What AntiVirus software do you use?

What Anti-Virus Software do you use?

  • NOD32

    Votes: 57 19.7%

  • Norton Anti-Virus

    Votes: 51 17.6%

  • McAfee Anti-Virus

    Votes: 17 5.9%

  • AVG Anti-Virus

    Votes: 88 30.3%

  • Kaspersky Anti-Virus

    Votes: 12 4.1%

  • Panda Anti-Virus

    Votes: 3 1.0%

  • PC Cillin Anti-Virus

    Votes: 10 3.4%

  • AntiVir

    Votes: 6 2.1%

  • Sophos Anti-Virus

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other, please specifiy

    Votes: 46 15.9%
  • Total voters
    290
boredguyatcomp said:
i use mcafee for now once i reformat soon i doubt i will use anything
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Why won't you use anything after the reformat? You enjoy reformatting that much? :)

You should at least use one of the free AV's
 
br0adband said:
It's the same code, minus some bloat of the retail versions. Besides that, how many home users in this thread are using Symantec Corp Edition anyway? It's not designed for home users, nor can any home user just pick up a phone and order it, not online either. So... how are all these home users legitimately running a piece of Corporate software, eh? :)
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You do know that you can buy it at most online stores. newegg sells it.
I got it for a company I did work for, they bought a 25 pack. meanwhile they had 21 computers with no plans for expansion(construction/concrete company)
The extra copies were put on bosses home machines, and i got to keep the last one. I use it because it's free, non warez'd, and updated alot. Can a virus get on my network and wreck havoc? Doubt it. Most things here are locked down. Every machine has a firewall, restrictions on what it can do, AV, half the machines wont acknowledge the rest without proper authentication. Hell the wireless lan cant do anything unless it goes through VPN.

I have no problems with symantec. If I were to pay for an AV sure i'd use NOD or clamwin, But since I dont have to I wont. I actively scan what I download and have been virus free since CIH 98
 
Have been using AVG since version 6 ^^

heres my 2c to antivirus discussions:

1)The antivirus is only PART of the overall protection you deploy on your system,not some savior to save your ass when a virus comes in.YOU save YOURSELF.

2)2 other very important factors includes how the user actually uses the computer and other backup/alternative countermeasures against virii and internet scum.

3)Protect your registry ! Spybot S&D's teatimer does it well ^^

4)The USER is the weakest link as it is HIS/HER responsibility to patch/protect/prevent infections/intrusions etc. go figure.......
 
clockworks said:
I've used a good deal of AVs and here are my thoughts:

- Norton 2001-2005: It picks up a lot of viruses but it sometimes it does nothing to clean it (yes, I KNOW that it's there, so why can't you clean it?). Huge resource hog, a nice chunk of my speed goes down because of it. It also slows down my e-mail connection (i.e. send/receive) to a crawl, almost dial-up speed. The thing does catch viruses and when it can clean, it does a passable job.

- McAffee 2004: I've used and the competitor is kind of like Norton but I felt that it doesn't catch as much as Norton. I didn't like it very much because well, my intuition was telling me to "Get rid of it NOW, or else your PC will explode!!". I did and moved back to Norton.

- AVG (Free): My version of Norton 2005 was giving me problems so I moved to AVG for the moment. AVG didn't catch anwhere near as many as Norton did and some already did their pay load before I could remove it. I decided that you get what you paid for, nothing. It is however, better than nothing.

- Kaspersky: A MUCH better AV compared to any of the others that I've used. It catched a lot of viruses that the others didn't. It is also uses very little resources compared to others listed on top. So far a great experience, too bad my trail ended.

- NOD32: Ladies and germs, this is possibly the best paid AV out there. It caught basically everything that I had and more. It stopped every virus download that I had even in some unexpecting sites. If you are going to get an AV, get this one as it is cheaper, faster, and uses little resources. My trail just ended and I just purchased it. Between Kaspersky and NOD32, the NOD32 wins.

This list was all based when I had a copy of a friend's HD, her PC was infested with viruses and spyware.

The list was based on my experiences with different AVs out there, please don't call me a "n00b" or any other pointless insult because this is based EXPERIENCE. Please post yours.
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Pretty much what I said. Well said by the way. I have the same opinion based on experience nod32 i havent tried so i cant make any recommendations
 
Whatsisname said:
I don't use any sort of Antivirus


Nor do I use windows.
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Ladies and Gentlemen - We have a winner! :D

As alternate OSes grow in popularity, I'm sure we can expect to see more virii written for them. I'm honestly more concerned about spyware/adware/malware -> especially rootkits.
 
