Anti-Virus Software: What should I use and why?

[Jordi]

I use AVG and I can't remember the last time I had a virus. It must have been years. That doesn't necessarily say anything about AVG though, because maybe I'm just careful or super lucky and haven't encountered any viruses to begin with, or I have but other AV software would also have protected me.

Anyway, I have no reason to switch. With AVG I've always been safe, it is free, it is unobtrusive and if Task Manager is to be believed it uses virtually no resources.

 

[mgirl]

I don't trust AVG. I was using it when a very problematic bit of malware made its way onto my computer, and I have no idea how, I don't download stuff at all unless I know it's trusted, and AVG didn't detect it, and couldnt remove it. I switched to malwarebytes after that, and haven't had a problem since, so that's what I'd recommend. I certainly don't trust AVG anymore, and wouldn't recommend it. Then again, most people have good things to say about it, so maybe I was just unlucky.

 

[Megacherv]

Microsoft Security Essentials, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise

 

[Me55enger]

I have ESET NOD32 and it's been a life saver.

ESET all the way man. Its what iI recommend, its what my best friends PC company recommends and uses.

Just. Dont. touch. Norton.

 

[Tharwen]

The best way to run a (Windows) computer securely is to run it on a standard account. That way, no program can do anything damaging without asking for an administrator password first (as long as you have UAC on). This is how Unix systems run, and it's the reason there are no effective viruses for them.

So, to summarise:
1. Make an administrator account with a password
2. Convert your account to a standard account
3. Remove all antivirus forever! (Actually, don't. Run a scan every now and then, just in case)

I use AVG and I can't remember the last time I had a virus. It must have been years. That doesn't necessarily say anything about AVG though, because maybe I'm just careful or super lucky and haven't encountered any viruses to begin with, or I have but other AV software would also have protected me.

Anyway, I have no reason to switch. With AVG I've always been safe, it is free, it is unobtrusive and if Task Manager is to be believed it uses virtually no resources.

But task manager doesn't tell the whole story when it comes to antivirus. The way they work is to scan every single byte of data that passes through your computer for anything harmful, which means that every network packet and every disk access attempt has to be stopped, scanned, and then allowed on its way.

There are some (slightly out of date) benchmarks for this with different software packages [a href="http://thepcspy.com/read/what_really_slows_windows_down/#results-and-conclusions"]here[/a].

 

[Jonluw]

Yeah, I can't believe I got a virus. It just appeared out of nowhere as I opened about 5 tabs from google, fucking virus.

You know, when you're searching certain things on google, you really should take precautions to be sure the sites you open are safe.

That's why I like the rating bar system avast is doing. It makes me feel so much safer when I can see that users have rated a site's safety as good.

OT: I use avast because it's free. I don't know which antivirus is the best, but avast provides the level of protection I need and perhaps more. I don't know, since I haven't run into any viruses (that I know of, or that malwarebytes can detect) since I started using it.

 

[RvLeshrac]

After many hours of searching, the internet has failed me. AVG is the best, unless you use Kaspersky. But Kaspersky sucks in comparison to Norten. :S
The obvious solution is to get the general consensus of the Escapsits. So dispense your thick salty knowledge upon my tender face!

AVast: Has shipped with spyware. You're fucked when you get a rootkit or malware infection.
AVG: Has shipped with spyware. You're fucked when you get a rootkit or malware infection.
Kaspersky: Best at being an antivirus. Painfully slow.
Norton: Eats up massive amounts of CPU time and RAM, for versions prior to 360v2. You're fucked when you get a rootkit or malware infection.
NOD32: One was great, is now no better than the latest NAV. You're fucked when you get a rootkit or malware infection.
MSE: Works as well as NOD32 or Norton. Keep an updated copy of the bootable version around.

SUPERAntiSpyware: Keeps spyware away. Not any better than MalwareBytes.
MalwareBytes: Keeps spyware away. Not any better than SUPERAntiSpyware.

TDSSKiller: For getting rid of rootkits when they crop up, if you're not using Win64.

 

[Jonluw]

Yeah, I can't believe I got a virus. It just appeared out of nowhere as I opened about 5 tabs from google, fucking virus.

You know, when you're searching certain things on google, you really should take precautions to be sure the sites you open are safe.

That's why I like the rating bar system avast is doing. It makes me feel so much safer when I can see that users have rated a site's safety as good.

OT: I use avast because it's free. I don't know which antivirus is the best, but avast provides the level of protection I need and perhaps more. I don't know, since I haven't run into any viruses (that I know of, or that malwarebytes can detect) since I started using it.

It wasn't porn or anything if that's what you were implying.

Oh sure, of course.
After all, the stuff you've been looking up isn't technically what normal people call porn.

 

[RvLeshrac]

The best way to run a (Windows) computer securely is to run it on a standard account. That way, no program can do anything damaging without asking for an administrator password first (as long as you have UAC on). This is how Unix systems run, and it's the reason there are no effective viruses for them.

So, to summarise:
1. Make an administrator account with a password
2. Convert your account to a standard account
3. Remove all antivirus forever! (Actually, don't. Run a scan every now and then, just in case)

I use AVG and I can't remember the last time I had a virus. It must have been years. That doesn't necessarily say anything about AVG though, because maybe I'm just careful or super lucky and haven't encountered any viruses to begin with, or I have but other AV software would also have protected me.

Anyway, I have no reason to switch. With AVG I've always been safe, it is free, it is unobtrusive and if Task Manager is to be believed it uses virtually no resources.

But task manager doesn't tell the whole story when it comes to antivirus. The way they work is to scan every single byte of data that passes through your computer for anything harmful, which means that every network packet and every disk access attempt has to be stopped, scanned, and then allowed on its way.

There are some (slightly out of date) benchmarks for this with different software packages [a href="http://thepcspy.com/read/what_really_slows_windows_down/#results-and-conclusions"]here[/a].

Running as a LUser doesn't keep malware off your machine, it just keeps malware which requires admin access off your machine. All those passwords you type into non-privileged browsers and game launchers are still perfectly vulnerable. This is true of EVERY OS.

 

[dnazeri]

I use Kaspersky. Those Russians are some damn good malware analysts, and as a result their anti-virus package is pretty comprehensive.

 

[Warped_Ghost]

Avast or AVG free anti virus systems are pretty good. I hear Avast is slightly better because apparently AVG slows down your computer a bit. That is just based on Cnet reviews though.

 

[Signa]

I've just used Norton for years.

The general notion apparently is that it sucks, but I've never had any real problems with it. But then I'm not much of a downloader, so that could be it.

It might function correctly, but it slows your PC down to a crawl. I've been asked so many times to help people increase the speed of their PC, and almost every time, merely removing Norton does the trick.

I use Avast. I know at one point they were the highest rated free AV on the market. When I use it to replace Norton, there is some slowdown too, but it's not as much, and you can briefly turn it off with a few clicks by the task bar clock if you need speed. If you have a higher powered PC, then it doesn't even really affect it.

 

[teqrevisited]

I use Kaspersky. I got it free from my bank to use on any machine on my network. It's pretty good, as in it hasn't blocked any programs that aren't malicious. It doesn't like some programs though, especially indie games (Jamestown for one) but all it does is tell me it thinks that it's a keylogger and then goes away.

It can eat up cpu power but that's usually down to a real-time process checker that can be turned off in the options.

 

[mateushac]

I grew fond of Avira. As I can see, ppl don't have much love for it, but it looks like it's been doing a good job. Setting heuristics too high will probably give you warnings all day, though... So a little bit of false positives