What is the Best AntiVirus?

Which do you think is the best AntiVirus?

  • Kaspersky

    Votes: 126 20.2%
  • BitDefender

    Votes: 24 3.8%
  • Eset Nod32

    Votes: 93 14.9%
  • McAfee

    Votes: 17 2.7%
  • Nortorn

    Votes: 58 9.3%
  • TrendMicro

    Votes: 9 1.4%
  • AVG

    Votes: 122 19.6%
  • Avast

    Votes: 125 20.0%
  • CA

    Votes: 3 0.5%
  • F-Secure, PCTools, Webroot, Panda or Other

    Votes: 47 7.5%

  • Total voters
    624

wazza6

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OMG kaspersky is the best! It has updates every 1 hour and has the most up-to-date virus database! AVG lets a stupid virus (blue screen of death) infect your computer , it is the only one to. Avast is lame (home edition) and pro is kida like AVG. Norton slows down your computer like hell and I never tried the others.
 

tdecoop3

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I use AVG and tune it down a bit, it seems to do a pretty good job. Have not had a virus in years
 

aaronj10

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I personally voted for Norton, I only chose this and none of the others because Norton has been the program of choice that all the Computers that I have purcahsed came with.
I see that in the Polls here AVG has a few likes.
I would like too look into this program but I don't want to spend the money required if you know what I mean..:dunno:
 

ichwar

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SpyWareNuker was the only software I could find, paid or otherwise, that was able to totally remove a certain virus I had from my computer.
 

maglck

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In my humble opinion, the best "antivirus" is none of the above. All of them are resource-wasting and ultimately ineffective.

First off, I'm going to say that I have not had a single virus since I was a kid and viruses were first becoming a problem. I'm by no means a computer genius, but I do know more than the average person. I know certain file types that can be "infected" with a virus, and I know file types that could not possibly harm you, even if it had virus code in it. Simply scanning every file that comes by is pointless to me. On top of that, it is an extreme waste of resources.

With all that being said, my first line of "defense" is VirusTotal by hash check. That means if I have an .exe or .dll or anything that I was personally suspicious of, I would use winMd5Sum to get the md5 hash of the file then check it up with the constantly updating database of VirusTotal. If the file has not been scanned recently (which rarely happens), it will give you no results and you would need to upload it. After uploading the file, it will test it against 40 different antivirus programs.

40 is a lot better than 1. It also will give you a good idea of when some files are just false positives, and when some files are 100% surefire viruses (for example, 3/40 could be a false positive, but 39/40 is a definite virus). Not only that, it gives you the message reported by each antivirus. This can be helpful as "Suspicious File" (which can just be a false positive) does not really tell much compared to "Trojan-Proxy.Win32.Small.ez".

Even when a file has a low danger level (say, 5/40 programs report it as "Suspicious"), I still have a method that does not pertain to antiviruses that will help protect my computer. I will run the file in a sandbox to make sure none of my actual files are harmed.

This method is not recommended to all, as some people simply do not know enough about computers (or it gets too complicated) to keep a computer safe with just VirusTotal and Sandboxie. For those that do, though, I do not see why they still have an ancient piece of technology like antivirus software installed on their computer. I'd much rather take a minute to upload a single file and check it, then scan every bit of incoming data on my computer. In fact, I can't stand the thought of there being an additional process booting on startup (except for my Firewall, as that is crucial).

Anyhow, sorry for the essay, but that's what I do and I have many virus-free computers that have been running since the 90s to prove it to be an effective method.
 

Hauzer

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If you have one of them Anti-Viruses, which many have Spyware + Malware detection then that's done more work for you. If you have an Anti-Virus, then it's sure you have a threat on your computer.

If you don't, then you don't know when you have one until you do your thing. And not all hog memory, that's the least thing to worry about. If you want one which doesn't hog memory I would recommend Eset NOD32, I used to run that one my 256MB RAM computer and I still couldn't notice it then, in matter of fact I ran this on a 128MB RAM laptop and didn't cause any problems.