Eset NOD32.

Having been an IT professional for the last 8 years (and an avid gamer/hardware tweaker) I can say without a doubt that Nod32 is far and away the most efficient, thorough, and fastest virus scanner available on the market.

I would recommend anyone interested go to their website (www.nod32.com) and download their free, fully-functional trial. I can say without the doubt that it is the best.
 
I installed BitDefender on my laptop and desktop computer. Both are windows xp, but the desktop is x64. Corporate symantec x64 edition was on there before, but that app really pissed me off since i couldn't properly exclude some remote admin software i had installed and it kept deleting it. LAME!!
I've also used Kaspersky in the past, and recently installed that on a friends computer as it uses slightly less RAM than BitDefender. I'm sure we all agree thats another great product.
I read somewhere that BitDefender and Panda (TruPrevent specifically) are the only two AV products with properly working heuristic scanning that will detect new viruses, so I would think those products are both very good. Panda, however, uses about 150 MB of RAM which is completely unacceptable...
So yeah, to the guy asking about 64-bit AV products, BitDefender is fine. EZ Armor / etrust / Computer associates EZAV or whatever you want to call it works also, but sucks... I deal with it at work all the time, its one of those crappy products that detects viruses but doesn't actually remove them unless you restart into safe mode. Since when is terminating a process hard?

Anyhow, i'm working on a website that reviews or at least tests various programs, including AV. You can see the data i've collected so far here: http://www.appcheck.net/AppList2.aspx?Category=10
Yes, I know it's an ugly mess right now, so please spare me the comments...

It's interesting to see how much time these programs add to your boot cycle, for example. I really dont care how many viruses they detected in that test, because as someone else mentioned, most of the ones they're missing are probably old DOS viruses we don't care about. If you sign up for that free membership on Virus Bulletin and go here: http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archives/products.xml?table At least their testing should be more useful - they test NEW viruses not old ones.
You can see that the only AV products that were tested on Windows in the last year that failed a test are AVG, McAfee, Sophos and F-prot. Well, I'm not counting the dozen or so products I've never heard of. Failing one test isn't the end of the world, but if these products fail another one soon you would be wise to stay away from them for a while at least.
 
Symantec antivirus corporate edition. Very effective, no complaints here ;)
 
I work with many small businesses and Virus problems are becomming more of a pain.

Heres are the two things that do the most damaged:
1. No AV program on computers - suprisingly this is not very uncommon.
2. People bought dell comptuers or something that came with 3 month trials of norton which ALWAYS have run out 6 months ago and no one has done anything.

I do not recommend Norton anymore, its become such bloat and always is a pain. Mcafee wants to be Norton, too bad both of them are just racing eachother in the wrong direction. I've tried Avast and was not impressed, it was too flashy.. maybe its just me but any AV program that you can skin does not have its priorities straight.

Okay for the programs I like:

AVG: ITS FREE! When I know someone is not going to go buy and maintain AV software they get AVG installed on their computer before I give it to them. It's 1000x better than nothing at all. Above average protection, below norton/mcafee but not bad. Its not that bloated and pretty straight forward freeware.

Norton Corp... same as regular norton with 90% less bloat. Many of the businesses I work with we've set up a NAV server and managed clients. It is very easy to setup and very very easy to maintain. NAVCorp however is not perfect.. just wait until your NAV server gets infected with a virus that stops NAV fromw orking... then all of a sudden none of youre clients are getting updates and you have an entire network wiht old virus definitions and an infected server... been there , more than once :/)

Nod32 = Seriously it doesn't get any better htan this. Friend of mine deals wiht AV problems at Bestbuy doing their geeksquad thing... I tried to get him to use nod32 and finaly talked him into it... soon as he installed it on his home comp (after uninstalling mcaffee) nod32 instantly finds a virus that mcaffee never found he was convinced haha. Anyways if you look at virusbulitin or any other places that test AV software, nod32 is consistantly at the top... best of all is NO BLOAT!!!! it such a low-bloat product. I've been using it at home for awhile now and am still very impressed with it. I am going to test out remote administrator because if it can compare with norton corp's managed clients it would be better protection for less money.
 
