And The Best Antivirus Is Options

[The Ghost of Inept Pig]

One thing I always hate to do is to find the best Antivirus program that will protect my computer. The two best paid versions that I have always heard about are Kaspersky and NOD32. For free software, I always look towards Avast or AVG. Of course, that is what I knew before but it looks like there may be some new people climbing the ladder.

Virus.gr tested quite a few different software companies to see how they would stack up against each other. How did the 147,000+ virus test pan out?

Cybernet News

[Cataclysm=J]

I'm usuing Avast at the moment, the alerts are extremely annoying but its very good. Just trying it out really.

[Spook Tooth]

Avast for me too, though I prefer AVG for ease of use and speed of testing: Avast seems to take forever to complete a test of C:/.

Never though I'd look to installing AOL software on my system EVER. But hey, it's not really AOL under the bonnet, just Kaspersky, which just happens to be the best performing antivirus tested. Hmm. Methinks maybe a change in AV is at hand for next OS reinstall.

Nice find.

[Naoki Maeda]

I used to be a Norton AntiVirus person but after finding that the 2004/2005 versions used up so much system resources and thus slowing the system down, I had no choice but to find an alternative which came in form of ZoneAlarm Security Suite. What better way to have Firewall, AntiVirus and AntiSpyware all in one.

[Cataclysm=J]

Norton 2003 was bearable but 2004/05 was just utter sh^te. I used it for about a week because my dad got a subscription to it and I just had to get rid of it, took ages to scan hoged the whole system and missed everything. Whatever it did find it didn't know how to fix.

[Sureshot]

I just upgraded to Norton 2006 from 2003, which had worked fine. I absolutely hate the 2006 version. Its a complete system hog and it quite intrusive in telling you how it thinks it should be set. When I am playing an online game, my ping goes totally haywire and then I realise its Norton downloading stuff. When I try to tell it within Options to only download when I ask it to, it throws a hissy-fit and complains that I have an Item needing "Urgent Attention!" System scans take forever too!

I would ditch it too, but I paid for the upgrade and I plan on getting my years use of it before giving it the heave ho!

That list is a good find and certainly will help me track down a replacement when I convert to hardware firewall and A.N Other virus software

[Cataclysm=J]

Then again the free versions of Avast of AVG are better than Norton and they don't cost you anything so either way you're not going to have to spend anymore money but you might as well get rid of it.

Write to them tell them you're disgusted and try and get your money back.

[wags]

Good link there Mr Pig. I use AVG Free on my home PCs and like the fact that you hardly notice it running in the background. I use Sophos at work and am surprised it isn't on the list...it's expensive and is aimed at corporate networks (so that is probably why it doesn't feature on a consumer based list). My work licence covers me for using it on my home PC, but it tended to conflict with games and caused COD2 to take about 3 minutes to start up... so I replaced it with AVG

That AOL freebie looks interesting, although the sting in the tail is the increase in spam you are likely to receive in your in-box:

While AOL doesn't ask for money, Active Virus Shield users have to agree to let AOL and its partners deliver ads to them. "As a condition for your use of the software, you agree to receive promotions and periodic e-mail messages from us and our affiliates," according to the fine print in the license and user agreement of the software.

Source: CNET

[Cataclysm=J]

Sophos is a very good corporate Av thanks to the network updating which allows the business' server to apply the update to the workstations rather than the actual site which seems to work out far more effective as you can control the server to do it how and when you want it to, and means that only one download of the update is required direct to the server its self.

When you say its expensive it is very expensive though and probably isn't a viable option for home users.

While AOL doesn't ask for money, Active Virus Shield users have to agree to let AOL and its partners deliver ads to them. "As a condition for your use of the software, you agree to receive promotions and periodic e-mail messages from us and our affiliates," according to the fine print in the license and user agreement of the software.

And what they don't mention is that in a few months they'll probably make public every file save on your machine and all traffic through your computer as part of a 'servey'.

[Scarthy © ® ™]

NoD32 for me In the past I have tried Kaspersky, Bitdefender and NAV but I really like this one and it doesn't seem as greedy on resources as the others did.

[Rebel=UK=]

You can now get Kaspersky Antivirus free under the AOL Anti Virus Shield name, the Anti Virus Shield uses the Kaspersky engine and as you have seen from that test Kaspersky is the best.

{edit} Spook tooth has already stated the above...good stuff

On anther topic this firewall is free and its ment to be good and does very well against leak tests

http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/ind...rNumber=1088711

[Cataclysm=J]

I don't use any firewall aside from Windows firewall which doesn't do anything anyway. I've never had a problem with not having one either, they've always just been another resource hog for me.

[Spook Tooth]

It's funny you should say that Cat as I was just wondering if the Windows XP (SP2) firewall was actually any good or just false security. I used to run the free home version of Sygate but dropped it when it started giving me jip and SP2 came out. Why I like these two were because they didn't cause any kind of lag unlike some others.

Hey Rebel, yeah I like the look at that Kapersky even if it does have AOL branding. Who'd have thought we'd actually be saying anything good about AOL? But stranger things have happened I guess... Still haven't done my OS reinstall so haven't installed AOL/Kapersky yet.

You guys reckon SP2 firewall does the trick or is it wise to install one of the free firewalls like the one Rebel has linked to? I have downloaded it anyhow - are you using this Rebel mate? And is it any good you reckon? It doesn't affect latency does it?

[Cataclysm=J]

Well put it this way, when you run a games thats not on the excaption list it runs online anyway, try it with a real firewall and it doesn't. I don't think it does anything but it makes me feel very slightly better.

Also 'fast' reply just took 32 seconds.

[Rebel=UK=]

Windows Firewall does not do outgoing monitoring