What antivirus software should I buy?

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ShadowDK

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Hi,

I've been using the free version of Avast for a long time (together with Super Anti Spyware), but I got a new computer and I was thinking I should maybe get one of the paid solutions. Though I am much in doubt about what to choose?

I have looked at Kaspersky, Norton and Avast Internet Security - I find it quite hard to see the differences between them. Ideally it shouldn't make too much note of itself and not use a lot of the system ressources.

Do you have any recommendations for what is the best? :)
 
Microsoft Security Essentials.

That is all you need if you're running Windows. It's free and unless you click on every flashing banner that reads "you have just won an iPad" it's all you will need. I find most of the paid products cause more issues than they prevent and eat up system resources.
 
brshoemak said:
Microsoft Security Essentials.

That is all you need if you're running Windows. It's free and unless you click on every flashing banner that reads "you have just won an iPad" it's all you will need. I find most of the paid products cause more issues than they prevent and eat up system resources.
Click to expand...

I agree. Do not pay, must resist.
 
ShadowDK said:
Hi,

I've been using the free version of Avast for a long time (together with Super Anti Spyware), but I got a new computer and I was thinking I should maybe get one of the paid solutions. Though I am much in doubt about what to choose?

I have looked at Kaspersky, Norton and Avast Internet Security - I find it quite hard to see the differences between them. Ideally it shouldn't make too much note of itself and not use a lot of the system ressources.

Do you have any recommendations for what is the best? :)
Click to expand...
You're going to get a wide variety of answers to this question.

If you want to compare results, check out avtest.org They compare free and paid for antivirus suites.

My personal recommendation is that Avast 7 free is going to give you as good of protection as anything you pay for. I use Avast myself. If you still want to buy something, save money and stick to just the Antivirus products. Internet Security or anything is just fluff. Kaspersky, Norton, and Bitdefender are the top 3 products you can buy.
 
MSE is a decent choice, arguably better than most of the other freebies....but I'll echo what bigdogchris said and say Avast Free is a better choice. Avast has more protection shields and better features (the sandbox and the new cloud features come to mind), still fairly stays light on resources - and I've seen Avast catch stuff that MSE didn't even bother trying to stop. A bunch of lab computers at school got hosed by no less than 4 nasties last week, and they're all running fully updated Forefront (which is the corporate version of MSE); meanwhile my laptop running Avast Free 7 on the same network (using wifi) didn't get infected. ;)

MSE is better than AVG for sure. You'll get better detection rates with Avira or Avast though. Given the nag screens of Avira, I use Avast myself.
 
ShadowDK said:
...I have looked at Kaspersky, Norton and Avast Internet Security...
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All good choices. You can trial at least 30 days of each of those. If you go with an internet security package, Kaspersky has the best firewall of that bunch, with Norton's firewall being decent and absolutely silent. You can test free products for a s long as you want. I do not endorse them as I feel you somewhat get what you pay for. If you do go wit ha free solution then back it up with things like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, SUPERAntiSpyware, Hitman Pro, etc.
 
brshoemak said:
Microsoft Security Essentials.
Click to expand...
MSE provides basic level protection, and is free and easy to use. That's about where it ends though. I put MSE on client computers but I wouldn't run it myself because there is much better out there. MSE was very good compared to other products when it came out but that has changed and many of you continue to either ignore that and push MSE as 'the best' free solution, or are just ignorant as to how the market has changed in 3 years. There are simply better choices now in the free market.

A good example here of the brand new MSE 4.0 getting destroyed by malware.

Here is an example of what Avast 7 looks like against the same type of attacks. Notice the difference?

Also check out this review site which shows MSE as the worst protections in the lineup.

Here is another review site's recent report showing MSE amongst the bottom of the barrel in the test lineup.

This isn't new either folks. It's been this way for over a year now.

That is all you need if you're running Windows. It's free and unless you click on every flashing banner that reads "you have just won an iPad" it's all you will need.
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Many of you still using MSE are smart enough to not click that stuff, so you're blissfully oblivious to the truth. Unfortunately many people are not careful and need better protection.

And again, I'm not saying MSE totally sucks because I still use it on client PC's because it is the easiest to use. It's just not something I would expect someone who knows what they are talking about to use though.
I find most of the paid products cause more issues than they prevent and eat up system resources.
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Then you must not use many paid for apps. Yes, 5 years ago Norton was horrible with CPU and memory utilization. It's not like that anymore. I also run Kaspersky in a business. Their product is very light and very fast. Some products are still junk in regards to protection and system resources but by no means 'most'. Many companies have learned that people look at system resource utilization and have very much trimmed down their products in the past several years. Much thanks I believe to MSE.

