Best AV? How do you guys feel about Kaspersky?

Serious question, I keep hearing from people that have been dumping Kaspersky because they are a Russian company and can't be trusted. From what I knew, they were very trustworthy and they were the best AV out there? Am I wrong?

I always thought Kaspersky and Bit Defender were the top two...what would you guys use?

Malware bytes, avast, and win 10 defender.

Bitdender, I bought a physical copy of 2017 super cheap and then activated it as 2018

I'm using Kaspersky Free. Seems fine to me. But, yeah, the whole Russian thing makes me a little nervous. To be honest, Win 10 Defender and Malware Bytes worked just fine, as well.

Don't care for it. Always had issues with it and Bitdefender with lagginess and freezing.

I prefer Windows Defender and ClamWin for Windows servers and Avira and MalwareBytes for Win 7 - 10.

I don't like Kaspersky, and it has nothing to do with the Russians. Their ant-virus program caused our customers all sorts of problems. Other than that and staying away from McAfee and Norton, I don't have any preferences at this time.

6+ years now: Firefox heavily customized + Microsoft Security Essentials updated daily = not one damned infection, not one problem, not even so much as a freakin' tracking cookie that can be found using the usual litany of "malware protection apps and scanners" like HitMan Pro, Malwarebytes, Spybot S&D, and anything else.

So while some folks might not believe MSE is a useful tool, for me personally it's never failed and it has caught potentially invasive malware the moment it crosses my network connection "live" in many instances.

As for the question of trusting Kaspersky, at this point in time I don't think I'd put any faith in it given the tensions in the world. I'm sure the folks running it might not have any sinister motives whether they be ulterior or directly in our faces but even so, considering I haven't had a single issue using MSE (and of course Firefox with some pretty heavy customization in terms of security lockdowns) then I'm good to go. It could actually be fantastic software, I simply don't know and I'm not going to create a VM just for testing it out since I have no intentions of using it myself or recommending it, as weird as that might sound coming from "a computer guy."

The only AV/malware protection that I recommend for Windows 7 machines (my OS of choice till it simply won't run anymore) is MSE, and for Windows 8/8.1 and 10 it's already built in as Windows Defender and since I have never used any of those newer versions of Windows for more than a few hours at a time during installations I can't speak for the effectiveness of that solution. There could actually be a great AV/malware protection package out there for newer versions of Windows (and even 7 too) but, as stated, I've had no issues with my current solution so, I'll use it till it fails then seek something better.

Well, one thing I'm pretty sure that I won't do anytime soon is give Norton another go, ever. I haven't used any Norton stuff for at least eight years. Their stuff might be much better now than it was then, no idea, but I'm still going to avoid it like the plague. I don't view Norton or McAfee as viable options.

I consider Norton and McAfee virus delivery systems personally.

I've seen more infected machines with those 2 AV's installed than with PC's with no AV installed.

There should have been a class action suit against both of those companies and the OEM's for putting that shit pre-installed on PC's.

Unfortunately for me, the Russian thing is a consideration. So I can't load it on any of my machines. It's a decent AV otherwise.
Bitdefender's fine.
Note: I tend to stay with JUST the AV product. I avoid the "suite" products like the festering ass-boils they are because of how many problems they introduce into a network.

Defender switched to maximum scanning mode/Unchecky/Custom Hosts File/Ad Blockers and a Standard User account for day to day use.

Works a treat.

Jello Jello, Yum Yum Yum, Jello Jello, on a girl's who young!

(Somewhat of a quote from "Married With Children," only talking about girls who are of legal age. SJW folks, calm down.)

Used KIS since 2004 never ever a single issue..............my customers have used avast and never knew they were infected until i scanned there pc with Kaspersky then they changed over to kaspersky because avast never found the viruses......ive said this at least a million times here and there and everywhere...........

fightingfi said:

Used KIS since 2004 never ever a single issue..............my customers have used avast and never knew they were infected until i scanned there pc with Kaspersky then they changed over to kaspersky because avast never found the viruses......ive said this at least a million times here and there and everywhere...........

