Antivirus Protection..?

[jamin]

Paid subscription has to be Nod32.

If you want a freebie I would go for avast. Used to recomend AVG free but it missed a nasty little virus that Avast eliminated on my wifes lappy.

[matty-hodgson]

right, ya see, i sort of was leaning towards Kaspersky, with everyone recommending that, but now people are saying NOD32, they're both getting good reviews on google and the likes.

i'm gonna add a poll to the thread
that might make it a bit easier for me, and others, to decide.

[Saracen]

.....

i'm gonna add a poll to the thread
that might make it a bit easier for me, and others, to decide.

I'm not sure it will .... or at least, if you're like me, I'm not sure it will.

You see, you might get 10 (or a 100) people that reckon XYZ AV is the best in the business ..... because it installs easily, looks good and never gives them a problem. On the other hand, it may be it never gives them a problem because it never finds viruses by virtue of having a lousy detection engine.

You may find one person that recommends ABC AV but is heavily outvoted by the other 100. The trouble is, ABC is the best product and the person that recommended it really knows his stuff and has done extensive comparative testing and has access to a large virus test database.

In case anyone's wondering, I'm not suggesting that I'm that one, or that I've done extensive testing or that a have a large database of either neutralised or live test viruses. I do have a collection of live test viruses, but it's by no means either large or current, and I certainly haven't done any (recent) comparative testing. Last time I did that, Dr Solomon's was the best product, and I went and had a long chat with Alan Solomon about it. That dates it somewhat.

All I'm getting at is that on something like this, experience and expertise mean far more than sheer numbers, and I doubt that many (if any) here have real expertise in this field. What a poll will give you is certainly a sense of the vox populi, and from a reasonably clued up group, but maybe not much more than that.

[Giraffe]

i'm gonna add a poll to the thread

um, no Avast? Bit limiting, innit.

[lodore]

It's not Zonealarm's problem.

As I said, on a Comodo system, it wouldn't install at all insisting I uninstalled Comodo. And on the third test system, which I deliberately ran offline with no firewall installed at all, it scragged Windows.

That's zero for three result. Not impressive.

So, if it's Zonealarm's problem, then by the same token, it's also Comodo's problem and Window's problem. What does it work with? Or am I supposed to just do without a firewall? That's not happening, I'm afraid.

By any stretch, when I install it on three different systems, with three different hardware configurations and three different firewall setups (including none at all), it's more than a ZoneAlarm problem.

In other words, it's temperamental. How many systems am I supposed to try installing it on before I get it to work on one?

Lots of people like it, recommend it and don't have problems with it. But I did. I can only tell you what happened to me. I can't tell you it's typical of what people experience and judging by what I've read over a long period, my experiences aren't typical. That, after all, is why I bought it in the first place.

However, in my personal experience, it wouldn't play nice with ZA, wouldn't play nice with Comodo and managed to kill a clean test system. After several hours of faffing around with that system trying to get it resuscitated, I ended up formatting and restoring an image backup. Fortunately, the system it killed was a test system and not a highly loaded live system.

Would you get that same effect, even without other programs competing? I don't know, but judging by anecdotal evidence I doubt it. I did, though.

hey Saracen,
in the first case it was zonealarms fault for installing kaspersky antivirus drivers when they are not needed.
for comodo im not sure did you install just the comodo firewall? because comodo also have a security suite which includes antivirus.
on my parents machine its gone from kaspersky 6,7, and now 2009 and it works fine. all systems use kaspersky internet security.
my machine has had kaspersky 7 and 2009.
my sisters laptop has kaspersky 7 installed.
my sisters desktop has kaspersky 2009 installed.
kaspersky does seem to have a weird problem with firewalls. think one of the reasons is because it uses a proxy.
the problem with using seprate products from different vendors can cause conflicts.

kaspersky internet security 2009 has better features anyway.
you have alot of control over what each application can do.

the only problem ive had with kaspersky is that sometimes I cannot see the other computers on the network so sometimes I cannot access shared files and printers.

the reason i reccomend kaspersky nod32 and avast is that one of them with work will current software.

using a security suite is a way to ensure there is no conflicts.
which kaspersky version hosed a clean windows install?

btw on a random note people are always saying how good linux is and how people should try ubuntu but even something as simple as installing an nvidia driver didnt work. grass isnt always greener on the otherside.

[2Cold Scorpio]

I use the free version of Avast! Home.

[spiral out]

I'm using comodo on my Vista 64 bit machine and Avira on the 32 bit machine. All running well so far.

[Saracen]

hey Saracen,
in the first case it was zonealarms fault for installing kaspersky antivirus drivers when they are not needed.

Perhaps so, but it gave problems on two other machines. Hence me saying it was temperamental.

for comodo im not sure did you install just the comodo firewall? because comodo also have a security suite which includes antivirus.

Comodo firewall only. I prefer to use products I choose for specific jobs, not a one-size-fits-all, because you tend to end up with some that's very good at one job (like the Comodo firewall) and a bolt-on 2nd rate collection of bits for the rest.

