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Which Antivirus should one use?
- Thread starter Bufford
- Start date
I have been getting the feeling that I might be wasting money with the paid AV subscriptions, many of you here and people I know have used the freeware without issues. I'd rather spend the money on some good cutlery rather than the financial black hole of this electronic gear/internet.
bufford, go with comodo and avast and you'll be good to go.
onfoot, norton is the biggest memory hog out there on the market. i had it on a pc with plenty of memory that ran great before i put it on. after i put it on every time norton was active my pc slowed down and even locked up. needless to say it came right back off but i had to end up reloading my operating system since there was stuff remaining that would not uninstall.
onfoot, norton is the biggest memory hog out there on the market. i had it on a pc with plenty of memory that ran great before i put it on. after i put it on every time norton was active my pc slowed down and even locked up. needless to say it came right back off but i had to end up reloading my operating system since there was stuff remaining that would not uninstall.
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2006
- Messages
- 81
must not know much about microsoft products..... put it out there and let the customer pay for it, test it and let us know what we need to fix...... the microsoft way, since the beginning
E
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2006
- Messages
- 44,509
I've run both Norton and McAfee. Recent versions of Norton have not been resource hogs, though I know that earlier versions were. The current McAfee is a terrible resource hog. It works well enough as an antivirus, but it interferes with everything else. It even slows down sending a file to the printer.
Comodo and Avast are free, not resource hogs, and they work well.
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2005
- Messages
- 1,180
Microsoft Security Essentials (Free, make sure that Real-time Protection is enabled) along with SuperAntiSpyware (Free or Pro version) and Malwarebytes (free or Pro version).
I was using Norton (not as bloated as it was in the past) for a few years and when it was about to expire I read up on the best Antivirus and Spyware programs and the three I've named are very highly rated in Maximum PC and I've had zero issues for over two years not while using all three.
Good luck.
I was using Norton (not as bloated as it was in the past) for a few years and when it was about to expire I read up on the best Antivirus and Spyware programs and the three I've named are very highly rated in Maximum PC and I've had zero issues for over two years not while using all three.
Good luck.
I've used Kaspersky for about 5 or more years now and it's very good, it's on the family computer and recently disinfected a friends external hdd with over 400 viruses/trojans/worms on it, didn't have a problem pulling the bad code out of almost every exe file he had on there. On my desktop I'm using ESET nod32 and it's just as fast as Kaspersky, neither slow down the PC and have regular updates (2 hourly or less).
On my laptop I'm using Vipre Antivirus which is also very fast, haven't had ESET or Vipre long enough yet to comment on their disinfecting abilities but all three don't slow down the computer and have timely updates.
I've tried AVG in the past and a friend uses it but it gave a lot of false positives I've found and wasn't very fast.
Haven't seen very good things from Norton from what I've seen on friends laptops but to be fair the version of Norton had expired and the computer was most likely riddled with bad apps and adware.
On my laptop I'm using Vipre Antivirus which is also very fast, haven't had ESET or Vipre long enough yet to comment on their disinfecting abilities but all three don't slow down the computer and have timely updates.
I've tried AVG in the past and a friend uses it but it gave a lot of false positives I've found and wasn't very fast.
Haven't seen very good things from Norton from what I've seen on friends laptops but to be fair the version of Norton had expired and the computer was most likely riddled with bad apps and adware.
The laptop I bought earlier this year had Norton installed on it with a free 30 day trial use. I was told by several people to uninstall of it or pay for it before the 30 day trial expires or else its going to remain in some form on the machine even after doing an uninstall. I put a paid AVG on the laptop and it will expire next summer. I'm thinking I will try Avast on one and AVG free versions and compare the two unless something else comes along.
One thing I don't like about the AVG and I have never had a clear explanation about this is when I do a scan the scan window lists all these files as 'locked not tested', whatever that means.
One thing I don't like about the AVG and I have never had a clear explanation about this is when I do a scan the scan window lists all these files as 'locked not tested', whatever that means.
There are system files that the antivirus program cannot scan. When I use Avira there are 3 files I can't scan. It's not really an issue.
AVG lists dozens of these files as locked not tested. Is there any way around this, because a virus could be one of those files? It will do this when scanning in safe mode aswell. I run Malwarebytes as an added layer of protection and it finds nothing, it appears the machine is okay.
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2010
- Messages
- 700
Microsoft Security Essentials
Ad-Aware by Lavasoft.
Ad-Aware by Lavasoft.
One thing I rarely see mentioned
in these types of threads,,,
a Firewall
Besides a physical firewall (router) I use ZoneAlarm (there are others)
When you set it properly,it will pop up a message saying
so and so wants access to the internet
or so and so is trying to access resource
or so and so wants to start each time your computer starts up
Allow YES/NO
Some should be allowed and others not.
Reading these messages with due attention can tell you a LOT
of whats going on and can even prevent a malware/spyware
take over even if you goof and click "let it in" in your
virus program or malware program.
Ok,enough...
Get a good firewall program as well as virii/malware/adware software.
in these types of threads,,,
a Firewall
Besides a physical firewall (router) I use ZoneAlarm (there are others)
When you set it properly,it will pop up a message saying
so and so wants access to the internet
or so and so is trying to access resource
or so and so wants to start each time your computer starts up
Allow YES/NO
Some should be allowed and others not.
Reading these messages with due attention can tell you a LOT
of whats going on and can even prevent a malware/spyware
take over even if you goof and click "let it in" in your
virus program or malware program.
Ok,enough...
Get a good firewall program as well as virii/malware/adware software.
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2009
- Messages
- 2,363
I had the same thing happen on my paid AVG. I called three times and the tech ended up giving me 4 months free on the 2012 version. Keep at them. That being said I like the new AVG just fine and I definitely suggest thier registry cleaner (which you can use for free one time). It found and repaired 212 problems, My reboot is much faster now.
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2007
- Messages
- 7
I'll second that, nearly two years of trouble free surfing;-)
for the paranoid out there:
since we're talking about computer security something I'm not sure if anyone said yet is that if you have existing viruses on your computer before you install your antivirus, if any of those viruses are more sinister than your average adware, as in rootkit sinister, your antivirus won't be able to remove them. Capable viruses will be able to operate at the same level of privilege as your operating system. Meaning that if it's installed intself before your antivirus is installed it's the one in control, so when your antivirus seeks to a sector of your hdd (that contains the virus) to scan it, the virus can intercept this call and report back as the hdd saying there's nothing there or that there's something harmless there, your antivirus doesn't match the data it sees with any known viruses so moves on, same thing for when your antivirus scans what's in RAM.
So the best course of action is to format your windows so that it's all fresh and then install the antivirus.
since we're talking about computer security something I'm not sure if anyone said yet is that if you have existing viruses on your computer before you install your antivirus, if any of those viruses are more sinister than your average adware, as in rootkit sinister, your antivirus won't be able to remove them. Capable viruses will be able to operate at the same level of privilege as your operating system. Meaning that if it's installed intself before your antivirus is installed it's the one in control, so when your antivirus seeks to a sector of your hdd (that contains the virus) to scan it, the virus can intercept this call and report back as the hdd saying there's nothing there or that there's something harmless there, your antivirus doesn't match the data it sees with any known viruses so moves on, same thing for when your antivirus scans what's in RAM.
So the best course of action is to format your windows so that it's all fresh and then install the antivirus.
Cougar Allen
Buccaneer (ret.)
- Joined
- Oct 9, 1998
- Messages
- 76,537
Usually a better solution is to use another computer to make a boot CD with the antivirus program on it and boot from the CD. No matter how sophisticated the virus, it can't write to the boot CD.