Click to expand...

I have the same experience with Malwarebytes. I can scan infected drives and Defender/Clam etc. etc. will find bad stuff. Malwarebytes? Nope. Won't find a thing. Then if you scan a HDD with it and it does find stuff try scanning it again...it will find more.

Highly overrated in my experience. The Adwarecleaner they bought about a year ago is a good little clean up tool to start with. I hope they don't wreck that.

Maybe one day Combofix will work with Windows 10 but I'm not holding my breath.

Personally, I like Webroot.

fightingfi said:

Used KIS since 2004 never ever a single issue..............my customers have used avast and never knew they were infected until i scanned there pc with Kaspersky then they changed over to kaspersky because avast never found the viruses......ive said this at least a million times here and there and everywhere...........

Click to expand...

Kaspersky i well know to be very agrrasive in its heurestic scanning and determines a lot of unknown software as dangerous even though its not.

so unless you got a dedicateds virus name and not just .generic BS you might have just not have an infection at all to begin with...

I used to advise customers away from Kaspersky when it would pop up constant dialogue boxes saying -

"Explorer.exe wishes to execute, which totally made up security level group do you wish this process to function in?"

As you can imagine customers didn't have a clue. Bad bad design.

None of the above, at least for a savvy user. As AV's become more bloated, its usefulness has fallen while its drawbacks (attack surface FTL!) have grown. Just IMO, of course.

Religiously:

• Remove programs you don't need. Attack surface again.
• Update.
• Configure your browsers' security as tightly as you can put up with.
• Scan downloads with VirusTotal before executing/opening. Always.
• When in doubt, Google that shit to see other people's experiences. When the 1st page of results is 50% "how do I uninstall SuperAwesomeProgram," you don't need it.

This answers "what would you run?," not what to install for your clueless relatives.

HammerSandwich said:

This answers "what would you run?," not what to install for your clueless relatives.

Click to expand...

You see any of those suggestions you made and all the rest go out the window when you add "clueless relatives" to the equation.

What infuriates me most when dealing with said people is when they call me with a problem. It's one of those simple A to B to C to D fixes you can do in your head (and quicker than telling them how to install Teamviewer or whatever) so you tell them "Right do exactly as I tell you, nothing more nothing less!"

You then tell them what do do in clear and precise terms and they then throw in tons of extraneous shit and waffle and question every clear and precise instruction.

When you say "Click the Start Button!" the response will be something like -

Them - "Ahh well if I click that will that other message box come up because 6 months ago I remember I clicked there and this other message appeared and I can't remember exactly what it said but I just left it and it kept popping up..."

Me - "JUST CLICK THE START BUTTON!"

Them - "...oh well I'm just trying to tell you what happened the other week that's all cos I get worried about clicking on stuff and I just want to know what I'm doing because Mavis down the road said that...."

Me - "JUST...CLICK...THE...START...BUTTON!"

Them - "The Start Button...where is that again?"

Me - "FUUUUUUUUU.........

You know the drill!

Apparently the fear is growing as Best Buy just yanked all Kaspersky products from store shelves and their online presence, I suspect they won't be the last retailer to do it considering they say they're not getting answers to the questions they're asking which are all valid concerns IMO:

http://www.startribune.com/best-buy...are-from-russian-firm-from-shelves/443274603/

daglesj said:

You know the drill!

Click to expand...

All too well.

I always divide my antivirus recommendations into 2 categories, free and paid.

My free recommendation used to be Avast but they've slipped lately IMO performance wise with increasing bloat so now Avira is the go to for free.

For paid I recommend Eset Nod32. If you keep an eye out for good deals you can get a great price on a 1PC 3 year license or 3PC 1 year license.

avira. use it on all my home computers and also install it for all my friends / relatives / coworkers personal computers/laptops. the free one only has one ad pop-up every couple days. stress to your end user that the avira pop up is legit, and to just hit the X to close it, and to expect it to come back in a few days. had no problems with it and it is one of the highest rated av's.