Anti-Virus Software Suggestions - Discriminating Parameters...

I've always had great experiences with Norton.

If you are looking for a free setup, try www.avast.com.

I have no clue if it will meet all of your requirements as I have no experience with Earthlink.

 

I use McAfee. If you want, PM me.

 

You think it's trying to tell you something of your surfing habits?

I think all AV programs suck - pick your poison. Trend has the most for the least but their latest 2007 is a performance pig if you turn on all the features. And I'm sure it'd be pretty easy to debug your internet problem.

Norton 2005 was also a pig. I think I've got the Norton 2006 stuff unopened and legit - too bad it'd cost more to mail to you than to purchase. I'm probably just tossing 'em.

Does your ISP have AV included? Our Cable ISP includes re-branded Fsecure av/spyware at no extra cost.

 

Your best bet for greatest performance is to use the virus protection between your ears.

Spent too long as an MIS manager dealing with all kinds of antivirus software issues.

Don't continually run any form of antivirus on my personal systems, though I do try out the latest & greatest versions now and again (both to evaluate their performance and to double check MINE).

None of these programs has yet found any virus/trojan/worm on my system that wasn't put there by me.

 

*EDIT*

Hey Carbie, I read your criteria. I use an Anti-Virus on my Thinkpad that is off the beaten path of Norton and McAfee. Though both are good, they are memory hogs and install other fluff that I do not need.(I have other firewalls, etc) Avira makes an Anti-Virus that is not a memory hog and cuts to the chase of virus protection. When it has found a Trojan, virus or other irritant trying to sneak in, a pop-up prompts with some choices as to what you want to do with it, it does not cut you off from the network if you have other things going on in the background.

Updates are constantly available. Though I find a bit of irony in this product, it's made in Germany.

http://www.free-av.com/

 

I've been running Kaspersky for the past year. I love it. NOD32 is supposed to be a good one too.

 

eAcceleration /Stop Sign

I have had very good results and service from them use it in all of our office and laptops

 

Sophos.
Kaspersky
AVG
AVAST
Panda

These are good ones. Most of the above are sold by the virus authors themselves and are from eastern Europe so it's essentially blackmail.

You gotta do what you gotta do.

 

Best Free Anti-Virus Software Updated 8th November 2006
There are two equal recommendations in this category. First there is AVG Antivirus 7 Free Edition. This product [1] has been continuously refined since it was first released in 1991 and the recently released V7.5 makes further improvements to an already solid product. Additionally, it's relatively small, light on resources, has regular automatic updates and handles email scanning. There is a free and a pro version, the only difference being that the free version has a few non-critical features disabled and has no direct technical support.

Equally effective is the free Avast! scanner [2] though its funky media player style interface is not to everyone's taste. Avast! also required periodic re-registration while AVG does not. However Avast! does not seem to suffer the signature file update problems that plague some AVG users.

A possible third choice is the AOL Anti Virus Shield [3]. This is a cut down version of the top rated Kaspersky AV and is being made available for free to all uses not just AOL members.

On first sight it seems like an unbeatable deal but it's not quite what it seems. First this really is a "lite" version. It lacks the important html and heuristics modules present in the full Kaspersky product so the protection afforded against hostile web sites is actually inferior to AVG and Avast!. Gone, too, is the ability to create rescue disks and to fully manage the quarantine area. The configuration options are also more limited.

Secondly the End User License Agreement is worrying. AOL basically reserves the right to spam you. I'm not aware of this actually happening but you need to be aware they have the right to do so.

By default AOL AVS installs the AOL search bar in Internet Explorer as part of the AVS install. If you don't want it, make sure you opt out during installation.

So on balance I'm cautious about recommending AOL AVS. If you can however, live with the limitations then you'll be rewarded with a first class scanner.

Both AVG and Avast! are excellent free products that will meet the needs of most users. However neither can be considered to be the best available. That title belongs to commercial products like NOD32, F-Secure, the full version of Kaspersky AV and others. They are however capable packages and offers the financially challenged a real alternative to the major anti-virus suites.

However if you use these free products in conjunction with a free on-demand scanner, you can achieve a level of detection approaching that of the best commercial products. Further improvement is possible by creating a layered defense using additional free security products such as AVG Anti-Spyware (formerly Ewido).

On-demand scans should be run regularly, at least weekly, to check for viruses and other malware that may have been missed by your main scanner.

If you don't use AOL AVS as your main AV product then this should be your the top choice as an on-demand scanner as its detection is outstanding. You should though, disable the AOL AVS real time monitor otherwise you may run into conflicts with the monitor on your primary AV product.

Another top recommendation for an on-demand scanner is AntiVir Personal Edition Classic [4]. It offers significantly better detection rates than either AVG or Avast! but the lack of email scanning precludes recommendation as a primary scanner. However as an on-demand scanner, it's first rate. If you use it in this role, make sure you disable its resident virus guard during installation to prevent it interfering with your main AV scanner. Even so , it's quite an intrusive product -you will certainly be well aware of its presence. Note that the recently released V7 unfortunately introduces a time limited license though apparently this will be renewable.

Yet another good option for on-demand scanning is the free version of the commercial AV product BitDefender [5]. It's a first class product with outstanding detection rates but as the free version lacks an email scanner and a resident virus guard, it's only really suited for use as an on-demand scanner rather than your main AV product. There are some other limitations as well. First it has an annoying habit of detecting malware products that have been quarantined by other security products and you can't exclude these areas from subsequent scans. Secondly, it is only available on a one year non-renewable license.

=>index

[1] http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/ (16.0MB)
[2] http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html (8.8MB)
[3] http://www.activevirusshield.com/antivirus/freeav/index.adp? (13.9MB)
[4] http://www.free-av.com (8.7MB)
[5] http://www.bitdefender.com/PRODUCT-14-en--BitDefender-8-Free-Edition.html (13.2MB)

 

I use McAfee. I think it's much better than Norton.

And no, please.... Not Panda Antivirus!!!

 

I started with this approach last year - it's worked much better than I thought it would. who knew? Same challenge - the AV s/w was causing more problems than it cured. Not for the ignorant or sometimes ignorant - and frequent "on-demand" scanning is recommended.

 

I've heard good things about avast!