Shayughul said:
Symantec becuase it is provided to me for free by my employer.
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And because it's rated the best, year after year. Too bad only the Norton Bloatware meda the list. It's a sad state of affairs when the best one on the market isn't even on the list.
 
well i dont like the symantec corp av. it has seperate lists for exclusions depending on if its for the auto protect, or the manual scanning. why? also, can you even purchase a single license for it? most corporate AV's come in 5-packs, that doesn't really help most people here... I dont like the way it just starts scanning when i log onto my computer at work sometimes -- it should wait until the computer is idle!
 
The latest version of SAV Corp (10. something I believe) has some issues on the server deployment level. I'm trialing Avast atm, used Antivir for a bit until it borked itself and plan on switching to NOD32 once I scrape up some fundage and the trial of Avast runs out. I think the scan function of Avast is a bit clunky...and I do not trust it. Still, I do most of my surfing and e-mail on my Mac because I feel better using it then Windows. When you work in IT and these things give you a headache during the day...you don't genuinely want to deal with them on your downtime at home ;)
 
Nasty_Savage said:
The latest version of SAV Corp (10. something I believe) has some issues on the server deployment level.
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The first version of 10 did have some LiveUpdate push issues, but that's been fixed almost immediately by Symantec. We're using it now in a 120,000 client domain, and it works flawlessly.
 
Creamy Goodness said:
well i dont like the symantec corp av. it has seperate lists for exclusions depending on if its for the auto protect, or the manual scanning. why? also, can you even purchase a single license for it? most corporate AV's come in 5-packs, that doesn't really help most people here... I dont like the way it just starts scanning when i log onto my computer at work sometimes -- it should wait until the computer is idle!
Click to expand...
The scanning policy is probably something that was setup by the main server (I'm guessing your work computer is on a domain). On mine the auto protect only scans files that have been read, created or written to. However I am runing the server version.
 
I've used AVG for literally years and years and years. I don't even remember when I started using it, but it was before Windows 2000 even, back in the Win9x days. I've never had an infection and I've spent my fair share of time in the danger zone (p2p, "underground sites", etc.) Say what you will, but AVG caught everything in real-time, scanned every night while I slept so who cares about time, never cost me any performance while gaming, and hasn't cost me a dime. I used it to clean machines in a PC repair shop. Step one was ignore the customers anti-virus and install AVG for a double-check scan. I'd say 90% of the time it found stuff, even when their's was updated.

No anti-virus client is perfect 100% of the time, but AVG has consistenly kept me and all the others I've recommended it to CLEAN for a good number of years. Enough to where paying money to get "more protection" has not been necessary ( <--- the key). The paid version currently keeps my parents business network clean, including exchange and server 2003. I've never had to touch it, I just get e-mails daily telling me no virus found, or virus found and cleaned. I just wish they'd hurry up with a 64-bit version. Anyway, my two cents.
 
Norton 2003(last decent version IMO, when they stop supporting it i'll switch to AVG or NOD32) it's always running in the background, A-Squared, and I run the Trend Micro online virus scan once in a while. As for anti spyware programs, Adaware, A-Squared, and I run SpyBot once in a while as well as the Trend Micro online spyware scan.
 
NOD32 because the only time I have a problem with it was when I played Thief 3. Once I made an exception for the exe everything was fine.
 
Can I change my vote? :p I have converted from Norton to NOD32 and I am very happy. It doesn't have issues with my SB drivers loading at startup and doesn't slow my machine down like Norton Did. NOD32 even found a trojan on my external drive that Norton missed.
 
DR_K13 said:
free>*

lol I would run NOD32 but I only use windows for playing Games
Click to expand...

*cough* I prefer not to incriminate myself.


If I had to pick a free AV, i'd pick Avast, ive had good experiences with it.
 
Clam AV on my mac, just incase when transferring files between windows-mac-windows. I use Clam AV on my parents windows machine also.
 
MaXimus666 said:
Ditto on that! When i used to use Norton, it would catch everything bad, but never offered a solution other than quarantining the freakin' file! never repairing it! :rolleyes:

But from my experience, McAfee Anti Virus is by far the worst piece of software on earth! Try it on any fast computer and the speed will drop to half as it is the biggest resource hog on earth! worst of all people trust them :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Correct on both counts.

By the way, I spent five hours removing a Norton install. I just finished it this afternoon. It was a SystemWorks install. Norton should know how to remove a worm because they sure as Hell know how to create one!
 
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