which antivirus?

Which antivirus software do you guys use? I'm going to be buying a new laptop soon and don't know what I'm going to do about antivirus. I don't know much about anti virus software's so enlighten me please.

 

Microsoft Security Essentials--Best part is its free and easy to use.
CCleaner is also a must--Free also.

 

+1 for MSE

 

I use MSE but opinions here vary:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/search.php?searchid=5830861

 

I'd suggest looking in the security forum for details.

I personally use Microsoft Security Essentials coupled with two host files (one on my router and one on my computer.)

 

MSSE and general good practice. Also, having a Mint LiveUSB on hand to boot onto if I need to jump onto a remotely sketchy site.

 

Microsoft Security Essentials here on tons of pcs including on systems with users of questionable ability to not click on every form of virus-laden page crossing their view. so far, all fine.

 

Microsoft Security Essentials is a resource hog.

If you want the best FREE Antivirus. Then it is Avira Anti-Vir

If you want the best PAID Antivirus. Then it is NOD32 Antivirus

Both the above have minimal impact on performance you won't even feel you have an antivirus unless a virus was caught off course.

Stay away from Microsoft Security Essentials. You will thank me for this. Want a proof? IF you don't believe me, just try installing it and updating it, and see how long it takes just to update.

Then try scanning your entire hard disk with it, it will take triple the time the above 2 mentioned antivirus programs would take.

I fail to see how some people sear by it. Probably n00bs who know better. Oh well, we all live and learn

 

it's not a resource hog if it never got noticable even on a netbook. it doesn't matter to me how long it takes to do it's tasks if it does it in the BACKGROUND without ever impacting me. which it does.

i'm actually glad that it takes longer to do a full scan than others, just shows it scans more thorough than the others (yes, both is possible).

but my main argument is this: other companies life from their antivirus product. they don't want it to go away. they want you to fear viruses, not safe you from them (they want to make you believe they safe you from them, though. but they never want to make you 100% sure you're safe).
microsoft doesn't care, they want, actually, the system to be safe. they make money with the system, not with the antivir.

so in short: antivirus manufacturers are like drug dealers. they want to make you addicted to them, and give you the feel that you're safe as long as you do everything they tell you. microsoft's antivirus is like a doctor, wanting to actually heal you.

or in short: avira doesn't want to go out of business. mse could just die out, once it did it's job well. which one do you trust more?

to each it's own.

anyways, i'm glad to be a n00b that knows better

 

I respect the points you said and they are valid no question about that. But the OP asked which is the best Antivirus, and it is very well known that Avira is a top notch free antivirus with lesser false positives and better performance.

Since Avira is free anyway, why not use it and use a more resource hungry program that is slower in scanning? Maybe you don't care how long it takes but just tell me WHY? do you just want to put a blind fold on your head and refuse to try other things?

I'll tell you what, do this in your free tine, install MSE, then measure how long it takes to start your system from POST till the Windows dekstop, then try it with the demo of NOD32, then with Avira Antivir....and see for yourself....

System snappiness is also affected big time when using MSE.

Just my 2 cents.

It's not like I have anything against them dude, I tried all 3 and have personally used Avira on many systems that I built for years, but on my personal system, I have been using NOD32 Antivirus for the past 6 years and recently upgraded my licenese to ESET Smart Security FTW and couldn't be happier!

 

as said, the why is simple: because i know mse's goal is to clean my computer because that's in microsofts own best interest.
avira, what do i know what their goal is?

system snappiness is not affected by mse. i'm on ssds, which are very snappy. i would notice any drop in performance. i've tested on systems from netbooks with crappy atoms that go to 100% cpu when just doing nothing, to quadcores, sandybridges, etc. (pentium 4 included). none showed any performance drop due to MSE.

and why i don't care about scanning time when doing it actively? because i never do that. i expect from a good antivirus software that it just always works without any intervention from me.

and why mse and not another free product (i used avast before). because as long as i use windows, MSE will stay in business. it will not request any license code each year, it will not go out of business (as other antivirus solutions did), nothing. it will always be updated. it's the only install-once-and-never-think-about-it solution that i know and can trust in.

the set-it-and-forget-it is especially important on systems that are NOT mine, of course. if i install it for some friend, i want to know it'll work for EVER, not just for one year, or something. MSE has the highest chance of existing for the lifetime of a friends laptop/desktop, and is thus my software of choice.

 

That tells me enough about you

Sorry I wasted my time arguing with you, enjoy your MSE Buddy

MSE FTW LOL




PS: Avira's goal is to silently collect info about you, track your credit card info and generate money from everything you do on your PC

 

sounds like you don't take my point serious.

consider again: what does avira do once the danger of viruses is solved (as if): they go out of business. so they don't want that to ever happen. they don't want to ever kill viruses (or the fear of it).

consider what it would mean for microsoft: a safe operating system people could trust in, so it would be a good thing for them. and they would not go out of business when there's no virus to fight anymore.

avira lives from the fear of viruses (as does symantec, norton, and all the others). mse doesn't.

