too bad either.

Some interesting reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antivirus

matticooper · Post by **matticooper** » Tue May 30, 2006 8:14 am

nutty wrote:Easy one,

AVG http://www.grisoft.com/

I dont use any virus software atm (my email server stops that, and I dont run programs I dont know about), but when I do a client install, AVG goes on.

Its free, and fantastic

I use this at home and it detects and keeps a track of viruses. Even when you open a folder it alerts you to a virus. Sometimes not the best in getting rid of them, but you can move them to a "vault" and then delete the troubled files on another day...

do it.

Blowtus · Post by **Blowtus** » Tue May 30, 2006 8:39 am

Mcafee and Symantec are ridiculously bloated pieces of software. I like AVG because it's 'good enough' for my paranoia level, I can fix whatever it doesn't anyway, it's free and well packaged. Avast is also free (though requires registration) and supposedly better. Never bothered to try it. Nod32 is nice if you're paying for something.

SE1Z · Post by **SE1Z** » Tue May 30, 2006 8:41 am

Another vote for AVG.

Steer clear of NAV... slows your system down, no good for a sim racer

Post by **Cutter** » Tue May 30, 2006 9:06 am

AVG free

AstrO · Post by **AstrO** » Tue May 30, 2006 9:27 am

If you don't want to spend money then get AVG Free, but if you do then the only one I would want to pay for these days is VET. I use VET at home and at work and it's great.

StanDaam · Post by **StanDaam** » Tue May 30, 2006 11:00 am

I'm a fan of Avast, been using it for a couple of years. Free but you have to register once a year is the only pain.

I sooo agree with all the anti symantec sentiments

Exar Kun · Post by **Exar Kun** » Tue May 30, 2006 12:00 pm

Another vote for AVG Free. It does the job and is about as good as you can expect for a free product.

Sterling · Post by **Sterling** » Tue May 30, 2006 12:05 pm

Here is another Free AV, personally I haven't tried, I'm a big fan of Etrust AV and lucky enough to score one of the spare licences from work.

http://www.free-av.com/

Scuderia_Alan · Post by **Scuderia_Alan** » Tue May 30, 2006 1:24 pm

Ex-VET user, the only time I ever got a virus (not my fault

) it killed it but couldn't undo the damage itself, thankfully they had really good tech support so I could fix the registry over the phone.

Had Norton Internet Security since 2004 (which felt decent then) then 05 but I let it lapse last month and have gone with a bunch of free little programs including AVG. I knew NIS was bloated but I had no idea how much it actually hogged when all the processes added up. Boot-up is much faster now, doing mundane tasks and there's no more glitchiness which 05 had.

Beware the price appeal of multi-user educational packs!

Post by **Cutter** » Tue May 30, 2006 1:43 pm

Actually good timing for this. Did a few free scans on the other 2 computers on the network.
Quite a few annoying, but not fatal problems.

Just downloaded, installed and paid for 3 copies of PC Cillin internet security.

w00dsy · Post by **w00dsy** » Tue May 30, 2006 8:40 pm

StanDaam wrote:I'm a fan of Avast, been using it for a couple of years. Free but you have to register once a year is the only pain.

a few weeks back in the middle of the night, my wife woke me in a mad fright, she said 'i just heard someone talking IN THE HOUSE!! go and look and see if someones there' so i get up all bleary eyed, having heard nothing, when we find no one she said 'it sounded like an american, i quickly realised my pc was on downloading and i said 'did the voice say virus database has been updated?' in my best seppo accent, and she said 'yeah, think so'. Sure enough i learnt if you leave your pc on overnight to turn the speakers off

ysu · Post by **ysu** » Tue May 30, 2006 9:14 pm

Nothing kills better and scans more efficiently than this gem.
It's not free or even cheap, but it worths every penny.
I've tried mcaffee, avg, and heaps of others in the good old days.
nothing comes close to nod32 imho.
It won't transfer your machine into a snail and will catch everything.

StanDaam · Post by **StanDaam** » Tue May 30, 2006 9:53 pm

w00dsy wrote: she said 'it sounded like an american, i quickly realised my pc was on downloading and i said 'did the voice say virus database has been updated?' in my best seppo accent, and she said 'yeah, think so'

LMAO

Post by **Shonky** » Tue May 30, 2006 9:58 pm

ysu wrote:Nothing kills better and scans more efficiently than this gem.
It's not free or even cheap, but it worths every penny.
I've tried mcaffee, avg, and heaps of others in the good old days.
nothing comes close to nod32 imho.
It won't transfer your machine into a snail and will catch everything.

Another vote for NOD32, it owns all other AVs, it's not free but its not expensive either, been using it for 2 years.

And the best part about it, you can't tell the difference in speed of your comp after installing it.

Pinger$ · Post by **Pinger$** » Tue May 30, 2006 11:59 pm

I'll vote avast over AVG for free antivirus any day. I say this because I had AVG on auto update (and me being paranoid clicking update all the time), installed avast and did a boot time scan... sure enough there was a couple of trojans in there... wtf? That was enough for me to say piss off AVG... you're crap

I've heard good things about NOD32... albeit a little system hungry.

McAfee used to be rated as one of the best... till they "went commercial" and stopped eating a healthy diet... bloatware.
NAV... boo. So many flaws... so many screwed computers have come into my work "protected" by NAV... yeah right.

PC Cillan.... it's useless

I think that's about all I've tried. :P

One other program I can recommend for spyware and trojans is Webroot spysweeper... picks up sooo much stuff that ad-aware, spybot etc just don't find and does a pretty bloody good job of getting rid of them.

Blowtus · Post by **Blowtus** » Wed May 31, 2006 8:28 am

nod32 is one of the least system hungry ones I've seen...

ysu · Post by **ysu** » Wed May 31, 2006 8:48 am

Blowtus wrote:nod32 is one of the least system hungry ones I've seen...

second that

matticooper · Post by **matticooper** » Wed May 31, 2006 10:25 am

Pinger$ wrote:One other program I can recommend for spyware and trojans is Webroot spysweeper... picks up sooo much stuff that ad-aware, spybot etc just don't find and does a pretty bloody good job of getting rid of them.

Yeah I found this the other day... after my cough cough copy cough cough of Spyware Doctor went belly up.. and I must say it's good. Better than adaware, Windows Defender and a few others I downloaded and tried.

Avast eh... where can I get it from?

StanDaam · Post by **StanDaam** » Wed May 31, 2006 12:55 pm

http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

Post by **Shonky** » Wed May 31, 2006 1:07 pm

ysu wrote:
Blowtus wrote:nod32 is one of the least system hungry ones I've seen...
second that

3rd that!

A.R.S.E.

Antivirus recommendations?

Antivirus recommendations?

nod32

Re: nod32