Anti-Virus Software

[Dave Osborne]

I'm looking to rebuild my PC and, as my anti-virus/firewall (i.e. "integrated security") is up for renewal in the next couple of weeks, I thought I would look at alternatives to my current provider.

For years, I used Symantec/Norton Internet Security until I decided it was bloatware, so that got binned in favour of Kaspersky.

Now, I'm not unhappy with Kaspersky (although it does seem to favour downloading from its servers at a stupidly low bit-rate), but I'm not wedded to it either.

I'm happy to pay for this type of product (I somehow don't feel that, in this area, a free product can be the best product on the market - I may well be wrong).

So I've been trawling t'internet for recommendations, but it's hard going, what with there being so many scare sites out there and not being able to clearly separate biased from unbiased reviews, so I thought I would solicit comments and recommendations from the lads and lasses here.

I'm definitely not switching back to Symantec or to McAfee.

Currently under consideration are:

- stick with Kaspersky.

- try Bitdefender.

All comments/recommendations gratefully received.

Cheers, DaveyOz

[Jim]

AVG is worth a try.

[Adrian]

Dave Osborne gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

It depends what you want. If you're after a full-fat "security suite", then most of the "free products" charge. If you don't mind AV and firewall being separate, then there's absolutely no reason not to go for the freebies - especially since they're usually from the same suppliers.

I've yet to find a good reason to move away from AVG for AV. Their firewall sucks, though. Badly. If I'm putting a Win box together for a friend, I'll tend to go with ZoneAlarm for that. Thunderbird/Firefox and AdBlockPlus/NoScript, together with Spybot-S&D round it all off, making sure that the "everyday" user is a limited user, not admin. With that lot in place, I've never yet had a friend have a real-live-security issue of any kind which hasn't been down 100% to user stupidity.

'course, the other option is to consider whether you actually need to stick with Windows, or whether now's the time to try Ubuntu...

[Andy Burns]

Who do you bank with? Barclays make Kaspersky available free for their internet customers, maybe other banks have similar deals ...

[Mike Barnes]

Dave Osborne :

It rather depends on the risks you run. I'm guessing that if you build your own PC you're a pretty responsible user and the risks are low. But there might be other users.

In the low-risk environment here, I've been perfectly happy with Microsoft Security Essentials. It's simple, lightweight, and free. Mind you, like every other package I've used, it's never found a virus.

[Adrian]

Mike Barnes gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

We moved a customer from Symantec corporate to Kaspersky corporate a while back.

First thing it did was find a bunch of genuine naughtyware that Symantec

- slow, bloaty, hateful heap of carp that it is - had completely missed.

[Jeff Gaines]

Microsoft Security Essentials is very good (surprisingly) - and free.

I use ESET Nod32 on my main PC and this laptop. It doesn't interfere with anything, it's available in 32 bit and 64 bit (still called Nod32) versions and a 3 PC licence is a reasonable price. It's picked up several nasties in spam emails for me. Best to turn off the silly message it inserts about email having been checked, that can upset some email clients.

[Wesley]

I've been using AVG free with MS Windows firewall for years with zero problems. Got rid of McAfee and Norton as they seemed to take over my PC. Had a hell of a job to get rid of them too!

[Phil L]

I've tried almost all the well known AV progs over the years:

Norton = Large, bloatware, next to useless, but looks good for numpties without a clue. Kaspersky - Liked it but couldn't find a cracked version Panda - as above Avast - OK but only lasts a year then whinges Microshite - don't trust it, can't relax AVG free - what I'm currently using and never had a problem, quiet, non invasive, low resources, effective

[John]

Leaving aside the moral aspects of piracy/copying/whatever, do you _really_ want a cracked version of an antivirus program on your machine????

I don't condone but can, perhaps, understand having a cracked office program or a cracked photoshop-type thing but, the one thing keeping your machine safe from nasties has come from a dubious source? Are you mad?

[John Rumm]

Of the free options, AVG and Avast are probably your best bet.

(Disclaimer: We sell shed loads of the commercial versions of AVG, so consider this biased advice if you like, but we did evaluate loads of them a few years back to decide on a "standard" to recommend that did not reduce machine performance too much, and yet managed to maintain a reasonable level of detection).

[Phil L]

The genuine programme can be downloaded from it's official website. The only 'dubious' thing is the unlocking code, so if for example you DL Kaspersky pro, and I told you the unlock code was 643ty-45typ-2fg69-3b45m, how is your system at risk?

Unless you are suggesting that programme writers somehow incorporate technology into their programmes that do the opposite of what they are supposed to if the programme is cracked? - they don't, it either works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, you can't update, scan nor anything else

[Dave Osborne]

Well on this particular arrangement, I've got a hardware firewall which protects the LAN from incoming TCP connections, and currently just use Kaspersky AV because a personal firewall is a resource hog. However, I've been reading up a bit and it seems that a modern personal firewall stops installed software from dialling out on a white-list basis, so I'm thinking of going for an integrated suite again.

I know some people swear by AVG/Zonealarm, but I'm not entirely sure that either at some level they don't conflict with each other and/or there is some duplication of effort which is an unnecessary burden on system resources. If I go this route does it matter which order I install them in?

Adblock, noscript, better-privacy, flash-block, https-everywhere and optimize-google.

'fraid Autocad is Windows only, so I'll be reinstalling XP on this machine.

[Archon]

Norton was completely rewritten for the 2009 2010 versions and I went back with it, no problems, wouldn't know it was there except it insisted on adding a toolbar to Firefox which admittedly also doesn't interfere. It also runs scans in idle time, nice. Norton 360 also I believe gives 2 Gig of free online backup space. JC

[Ron Lowe]

But why such an old version of windows? It's close to 10 years old. Yes, it's still supported ( for now... ).

Will you be running equally old application software? On equally old hardware?

[Dave Osborne]

ROTFLMAO. Very droll.

Yeah, I'm with you there. A couple of people have suggested MS Security Essentials, but I thought it was a Vista/7 product (goes away and checks. OK it is for XP, but it's not a true firewall).

OK

[Dave Osborne]

Not heard of ESET. I'll look into it. Thanks for the heads-up.

[Dave Osborne]

Ah, that's three votes in favour of AVG product and none against.

Is the Internet Security Product more bloaty than AV+firewall product?

[Clive George]

The answer to "why" is "it works".

Ever seen what companies use? There's a huge amount of XP out there, and it's not going away for a while.

[Dave Osborne]

New hardware, old software. Right now, Windows 7 has nothing to offer except the ability to utilise more than 3.5GB of RAM (and I'm not sure it does that in XP compatibility mode). In two years time when I do this exercise again W7 may well be the way forward, particularly if ongoing security support for XP stops.

Cheers.