Recommend me comprehensive anti-virus software

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I've always had Norton and McAfee (in addition to a few other Malwware/Spyware programs) but I'm looking to get a new suite that will give a solid level of fireweall security and internet protection. I've been looking at Panda, AVG, and Kaspersky 6.0. Can anyone of you recommend something that I can rely on for my security needs and a price point that I should be on the lookout for?

Nod32 is still the best I've seen.

www.eset.com

I have used Nod32 on 4 computers for about 9 months, and got it based upon Edwin and Prederick's recomendations. I have had zero infections, a few "catches", 1 excellent experience with tech support and have loved the absence of the bloat that was Norton's "1 new feature every year to promote full upgrade sales" policy.

Since it's free free FREE, and fast, I'm still a big fan of AVG. Every day with Norton or McAfee is a day with unnecessary pain.

I just installed AVG yesterday, because it's free. I was following a guide about how not to get your WoW account hacked through keylogging programs, and it recommended have anti-virus, anti-spyware, and a firewall.

I'm using Microsoft Defender (free for Genuine WindowsTM users) for spyware and the default Windows firewall for that.

Any thoughts on that stuff? And is there a cool, preferably non-TSR program that will look at all my processes and tell me whether I *really* need them running? Is there a way to prevent things like iTuneshelper and PDVDService from loading at startup?

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Any thoughts on that stuff?

I'd say you're in good shape there. Maybe also use Ad-Aware sometimes.

Is there a way to prevent things like iTuneshelper and PDVDService from loading at startup?

start -> run -> msconfig

Go to the startup tab, and uncheck all unnecessary stuff. Make sure it's unnecessary

Norton and McAfee are garbage and the teams for both should be executed. That being said...

Both NOD32 and AVG are pretty good though I don't find either of them great at catching certain types of infections. If you are looking for a commercial product that's really good, I recommend CA Internet Security. It's got everything you need in one package and both the AV and anti-spyware (particularly the anti-spyware) is among the best I've seen. It was one of the first products to clean out Winlogon DLL infections and did it long before anything else could (many packages still can't.) It's also not nearly as bloated as most other products and runs very well, even on older systems. However, if you aren't regularly having to deal with infections on your system, a free one will probably be OK.

I just bought a subscription to F-Prot. I like it pretty well. I tried the AVG free, but it's very 'noisy' about its updates; it insists on popping up a window and drawing lots of attention to itself every time it does anything. I find that really annoying.

F-Prot is inexpensive ($30 for five computers), doesn't have any visible impact on the machine that I've seen, has versions for all major operating systems, and updates entirely silently. You can manually update and watch progress if you wish, but you don't see it unless you ask. It's pretty nice. It's how a virus scanner should be.... invisible until there's a problem.

And there's no crappy upsell garbage. I installed McAfee on my mom's laptop, and even though I told her not to, she ended up buying all their other stuff too. She didn't need any of it.... she had the Windows firewall, Spybot, and read mail via a web client, so POP3 mail virus checking wouldn't do her any good. So she wasted $100 based on a bogus recommendation for software she absolutely didn't need. I now regard McAfee as malware.

F-Prot will work for 30 days for free, so you can try it out with no commitment. It most emphatically passes the smell test: they make decisions about their software for YOUR benefit, not theirs.

Hmm...good suggestions so far. I'm surprised no one mentioned Panda. I keep hearing a lot about it.

Right now I use a combo of McAfee, Spybot, and Malware. What I'd like to do is get a single software package that can tackle all of my needs and one that's not to taxing on the CPU while I'm trying to get other stuff done. What do you think"?

For free AV protection, I like Avast! a bit better than AVG. They are about the same on the things they pick up, but Avast! just seemed less annoying.

And while I like Ad-aware, I like Spybot better. It even comes with a startup manager, file chopper (wipes files X times), and a few other nice utilities.

Do y'all run daily scans? Right now I have AVG and MS Defender to both run full scans while I'm at work.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Do y'all run daily scans? Right now I have AVG and MS Defender to both run full scans while I'm at work.

I don't even run anti-virus or spyware scanner. I just don't get infected in the first place.

Edwin wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

Do y'all run daily scans? Right now I have AVG and MS Defender to both run full scans while I'm at work.

I don't even run anti-virus or spyware scanner. I just don't get infected in the first place.

Same here.

Edwin wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

Do y'all run daily scans? Right now I have AVG and MS Defender to both run full scans while I'm at work.

I don't even run anti-virus or spyware scanner. I just don't get infected in the first place.

That was my policy until a couple days ago, when based on grouping in WoW with a dude whose account had been hacked repeatedly, I decided to get a little safer.

The only things that have ever been revealed by those kinds of scans have been semi-questionable cookies (some by big sites), and one actual virus in college that was on a disk someone wanted something printed off of - and I had anti-virus at the time, and it caught it. The rest of the time I've been naked and just fine.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Do y'all run daily scans? Right now I have AVG and MS Defender to both run full scans while I'm at work.

Daily scans only make (some) sense when a realtime file access scanner isn't active. That said, if you got an antivirus and disabled that scanner, then you could as well not have an antivirus. A well-written virus can morph itself, disable other antivirus programs, infect other computers, and/or do hard-to-reverse changes to the OS. The whole point of an antivirus is to catch something like that BEFORE it is executed, not AFTER.

Malor wrote:

I just bought a subscription to F-Prot. I like it pretty well.

Finally someone else sees the virtues of F-Prot ! I've been using it for what, 3 years now. It was pretty intrusive with its updates in version 3, but not anymore. Those guys are oldschool and they never go for flash over substance.