If using Kaspersky as a suite that might get round that. Enough people seem to like it. But I have my firewall preferences, and all I wanted (and bought) was an AV package, not a suite. And that applies to both the Kaspersky I paid for and the free Comodo. So no, not a suite. And I'm not prepared to change my choice of firewall just to be able to get Kaspersky's AV software to install, no matter how good it is.

.....

kaspersky does seem to have a weird problem with firewalls. think one of the reasons is because it uses a proxy.
the problem with using seprate products from different vendors can cause conflicts.

Aha. We're back to it being a problem with Kaspersky.

the problem with using seprate products from different vendors can cause conflicts.

It shouldn't if they're done right. I've been using various combinations of AV from various vendors with firewalls from ZA, Comodo and Agnitum for years. Never a problem. And usually, that involves TWO AV packages, because none of them are, in my view, perfect. And if you set them up properly, no conflicts. By that, I mean if I use, say, AVG as a resident AV package, I'll use maybe NOD32 as an on-demand file scanner for backup. If you set two as memory resident, or two both trying to monitor POP3, you'll hit problems. But the only time I've had one refuse to install at all has been Kaspersky.

....

kaspersky internet security 2009 has better features anyway.
you have alot of control over what each application can do.

But I wasn't talking about Kaspersky Internet Security, merely the AV package. It was the AV package that refused to install because it didn't like either of two different firewalls. Or none at all.

using a security suite is a way to ensure there is no conflicts.
which kaspersky version hosed a clean windows install?

I don't remember. It was a year or more back. It wasn't 2009, I'm sure. Could have been v6 or v7.

And yes, a suite may prevent conflicts. But it also means using (and paying for) products I don't want, and not using products I've got, am running, am familiar with and know how to drive, trust and have running currently .... and in some cases, paid for.

I'm not replacing other products I've been using for years with a Kaspersky suite in order to get Kaspersky AV, just because Kaspersky won't install with them. Instead, I'll replace Kaspersky. After all, if I'd wanted a Kaspersky suite, I'd have bought a suite, but didn't. It was a boxed, retail AV package ..... that ended up in the bin, because it cost me far more in time trying to sort out it's foibles than it cost me to buy the damn thing.

[Zadock]

I use McAfee because I got three licenses included with O2 broad band for the duration I am with them.

Its fine, its not too intrusive and it seems to be taking care of spyware to.

[AledJ]

Kaspersky - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Kaspe...ar-OEM-Edition

Used them since getting broadband with ntl (now virgin media) and I can not fault them. Very good program!!! Also the staff are very helpful when you need them!!!! Well worth the money!!!

[Dreaming]

clamwin has low detection and i wouldnt reccomended it.
for ondemand scanners i reccomend drweb cure it (have to redownload to update)
superantispyware free
for free antivirus protection with realtime protection i reccomend avast!

Are you sure about clamwin? Just doing a google it seems to have mainly positive remarks, except for a few anonymous review sites where some of the views say it has a low detection rate. Although to the OP - looking around it does seem NOD32 has the best detection rate. I just wanted an on-demand scanner I could use to scan downloads before doing anything with them and for that clamwin seems to work. But then again - you could have any antivirus program in the world and if it wasn't working how would you know?

I might go and look at getting another virus scanner now you've put the doubts into my mind. I used to like AVG, but some of the newer versions were filled with a bit of bloat and even if you turned scheduling off they would often try and do their own thing to protect you.

[lodore]

Are you sure about clamwin? Just doing a google it seems to have mainly positive remarks, except for a few anonymous review sites where some of the views say it has a low detection rate. Although to the OP - looking around it does seem NOD32 has the best detection rate. I just wanted an on-demand scanner I could use to scan downloads before doing anything with them and for that clamwin seems to work. But then again - you could have any antivirus program in the world and if it wasn't working how would you know?

I might go and look at getting another virus scanner now you've put the doubts into my mind. I used to like AVG, but some of the newer versions were filled with a bit of bloat and even if you turned scheduling off they would often try and do their own thing to protect you.

Hey,
last time i checked the detection rate wasnt the best. mainly because the people who maintain it are volunteers. if you want a on demand scanner why not use avast with just the ondemand scanner and updator? keep clamav but also add avast. two opinions are better than one.
btw another problem atm is that legitamate websites are being hacked so you could visit a legitamate website get infected and now even know. so make sure you keep up with security patches and also do full computers scans with both programs.

[Dreaming]

Yea, I use noscript but obviously sites like hexus i've whitelisted and if it's compromised my PC through a firefox vulnerability then not much can be done. Though I do a full thorough system scan about once a week so hopefully I'm ok...

[directhex]

iirc nod32 is "best", kaspersky is "almost as best, but has a sane UI"

in either case, i use f-secure.

[qw12as]

Kaspersky seems to be the pro's favourite, BUT the main thing is they provide free support...now that really is good!!

I use it and it seems to keep everything at bay.

[Tr0gdor]

I havn't had any problems with kaspersky, it's pretty decent and stays in the background if you turn off the million warnings

You can actually get it free if you have a barclays account.
http://www.personal.barclays.co.uk/B...up&value=10662