 

and BTW davepermen, don't think that your 6000+ posts and your flashy rep bar gives you any credibility in my books. You have lost all credibility and I will ensure that I ignore you from now on.

 

Ohhh please, stop Your logic makes no sense at all.

end of discussion with you. continue to enjoy your shiny MSE buddy

 

haha, shows which one the OP should trust in.

 

why not? say what avira does once customers believe viruses are fought, and no problem anymore?

 

Thermal Why not let the OP read my post in this thread and decide for him or her self? What is the point of insulting anyone here?
Do you have stock in or work for either of the AV's you touted?

I will bet bradleyg never though he would start an pseudo argument by simply asking for advice

 

I didn't insult anyone, go figure.

 

i, and josea consider that otherwise, as you called me n00b and stated joked about me and my credibility. at least, that behavior lets you look childish and non-credible on your own. instead of bringing good counter-arguments, you just said stuff like this "and BTW davepermen, don't think that your 6000+ posts and your flashy rep bar gives you any credibility in my books. You have lost all credibility and I will ensure that I ignore you from now on."

 

Yup, my statement still stands. you are a n00b, that is not a cuss word. Just a fact about you my friend.

 

it's not a fact as long as you can't bring a reason on why. you have not brought arguments, and instead called names. that is offending for no reason.

 

MSE is not a resource hog... and as for false positives it has less than avira.

I have 60MB for MSE when it's running in the background. It gets the "bronze" for low system impact/ high performance with two other AV's beating it.

It also integrates with your windows 7 allowing you to update it with your windows update.

Source:
http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/summary/summary2010.pdf

edit: And before I get called a "n00b" I'm no security expert but I'm studying for Security+ exam. I personally think that your AV should be one of your last lines of defense against viruses so it's more important that they run with low resources and less false positives because I honestly don't want to even remember that it's installed.

 

Thermal Compound any way you could post the specs of the machine you base these statements on (in post 8 of this thread)? Mine boots to a usable win 7 in about 35 seconds with MSE, I do not see how much faster it could be just by changing AV.

 

Hey Dave. Let's ignore Thermal until he takes his grown-up pills.

Aaanyway, I've used both Avira and MSE (I'm using MSE on all my machines as of now, just because) and I didn't have a problem with either of them. Well, Avira did have a nag screen and gave me false-positives on some of my files, but other than that...

 

nag screen and false-positives? both problems for me

but it sure is a fine antivirus. just not my choice, for stated reasons.

 

Avast, Avira, and MSE are the AV's I recommend to people and I always recommend MSE first.

Especially for older computers where resources are important MSE is really great.

Whether it scans quickly or not is unimportant to me. I never use my realtime AV for scanning... for scans I have a USB with multiple AV's such as Superantispyware and spybot (among others.) So really I have no idea how long MSE takes to scan but I doubt it's much slower than any other...

 

Davepermen this is a really good point. I have been using Avira for many years and yes it's really reliable for me but sometimes I do have fake intervention.
For example ,when I plug an USB with Autorun software (like Ubuntu) it always stopped me, it doesn't allow me to control it unless I turn off Avira.
I never got a virus thus, but I am curious about this MSE so I will try it for a while as your point of view made me think about it. I am running only the windows firewall of Win 7 Ultimate.
Would u recommend me other protection beside MSE?

 

nice to hear. hope it serves you as well as it serves me, my gf, my family, my friends, and others i know and changed to MSE.

 

Don't feed the troll.

So far, the frontrunners are all free AV: MSSE in the lead, with Avira and Avast each having their own mention. Avira is higher rated by AV-Comparatives.org, but MSSE just integrates alot better than Avira into the system scheme, and flags far fewer innocuous files that Avira does.

NOD32 is, so far, the only paid AV mentioned, but I'd say that only as far as AV to keep running in the background. For a heavy duty paid AV, F-Secure and Kaspersky are the heavyweight hitters, both figuratively and literally. You wouldn't want to run them in the background all the time on a weak computer, but they'd be the first tool to go for to clean an infected file. Kaspersky and NOD32 used to be top dog for consecutive years, but for the past 3-4 years, the crown has been passed around the industry.

 

Sorry I added in my previous post another question, but you were so fast to answer! lol..
I am running only the windows firewall of Win 7 Ultimate.
Would u recommend me other protection beside MSE to run at the same time?

 

I tried and used both but Avast does a better job than MSE at aborting you from a website it thinks is malicious. And it saved my butt several times from a sports forum I regularly visit that was hijacked with a re-direct and scareware.

