What is the Best AntiVirus?

[tomh55]

I work in IT retail and get free copies of all the major AV's. Trend Micro, upto 2008, was great and my choice for 4 years. I found McAfee, Norton, CA, no where as good as Trend. However, the 2008 Trend almost killed my PC. I switched to Norton 360, at the Symantec reps insistence. I've gotta tell you, it's great..yes great. I was an adament hater of Norton for killing all but the most brutally powerful machines.You don't even know 360 is on your PC. Anyway, that's my say.

 

[cenobite321]

I have used Norton and McAfee, they both consumed lots of resources and there were times that they encounter some viruses in my computer but weren't able to delete them. AVG since I have installed it I have had my computer 100% free of viruses and after all it is entirely free!

 

[idiil]

Not sure why AVG has so many votes. Pretty lousy detection rate from what I remember. NOD32 blows it away in speed, and was still more accurate.
Even in detection rate, the other AVs are better.

McAfee's AV is lousy, why people still use it is beyond me.

 

[cheeky]

kaspersky is best

 

[tetrahedron]

What do you guys think of the latest Norton Antivirus 2009 (Gamer's Edition)? Many first impressions suggest that it's shedding the "bloated" image with a smaller memory footprint...

 

[Max1337]

I like Kaspersky the most.

 

[xPlozion]

Not sure why AVG has so many votes. Pretty lousy detection rate from what I remember. NOD32 blows it away in speed, and was still more accurate.
Even in detection rate, the other AVs are better.

McAfee's AV is lousy, why people still use it is beyond me.

because among the free av's avg is among the best (better than avast imo).

 

[hcse26]

I love avast. Simple, fast but gets the job done and I couldn't ask for anything more. And you just got to love the boot-time scan.

Though I might be switching to Kaspersky or maybe NOD32 if budget permits.

I don't like memory hogs namely Norton, McAfee and TrendMicro

 

[mrxp_anupam]

I use Avast and found it to be really helpful.
The best thing is that it does not take much space and memory itself

 

[apoorav]

Kaspersky is great. If you are concerned about performance, Norton seems to be the way to go, but Kaspersky is a best. I've heard good things about NOD 32 Antivir but never actually tried it.

 

[vekou]

for me, it's Others. i vote for avira.. well i've tried, pc-cillin, norton systemworks, mcafee, avg, avast and nod32 (the hell, even windows defender, by default btw). pc-cillin was almost crap, at least for me.. norton has good protection but expensive and hogs nearly half of system resources. mcafee was average (i've used it a long time ago, so i won't comment now). avast was also, ok but i don't feel that it's fast enough for me. avg was good but there was a problem on earlier versions of avg8, so i tried nod32. nod32 was quite good actually. but by now, i base my decisions on the results on www.av-comparatives.org .

 

[zer0ne1337]

I am using Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 and I am happy with its performance. I like all its features, specially features like, Parental control, banner ad blocker, anti-spam, anti-dialer, anti-phishing etc. It works without any problem or impact on my system performance. Between it I once installed Norton Internet Security 2009 and I must say that they have improved a lot from the previous versions.

 

[Cymro]

We had Norton antivirus for several years, and it was quite slow.
Then we moved on to Kaspersky, after a magazine said it was the best. However, it was very disappointing. Although it wasn't a memory hog, the scanning time was appaling, once left it on for almost 24 hours and it was still only in Program Files. It also couldn't find a virus that I knew was on there.

Now we're on AVG, and, aside from being a very fast scanner (about 6hrs for me), is also free and found the forementioned virus.

 

[botbg]

I HIGHLY recommend Avast! Anti-Virus http://avast.com

It detects the virus rightaway!

So lets say you are downloading a file,and it has a virus, right when it senses the virus it tells you that there is a virus and gives you some options to move it to the chest or delete the file or abort connection (and some others)

Best of all its free for home users!

Check it out at http://avast.com

 

[articulator]

Thumbs up for Kaspersky.:lockd:

Its the best way to protect urself from virus,worms, trojans, hackers attacks.

 

[dbojan]

I dont need any . I'm using ubuntu.

 

[Max1337]

I recently purchased a Sonic Wall gateway firewall/anti virus ...
So now I don't even think I really need an A/V anymore
This thing works very well, I tested it by going to a website that typically installs viruses on your computer without your consent, and it blocked them.

More info can be found by clicking here...

It's expensive, but it's worth it.

 

[intertec]

I like zonealarm. I think its very good. Doesn't hog the system much but scanning is very slow!

 

[Soki]

CA has been loyal to me for many years.
I love it and so does my computer. ;]
I have to admit I did get some viruse/trojans/adware/malware (w/e), but it stopped it as soon as it reached my comp and got rid of it.
Great scanner.
No lag on "silent" optional updates.

AVG sucks horribly.
A friend has it and needs to download updated constantly.
Causes lags and slows down his computer.
Recently, he complained to me about a few adware and such that AVG found, but couldn't delete.
I then went over and used the small online CA pest scanner and it found over 50 things. 0.o
I installed my CA on his comp and it got rid of it all.
His comp runs alot faster and doesn't need constant huge download updates.

Nortan has had many errors with the uninstalling.
It leaves behind alot of files that can't be deleted which mess up the IE after a while.
You have to use Hijackthis to get rid of those anooying files that slow down the comp.

I heard McAfee is a good one, but never tried it or the others.

 

[Haavdwee]

Definitely AVG, it is free and doesn't use that much RAM.