The Best anti-virus

[natan770]

Well, I'll finally tell you. The best AV on the market is SOPHOS.

Yep, it's expensive. Only companies buy it. But it has it all... fast, small, efficient, well designed, easy to deploy and maintain, new definitions every time they are needed, etc.

Natan

http://www.windowsdream.com

[cyberloner]

do u use SOPHOS?

what is latest version?

[Zxian]

I've used Sophos since we get a free licence of it from my university (see here)... it's ok, but not what I'd recommend people buy. The update system was not very intuitive, and finding options and settings was more difficult than it should be.

[nospoon]

Was an avid Norton/Symantec fan, until I tried NOD32 in Q1 of 2005--never going back to anything. I swear by NOD32 now On top of being low resources yet scalable, it picks up stuff that Norton/Symantec never picked up! Now if I can only find a Firewall like it. Forgot ZoneAlarm...it is getting bloated plus it started to fizz out after I installed SP2 for XP, so I never used it again.

Edited November 21, 2005 by nospoon

[Jeremy]

Natan, I don't care how many stars I have. They can reset my counter to 0 and my personality and attitude do not change. I do not like it when people try and force their personal opinions down others' throats just so they can sit in their comfy chair and feel that much more confident in their software, whether or not it is supposedly the best or not. I have never heard of Sophos before. Don't you think that a person who constantly looks at comparisons and reviews provided by links from dozens of reputable websites and knowledgeable people across half a dozen forums would have heard of this best in the world AntiVirus. You get easily offended by someone stating a different opinion other than yours, and when it offends you, you bite back with a very personal comment such as telling someone to get an education without even knowing anything about them. You wanna get wild with me? Take it to PMs. I never said I was trying to act like a moderator, but I do know a thing or two when it comes to software. I also know a thing or two when it comes to arrogant people like you.

Now, the two most popular AntiVirus according to this thread are: Norton and Kaspersky. Let me tell you a little story:

My girlfriend's relatives have a single computer without a router or firewall. They had Norton installed, had it all updated, Auto-Detect, Live Monitoring, etc... taking up lots fo resources with about half a dozen Services running. I figured I'd uninstall that and install Kaspersky. When I scanned with Kasperky, it found 330 viruses! Where was an updated auto-detecting, live-monitoring Norton AntiVirus in this PCs desperate time of need??? Ha. I love the interface of Kaspersky. It updates more frequently than any AntiVirus I have ever heard of, and did a **** good job of cleaning out all viruses detected on the infected PC. Also takes up less reosurces by a lot.

By the way, thanks to Zxian for frequently backing me up, (even though I don't need it but appreciate it ) and thus letting me know when someone potentially has a problem with something I say, whether it is civil or just plain idiotic.

As far as education goes, I'm in college training for A+ Certification.

Edited November 26, 2005 by Jeremy

[prathapml]

Come on, its just an online forum, a virtual world! Nobody gains anything by talking down on you, keep discussion focussed on facts.

Please tone down your tendency to escalate flames.

Now back to topic.....

Symantec AV 10.1 is the one I am most happy with - it may or may not be the best, but its good enough & does the job.

Moreover, since I needed a 64-bit antivirus, the options get TOO limited!

NOD32 - seemed too different, removed it.

Avast! - works fine, but slows down the rest of the system a lot, whenever any file is being written to (with all that spinning "a" icon, & all).

AVG, Kaspersky, F-Secure, Norman, McAfee, F-Prot, Sophos, Panda, eTrust/EZ - tried them all, didn't seem good enough, had bad experiences with them at one time or the other, and most of them wont run on XP64 - moreover, companies like to trust in a big-name brand.

That leaves out ZoneAlarm Antivirus/SecuritySuite - now THIS app was great, for some time. Its sad that its getting bloated now, & too annoying sometimes. The other problem with it, is its lack of 64-bit support.

So in the final analysis, Symantec AV 10.1 (for x64) is what seems good currently.

Edited November 25, 2005 by prathapml

[Jeremy]

I edited my post, Prath. Nice evaluation of many AV software.

[wolf7448]

I'm currently useing windows one care beta now! ITS AWESOME!! More on that here

[wolf7448]

Well, I'll finally tell you. The best AV on the market is SOPHOS.

Yep, it's expensive. Only companies buy it. But it has it all... fast, small, efficient, well designed, easy to deploy and maintain, new definitions every time they are needed, etc.

Natan

http://www.windowsdream.com

Dont most companies use faronics deep freeze (more on that here) i kno i said i use windows one care beta but if it wasent for you having to partision the drive i would think most people would agree faronics deep freeze would be the best. Theres no updateing needed, you just set it and forget it, it protects agenst... everything!, viruses, spyware, mailware, hackers, even protects your windows regestry. The word protects isnt the right word, what it does when you restart your computer it restores all the settings right down to the last bite.

Another one made by faronics is anti excutable but i dont think it works as well as they say (more on that here)

[Jeremy]

DeepFreeze is godlike.

[wolf7448]

DeepFreeze is godlike.

I KNO! did you partision the drive or use the thaw space?

[Zxian]

Whenever I use Deep Freeze, I create a new partition and mount it to the My Documents folder of the user. That way, it's not frozen, and the user doesn't have to worry about separate partitions to save data to, etc etc etc.

Another advantage to this is that by using the Acronis True Image Rescue CD, you can create an image of the "frozen" system. If ever anything goes foobared beyond what DeepFreeze can do, then you can just restore the frozen system and the documents will still be where they're meant to be.

[Takeshi]

Security is relative and not absolute and AV programs are just tools. Comparative tests only refer to their performance around the time of testing.

User vigilence is the most important factor in computer security rather than the program, a bit like drivers and cars. Sure, some AV programs do find more viruses than others but that's hardly the point.

[alsiladka]

Norton is always late to react and the firewall also shows up the permission box around 4 5 minutes late.

[vizzpv]

norton is totally a s*** !