The Best anti-virus

[smashly]

Cheers all for the heads up and insight , but I must admit after 24 pages of posts I feel more dumbfounded at which would be the best av out of all

After puting up with NAV and it's non efficient ,resource hogging , obtrusive , overbearing and trojan like behaviour , I find Avast a refreshing relief for a quick parse over my my archived files. An av that actually drops the services out of loadup when instructed to do so without having to go any further then the interface of the av software amazing. The interface is actually crisp in response and I really don't feel the impact on my system while I'm doing other things on my PC while it's rattling through my hardrives doing it's thing. For my needs as a home user it does fine ftm. Given enough time I'm sure I'll learn to hate it like any other software that does it's own thing at an innappropriate time even though instructed not to.

2 cents

[kurt476]

well it looks like Kaspersky anti virus win's this round :lol:

[Slik]

Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2005 - hands down

[Thauzar]

All I see here is opinions. I admit I didnt go through all the 25 pages but what I'd like to see is a comparison, a benchmark for AVs. Some say nod32 is the best. Why? What's different from symantec antivirus 9 or 10, or those 2 compared to PC-cillin. That way we would really know which one is the best, and why. Facts would found the opinions. Which one protects better? Which ones is more stealth and memory-friendly? etc. That's what I'd like to know.

[Martin Zugec]

Virus Bulletin is quite good comparison...

[Zxian]

All I see here is opinions.  I admit I didnt go through all the 25 pages but what I'd like to see is a comparison, a benchmark for AVs.  Some say nod32 is the best.  Why?  What's different from symantec antivirus 9 or 10, or those 2 compared to PC-cillin.  That way we would really know which one is the best, and why.  Facts would found the opinions.  Which one protects better?  Which ones is more stealth and memory-friendly? etc.  That's what I'd like to know.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well... I haven't done any formal comparison, but here's what I can give you.

Norton (Home edition) - Everyone knows the story here. High memory and CPU usage, and also a target for certain trojans and other malware. Stay away.

Symantec (Corporate edition) - Better than Norton in terms of memory and CPU usage. Not a very user friendly interface, probably since it's designed for a corporate environment where admins do all the updates and such.

Kaspersky - I don't know if it's worth it to have the "best" definitions (they don't do much good for new viruses), but I found this program to bog down computers that were more than a year old. Still a hefty amount of memory usage (~20-25MB).

BitDefender - A good all around security suite. Decent track record for AV programs and a user friendly interface. If NOD32 and Sygate didn't exist, this is what I'd use.

NOD32 - My personal favorite. Low memory and CPU usage. It's caught everything that I've thrown at it in the past year or so. Small updates, so it's good for people with slow internet connections. It's also got a stellar track record on Virus Bulletin - 3 fails, 2 on Linux, and one on Win98 ages ago.

Hope that helps shed a little more light than "I like this AV program".

[Jeremy]

Yeah, someone should do an actual comparison and benchmarks rather than deal with these 50 posts like "Norton rules" "Norton sucks!" "Kaspersky is da bomb!". These don't help anyone.

[Thauzar]

I'll check on virus bulletin. The reason I'm asking this is because I was thinking switching from Symantec Antivirus to nod32 for my unatteded cd and wanted to be sure to keep secure, have virus defs auto-updates (like I did for symantec with some reg configs), and also, something memory-friendly, which symantec did well for the moment. I'll look around if there is info on how to set this up for unattended cds, maybe I should give it a try. It's that or symantec 10

EDIT: I checked on the site, mcafee, symantec, nod32, kaspersky, f-secure and avast all have the 100% mention (which only means that it blocked everything and didn't give any false alert either) I looked rapidly but didn't see more than that to compare the softwares.

Edited July 5, 2005 by Thauzar

[Zxian]

@Thauzar: I think Marthax had a question about automatically activating AMON (NOD32's active monitor) from a UACD. I'm not sure if an answer has popped up yet, but I'm looking for that kind of answer as well.

Also, be wary of some comparisons... there are some out there that are highly biased towards one company or software.

If you do give NOD32 a try (you can download their trial for 30 days or use their Beta for 2.51), check out http://www.wilderssecurity.com/ for more info on how to configure NOD32 properly. They've got a lot of knowledgeable people there who are ready and willing to help out.

[Claude]

I like NOD32, i know Kaspersky has a higher detection rate, but NOD32 is so much faster

[eXpecto]

Why do People use antiviruses?

Fistly,Installing AV is totaly wastage of memory.

Secondly,From the day i'm on network i am Collecting viruses as i think viruses are such pieces of software that should be studied(carefully).my aim is to make whole CD of viruses.

Thirdly,drop using IE use Firefox which is the best browser i Know.

Edited July 20, 2005 by eXpecto

[Zxian]

I like NOD32, i know Kaspersky has a higher detection rate, but NOD32 is so much faster

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Kaspersky has a higher list of viruses in its definition files, but it's not that great at catching new threats until Kaspersky Labs releases a new definition file.

Why do People use antiviruses?

Fistly,Installing AV is totaly wastage of memory.

Secondly,From the day i'm on network i am Collecting viruses as i think viruses are such pieces of software that should be studied(carefully).my aim is to make whole CD of viruses.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sure...studying viruses...

[mr_flames]

I haven't tried Kapersky but I like NAV better than McAfee.

[superleiw]

since I got my first computer I ve always been using PC Cillin

NEVER GOT A SINGLE VIRUS

Edit : well I mean I got some viruses but none could do any harm to my computer

Edited July 26, 2005 by superleiw

[Jeremy]

since I got my first computer I ve always been using PC Cillin

NEVER GOT A SINGLE VIRUS   

Edit : well I mean I got some viruses but none could do any harm to my computer

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Go to 50 porn sites in IE and see what happens.