Supposedly MSE handles this now but only if you use IE.

 

no, windows firewall is great. it does what it can, and does not lie where it can't (outbound firewall is a myth, for example.. which a lot of other firewalls propagate as a great feature they have).

the only thing i install after installing win7 IS MSE. so no, i don't recomend other protection.
just be a careful user, and nothing bad happens normally (nowadays, more and more issues happen directly on the web, where antivirus itself isn't there to help anyways).

 

Using Avira Personal here. Tried quite a few scanners and each have their good spots i guess.
- Avast: Great GUI, very user friendly, but slows my system down a bit
- Avira: My personal favorite, very lightweight (<30mb ram) and finds most if not all virusses (although i rarely have any).
- AVG: Faster than avast, but i lost my trust in AVG since the ''my computer wont boot'' problem happening twice in a week or so.
- MSE: Also pretty lightweight and indeed integrated fairly well with windows. But i have the feeling it's not protecting me that good after seeing ratings from av compare websites.

 

As I thought.. I had problem in the past with Zone Alarm (It's unstable BSOD)on the 64bit version of windows and a microsoft engineer, suggest me to remove it, while he mention the same as you about the windows firewall.
Thanks for the tips davepermen! If I will have the chance I'll report in the future about the MSE...

 

Agree with Daperman above, but I also run the firewall on my verizon DSL (it is off by default when you first install or reset the router)

 

True, nowdays most routers have firewall integrated anyway.

 

lol, I started my reply before your post went up. I'd second the recommendation of the Window 7 firewall. It's gotten a LOT sturdier than the XP firewall, and is more flexible if you really dive into it.

I think we all forgot to mention it, but the smartest thing you can do after installing all your software is to create a Limited Access account, lock it the hell down via User Account Control, and never log on as an administrator unless you need to install something you've already scanned and verified as clean. Safe browsing practice is king, but UAC can save your butt when something goes wrong that's out of your control (e.g. a site getting hijacked)

The next best thing you can do after that is run your browser in a beefy sandbox. This will slow you down and cause a headache, but limits the amount of rampant damage that can occur.

AV only really steps in after those first two walls are breached, three if you count the firewall.

 

Yup, thanks! this is excatly what I am doing right now with my User Account Control, someone mention it before in others post, good to have found such a great forum..

 

dang these replies are coming in fast. Is everyone on their morning coffee break or something?

I noted the additional steps above because AV is ultimately your last resort when stuff has already hit the fan and you're already infected or in possession of an infected file. In my own personal security software lingo, AV is distinct from HIPS/IDPS and heuristics. If you enable HIPS/IDPS, heuristics, and other behavior monitoring features on your AV (most include these functions now) you will be better protected but slowed down somewhat and get more false positives, depending on your AV of choice.

One thing I really like about MSE is that it plays VERY nice with the bulk of free and paid AVs on the market. I have MSE and Symantec Endpoint running simultaneously on my office workstation, and MSE and Comodo's suite running simultaneously on my home laptop. MSE never interferes or gets flagged by either.

I'd also suggest looking into Malwarebytes. I run MBAM monthly on demand as a matter of personal satisfaction and knowing I'm clean on that front, although I'd STRONGLY suggest against running this in the background).

 

and it's the only "for free" firewall in terms of resources. the network drivers never run without it, even if it's disabled it's just in "let all trough mode". that means, too, that there is no millisecond, where the os can be attacked from the outside without hitting the firewall (then it depends if it is open or closed, of course). that is (or was?) unlike any other firewall.

by default, win7 boots up with the firewall in "external mode" so it locks down everything until the pc could determine the network is save.

 

Avast, the scans don't take a long time unlike MSE and the program is easy to learn and use. Don't get me wrong, MSE is also VERY easy to use, they both are and they're both good.

 

LOL...I don't known the others but I already had my few coffees...

Agree, I am using malwarebytes too sometimes, u never know what can u get from the net..

 

i'm in europe. my work for today is over.. no coffee here, though..

sadly, mse doesn't work on winhomeserver2011 yet.. hope it does soon..

 

Wow these replies came in so fast!

I'm getting a new computer soon (alienware m17x r3)
And I want to keep it safe.

From the looks of it I'm probably going to opt for mse and set the firewall. And then maybe have another program on a flash drive and use that more powerful one to scan my entire system every few weeks.

Does that sound good?

 

sounds fine yes. the external scanning especially. hope you have that drive always with you so you can help someone else by scanning their system just in case

 

I am in EU too, that's why I had too many coffees already..

 

+1 for MSE

And + malwarebytes

 

MSE takes about 4 -5 hours to fully scan my laptop but it works well

 

Avira Antivir Personal is my choice. I have noticed some system sluggishness with MSE in both my laptop and work desktops.