My personal choice is Avast 7 Free, because it includes File Shield, Web Shield, Network Shield, and Script blocking - all for around 20MB of memory (it uses a little more on XP). For clients which I install MSE, I also install Panda URL Filter (part of their toolbar installation, I uninstall the toolbar after though), and change their DNS to Norton DNS (which denies connections to known malware sites).
 
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I dont know, MSE has caught a few things for me that I didnt see. That Java bug we had here on the forums a good while back, MSE caught it and warned me otherwise I wouldve been nailed.

Im sure its not as good as some of those suites you can get that cost a good bit but I think it does a great job and will catch a lot more than people think especially if you keep it upgraded often.
 
MacLeod said:
I dont know, MSE has caught a few things for me that I didnt see. That Java bug we had here on the forums a good while back, MSE caught it and warned me otherwise I wouldve been nailed.
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Which is a perfect example of why MSE "being the only thing you need if you don't click on flashing iPad banners" is a ridiculous statement to make.

Most infections nowadays involve visiting a website, even a website that generally is a SAFE website that you TRUST....and a JPEG or a piece of Javascript or something miniscule can hose your whole system, usually without asking you to download or run anything.

MacLeod said:
Im sure its not as good as some of those suites you can get that cost a good bit but I think it does a great job and will catch a lot more than people think especially if you keep it upgraded often.
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Plenty of antimalware sites doing reviews would disagree with you....but the proof's out there for you to look at if you're so inclined.

My personal experience - I ran MSE for several years and have been running Avast for about a year. None of my systems have been hosed while using either AV. I also use MBAM on demand if something is suspicious; in general though, once I install an AV, it's on a clean system, and I do not run any scans on-demand....I let the auto-scans do their thing and the shields do there thing as well. I don't run on-demand unless something is brought up (such as the [H] infections).

However, I have seen several systems with a fully updated MSE that were utterly hosed....nasty stuff like Smitfraud and TDSS/Alureon. My boss (and his family) are the type of "click first, ask questions later" sort of folks. [bashes head] :rolleyes: If it wasn't for Combofix, those systems would have needed to be 'flushed' (ie reformat and reinstall).
 
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bigdogchris said:
A good example here of the brand new MSE 4.0 getting destroyed by malware.

Here is an example of what Avast 7 looks like against the same type of attacks. Notice the difference?
Click to expand...

When he scanned the folder with the 2200+ malware, MSE got 73%, Avast got 83%. Wouldn't say that's a huge difference.
 
None is better than anything. I have ESET NOD 32 on my kid's computers and those kids click on some bad stuff. Not a single virus, knock on wood.
 
I was on the NOD32 train for awhile. No complaints really, it did it's job though I am sure a lot of it was just common sense. Though, I could not see the value in resubscribing this year so I just went with MSE.

I've tried AVG and avast in the past but they never did impress me. Things could have changed now, though.
 
I just came across a new article by PC World which echo's my statements about MSE. LINK
Xee said:
When he scanned the folder with the 2200+ malware, MSE got 73%, Avast got 83%. Wouldn't say that's a huge difference.
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That's one part of many test, and taken out of context of the overall review. Anyways, 220 samples is a lot of malware.
 
Don't buy... just download MSSE. Works as well as anything else out there. Is it better? Probably not, but it's just as good, and it's free.
 
bigdogchris said:
I just came across a new article by PC World which echo's my statements about MSE. LINK
That's one part of many test, and taken out of context of the overall review. Anyways, 220 samples is a lot of malware.
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Both that article and av-comps used the previous version of MSE in their tests.

As for the video of the current version, did you notice how many "Are you sure you want to open this?" Windows pop-ups the guy had to go through to run the malware? If people are that stupid, no antivirus program is going to save them.
 
I agree that essentials is all you need you could get Malwarebytes if you feel the need to scan questionable files and for general web traffic security but if you're an avid user you shouldn't get into trouble without it.
 
MSE, and if you really feel like paying, NOD32.

And if you're extra paranoid, browser in sandbox.
 
I used to use Avast, but switched to MSE because the newest version of Avast was to annoying. I'd start a program and Avast would pop up a screen saying(something like) We did not recognize that program so we turned it off. If you want to run it check the box and restart the program. If I did not want to run it I would never have clicked on it in the first place. They say there's probably nothing wrong with that program, but I turned it off anyway? Bye Bye Avast.
 
Dont use MSE.

Ive helped several people who claimed their PC was clean after telling them to scan with better AV programs that MSE missed.

I love ESET SS.

