Are you a virus?

[Merrik Waters]

The other day a good friend of mine asked me the big question: What kind of anti-virus protection do you use for your PC and what he should get for his. (Yes I am a pc fan. Just never could afford a mac) I didnt know what to tell him. I Use Kaspersky only because it came with a 3 year thing when I bought my computer but it is expensive. I just want to hear about other peoples expirences with the different anti-virus programs that are out there. Which ones should I avoid? Which ones are worth spending money on? Those kind of things.

 

[Woodsey]

AVG. Free and it does the job.

NORTON R FOR NOOBZ LULZ.

 

[MrTub]

Im using avg free, works well for me

 

[El Poncho]

Eh...none except this one norton keeps giving me which is a crapper one I would get from their payed for one, mainly to advertise I think. It has only ever found cookies though, so who knows.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

I'm quite happy with AVG at the minute, I've not had any big problems when using it.

 

[sunami88]

For money? ESET Nod32 (IMO, it's literally the only AV worth money).

For free? AVG Free.

Both awesome, one 100% free. I used to use Avast! for a while there, until I found out it's literally retarded ("OMG A FILE IS OPEN! ITS A VIRUS!"). On ancient hardware, I'd suggest Avira Antivir, it ran with essentially no footprint on my old ass AMD K6-2 server PC (before I upgraded the whole PC).

We were forced to use Panda AV at college, and I hated it. Just didn't like the look, or the fact that in disabling it it would decide to disable my internet connection.

Aside from that, I've never liked Norton. And I once saw McAffee delete itself during a scan one time ("McAfee.exe is accessing restricted system files! Cleaning..." and then I had a GOOD 'ol laugh).

EDIT:
Oh, and for the FOSS crowd, I believe ClamWin is open source/free and still around.

EDIT2:

Spoiler: Oh ya, and...

Humanity is a virus.

 

[Helmet]

What do you guys think of Kaspersky?

 

[Cargando]

Use AVG. It does the job.

 

[Armored Prayer]

I use Nortan (go ahead and laugh) But you know it's been actually helpful, and has been cleaning up my computer lately.

 

[pinmisslenubcake]

I use avast anti-virus its good and it works well

 

[Merrik Waters]

What do you guys think of Kaspersky?

I have used Kaspersky since i got my computer and it has worked great. Once my subscription runs out though I cant say I will resubscribe though. Just dont have the money.

 

[MGlBlaze]

I use AVG Internet Security; it hasn't let me down yet. Although it does hog system resources when running a scan, it's just quietly there in the background otherwise. I've never had any problems with it conflicting with games, either. That costs money, though. AVG free edition is still a nice protection package, though.

I use Spybot: Search & Destroy as well. Free, and I think most people would recommend it.

 

[axia777]

AVG FTW. Free or not I and lots of my friends have never had issues with it at all. It keeps the system clean as long as the user keeps AVG updated and does regular scans.

 

[Woodsey]

I don't use any anti-virus protection, I don;t get any viruses because I am not an idiot. My brother has a Mac, he uses anti-virus programs for it because he got Mac viruses, he is an idiot. It isn't whatever OS you use or anti-virus program, it is your competence on the internet.

This is one of the stupidest things I've heard all day.

 

[The DSM]

Ive got 2 anti-virus programs and an anti-spyware after I had to reformat my entire comp after a nasty little bug got on my comp ( I wasnt downloading porn I swear....) So ive had no issues with 2 layers of anti-virus.

 

[Neonbob]

AVG works nicely. As does Avast.

But make sure you avoid McAfee. It's completely fucking useless.
Other than making itself crash, as noted above, I've had it get stuck on files overnight.
So when I got AVG, McAfee got itself uninstalled FAST.

 

[Ciarang]

I use norton, only because it came free with my computer =P

 

[sunami88]

Oh, and more info. You should run a Spyware checker every now and again too. I run Spybot: Search and Destroy [http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html] and Malwarebytes AntiMalware [http://www.malwarebytes.org/]. Despite sounding like a virus, I'd have to give the nod to Malwarebyes, it's perfect.


[hr]

Ive got 2 anti-virus programs and an anti-spyware after I had to reformat my entire comp after a nasty little bug got on my comp ( I wasnt downloading porn I swear....) So ive had no issues with 2 layers of anti-virus.

You should never run two AV programs at the same time. They sometimes like to fight, and even if they never have haven't yet, the chances of them duking it out and frying your install are pretty good.

[hr]


And as for me, I don't run an AV any more. I don't download stupid shit from the internet, and even every time I install an AV just for a quick check-up, I've never had a virus. Not in at least 4 years. Having a proper hosts file [http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm] helps, so does NoScript, proper hardware firewall etc.