The most Anti-Virus I would recommend now as of 31st May 2009 is BitDefender. Before it wasn't as good but this is now ranked #1 Anti-Virus, this doesn't use much memory and costs very little.
 

lala123

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I use the Kaspersky. Not sure about its protection comparing to others. But I think it work good, still doesn't have any virus for 2 years.
 

lynnwood

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Comodo is what I have been using on my Vista box ever since I owned it. The hardware came with the standard 60-day free trial for the Norton suite loaded on it, but I uninstalled that within 60 minutes. Comodo has a relatively small footprint and I have never had a problem with it.

McAfee is loaded on my XP box but that is only because my employer has an enterprise license that includes home use. McAfee is a resource hog but this PC is only used by my pre-schoolers (although I have been sitting in front of it quite a bit lately since we discovered the Farm Frenzy games!)

I also like BitDefender, but I use Comodo simply because I have been using their firewall product for a while and I like it and the other bitDefender-like suite of tools that it has.

A properly maintained firewall is the key to keeping your PCs safe. The only reason I use virus protection is because I tend to download programs and other stuff through p2p and torrents. But even then I do not use a windoze box to do so. My Linux boxes (xubuntu and Slackware) are what I use for the downloads. The downloaded material does not even make it to my windoze machines until I extract the files and remotely scan them. Sometimes I will scan the files with both Comodo and McAfee just to be sure.
 

Linkz0rs

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Even though Windows 7 is good... I still don't exactly "like" Windows...
I don't even have an A/V on here right now, so I mainly leave my Gateway Anti-Virus to block websites with viruses and stuff... So far, with that setup.. I havnt gotten any problems yet :)

Although, I was thinking of switching to another OS... But something inside made me change my mind lol
 
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indeedmaster

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Personally I use Norton Antivirus 2009 + Spybot S & D

I really like the latest Norton because it's so much faster than 2008. The last versions were so slow, I seriously considered removing them altogether, I'm happy I stuck with it though, NAV 09 is pretty unobtrusive, so I don't really mind.

That plus Spybot makes a great combo. Real-time protection (Spybot) + On-Access Scan (Norton) + anti-malware (Spybot) + anti-virus (Norton) makes me a happy camper :)

Oh yeah, also I use Sandboxie, probably the best proactive solution EVER. Check it out: http://www.sandboxie.com/. Just put your "Sandbox" folder in the scan exclusions for Norton, so it won't bother you of "security threats," if your running keygens/badware/other software that Norton thinks is bad but really isn't.
 

stuart1010

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I would have to go with AVG its very good and efficient and the free version comes with a lot of stuff like Anti spy ware but nortan is good too.
 

loveispoison

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im with eset nod32 been using it for years no problems one thing i love about it that it doesnt slow down my laptop and its realy good i used Kaspersky didnt like it slowed down my laptop well thats me:biggrin:
 

merrillmck

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I haven't used an anti-virus program since the mid-90's and I only recently started using Spybot Search & Destroy (which is focused on spyware, not viruses).

I guess I'm lucky but I've always kept current on how viruses find their way into your computer by reading the news and tech news. I keep my Microsoft OS current with the latest updates. I don't share my computer (no kids to download trojans). And I'm very wary of free software and free tools that I install on my computer. And I don't leave my computer online constantly ... I do a lot of work disconnected from the net.

I'm sure tomorrow my computer will have some crazy virus laughing at me ...
 

zubair12

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im with eset nod32 been using it for years no problems one thing i love about it that it doesnt slow down my laptop and its realy good i used Kaspersky didnt like it slowed down my laptop well thats me:biggrin:
i m also using the same
 

Twinkie

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I recently tried BitDefender for about 6 months. It sure looks good in a feature comparison list, but don't use it. It is buggy, its heuristics I heard so much about is nothing more than an alert saying "this program might be dangerous," which it also said about Microsoft Word and Outlook. It is generally slow. The control panel does not always open up (technical support said it gets "stuck" once and a while and I had to terminate it). The scanner does not repack archives (so if there is a virus in a downloaded archive the "solution" is to delete it). Random programs refuse to work. I take back everything I said about BItDefender in the first post, try to avoid it. You get what you pay for!

Those interested in the best security, get Kaspersky. Those who want it cheaper, get AVG. Those who want it faster, get NOD32. Anyone disagree?
 
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vekou

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personally, i use avira. although for technophohics, it may look a bit hard to configure.
 
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