F-Prot still exists? Wow, I had a DOS copy a long time ago, that saved me a few times from infected floppies in a school lab. Those guys were cool. Probably still are.

Happy ESET Nod32 customer here.
The only event has been a malicious web-component that was quarantined while my GF at the time was following Fark links, but better safe than sorry!

OS X?

I'm all about AVG for free anti-virus also.

Nod32 is great but the difference isn't worth paying for IMO.

My Windows defense brew is: AVG, Comodo Personal Firewall, SpyCatcher, and Windows Defender.

But I would take basically any and every suggestion here instead of Norton or McAfee. Talk about the cure being worse than the disease. Those two products have caused more problems on PCs that I've had to fix than any spyware or viruses.

Well, I decided to go with the free version of AVG for now. I had it a while back and it seemed to work pretty well then.

*Legion* wrote:

My Windows defense brew is: AVG, Comodo Personal Firewall, SpyCatcher, and Windows Defender.

Reviving this old thread for the specific purpose of seeing what kind of updates people have on their various protection program. Which ones do you use now? Have they changed from your previous ones almost a year ago?

I personally have used both Norton Corporate for a long time and recently went to AVG on one computer and Avast on the laptop just to give both a try. I don't see any one or the other being better I like them both equally. I have also been using Ad-Aware for multiple years now without issue.

Also specifically for *Legion*, I see that you used Comodo Personal Firewall. They are currently offering Comodo Firewall Pro for free on their website. It states through it's name it's a firewall but it also now has Malware scans and other things. It's a bit unclear if it is doing the job of an Anti-Virus program as well as a Firewall. If so then I would think it would conflict with AVG or other Anti-Virus programs out there. It's well known that Anti-Virus programs conflict with each other if you have more than one installed. So tell us how Comodo is used for you. Strictly as a Firewall? Or do you use the Malware portion as well? Also why do you use SpyCatcher which is a retail program when Ad-Aware and SpyBot are free> And Microsoft Defender; Does it really work well and isn't it a redundant program next to SpyCatcher?

A lot of questions I know, I'm curious.

There is no such thing. Most things are fine virus detection. But once detected the only way to be secure again is to reformat.

Surf smart, don't click E-mail links, or open attachments.

Still using NOD32 after almost four years now as it handle everything.

Seconding Edwin on NOD32.

I bought it first about 3 years ago and liked the small footprint (both in RAM and HDD) and fast scanning. They are also very good at updating the A/V signatures and, generally, improving the qualities and capabilities of the program- now includes antispam and firewall.

Perhaps the thing I like best about the Suite version is that you can buy a three-install license; I have two laptops and a desktop that I use, so for $33/system ($99 total) I think I've gotten a bargain- not to mention the fact that all are using the same software.

Wow, this thread is so old. I no longer use F-Prot because the new version is buggy crap, their site is never updated and the updates are erratic.

Kaspersky Antivirus IMO is the most comprehensive, most often updated program at the moment, if you're willing to shell the $$. I did. It has proven several times that it can detect the latest modifications of Email "postcard" worms and the like (which sometimes my parents click on), before having an explicit definition of it. Of course, enabling the required heuristics slows down the system, but there's always a price to pay.

For me, enabling the heuristics is useful when fishing in the dark waters of Astalavista or Gamecopyworld...

shihonage wrote:

Wow, this thread is so old. I no longer use F-Prot because the new version is buggy crap, their site is never updated and the updates are erratic.

Kaspersky Antivirus IMO is the most comprehensive, most often updated program at the moment, if you're willing to shell the $$. I did. It has proven several times that it can detect the latest modifications of Email "postcard" worms and the like (which sometimes my parents click on), before having an explicit definition of it. Of course, enabling the required heuristics slows down the system, but there's always a price to pay.

For me, enabling the heuristics is useful when fishing in the dark waters of Astalavista or Gamecopyworld...

While thus far too cheap to shell out the bucks for home use, I am in agreement with shihonage.

Being too cheap, I tend to run AVG, Defender, and an occasional hijackthis, with the understanding that I will end up wiping and reinstalling some day.

Spy-bot and Ad-Aware, while free, became fairly ineffective a while ago in my opinion. Probably for similar reasons as many Symantec products, popular target.

souldaddy wrote:

OS X?

Ars has some paid and free recommendations for all three major OS's (What is the plural?).

I ended up having numerous and varied problems with F-Prot, and removed it from all my machines. It used to be great software, once upon a time, but it isn't anymore.

The best AV that you can use is Opera(maybe FF3 when it comes out) and Thunderbird. Block ads, disable java script, Tbird takes care of e-mail links and embeded HTML in there.

Most malware these days comes straight from your web browser via exploits in Java scripting or HTML.

Lastly, for the love of all decent in this world, format your computer every 6 months. Viruses and bad script have been found on a lot of sites that people would think secure, the humor of Homeland Security having one such Java exploit was grand.

Malor wrote:

I ended up having numerous and varied problems with F-Prot, and removed it from all my machines. It used to be great software, once upon a time, but it isn't anymore.

The funny thing about F-Prot that its so buggy now, it doesn't completely uninstall itself. On three separate machines I uninstalled it and it decided to leave "FProttray" running (without system tray icon or any functionality) as a startup process, and also left a reference inside Outlook toward running its Email scan engine which has been deleted.

I still can't get rid of that Outlook error message no matter what I do.

Used Antivir for years now, works great, and free (which is always a plus)
http://www.freeav.com/

Got turned onto this while I was working in computer repair.
just switch it into advanced mode and all the settings you would need are there...

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