But if you want to stay free ten give Avast or Avira a chance....anything but MSE
 
Jsalpha2 said:
I used to use Avast, but switched to MSE because the newest version of Avast was to annoying. I'd start a program and Avast would pop up a screen saying(something like) We did not recognize that program so we turned it off. If you want to run it check the box and restart the program. If I did not want to run it I would never have clicked on it in the first place. They say there's probably nothing wrong with that program, but I turned it off anyway? Bye Bye Avast.
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Change AutoSandbox mode to 'Ask' instead of 'Auto'.
 
BlackThought said:
Dont use MSE.

Ive helped several people who claimed their PC was clean after telling them to scan with better AV programs that MSE missed.

I love ESET SS.

But if you want to stay free ten give Avast or Avira a chance....anything but MSE
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No.... anything but AVG... I've had MULTIPLE computers brought to me with AVG on them and unoperable because of the malware.
 
I have been using Comodo Internet Security free version. Firewall, Antivirus and Sandbox in one program. Has worked well for me.

Combined with Spybot and Super Antispyware of course. Viruses and spyware/malware are different threats and something Antivirus software is not directly made to remove.
 
Jsalpha2 said:
I used to use Avast, but switched to MSE because the newest version of Avast was to annoying. I'd start a program and Avast would pop up a screen saying(something like) We did not recognize that program so we turned it off. If you want to run it check the box and restart the program. If I did not want to run it I would never have clicked on it in the first place. They say there's probably nothing wrong with that program, but I turned it off anyway? Bye Bye Avast.
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That's the auto sandboxing and it will save your ass in so many ways that MSE can't even handle. You can just click "remember this setting" for programs you commonly use.
 
I buy nothing and use Avira. Their free software is better than 90% of paid.
Been thinkin' about payin' for their full package.
 
Avast 7 has remote control software in it.

Just waiting for that to get compromised so not only does the virus stomp on it, but it also uses its built in remote support tool to use your PC as its own little playground (not that they can't do this already).

My recommendation?

I run none. No AV directly at least. I have MBAM non paid and Hitman Pro Paid versions.
In some of my VM's I actually have Avast and MSE, but truthfully, the biggest defense against viruses is education.

If you click on "Lol This file has bewebie.zip.exe" no virus scanner is going to save you from stupid.
 
stiltner said:
I run none. No AV directly at least. I have MBAM non paid and Hitman Pro Paid versions.
In some of my VM's I actually have Avast and MSE, but truthfully, the biggest defense against viruses is education.

If you click on "Lol This file has bewebie.zip.exe" no virus scanner is going to save you from stupid.
Click to expand...
I used think the same way. Then I I got hit by a malware infection on live.com that came through an advertisement. Also remember the malware that was put through hardforum.com several months ago? No amount of educating or smart clicking would of prevented them.
 
stiltner said:
Avast 7 has remote control software in it.

Just waiting for that to get compromised so not only does the virus stomp on it, but it also uses its built in remote support tool to use your PC as its own little playground (not that they can't do this already).
Click to expand...

Requires a random 8 digit code that is only given on demand and changes every time you try to use remote access. Being able to connect to a remote user would require having the specific code for their machine in addition to actually being able to get through their firewall(s). Yeah...not really worried about being maliciously 'remote supported'. :rolleyes:
 
I'm still waiting for someone to figure out how to exploit Norton Management to remove Norton products from everyone's machines remotely.
 
another vote for MSE , have used Avira (never happy with it) in past but switched then to Kaspersky and ended up with MSE ,for the last 4 years...no problems at all.
But as others said, there is no anti-stupid-software :rolleyes:
 
I used antiviruses for years and years and I only ever found one virus on my machine. It was a false alert from gamespy that I loaded for cod way back.

So since I hunted viruses for so long I got tired of it and just come to the conclusion that I am not a risky person on the web and I'm not gonna get infected most likely. I used opera browser or firefox and don't dl any illegal programs or music.

But I know that wasn't the question but I thought I'd throw it out there. My opinion is they are overrated and out to get your cash. Plus the thought of a program that scans your whole pc and phones home seems more of a virus than the viruses I never get,.
 
I drive with no seat belt on and my lights off because frankly I'm a fucking great driver and I've never been in an accident yet!
(I should've done it professionally to be honest)

Same goes for fucking. I don't need no condom, a smell test, or a peer review/background check because frankly I can blind pick a great vagina to poke on any day of the week. (I should've done it professionally to be honest)


Same goes for those anti-virus software programs, they're for the sheeple but not for someone as great as me, I'm fucking great!
(I should've done computing professionally to be honest)

night!
 
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