ESET - stick or twist? New 8.1 build

[PhilCollins]

I didn't want to hijack another thread so...

I'm building a machine at the moment to run XMBC and games. It's going to run on Win8.1 (which I have no experience of yet). I have run ESET (on XP & 7) for the past 5 years or so and not really changed from it because I bought in bulk for next to nothing.

Work run AVG and it seems to run a lot of processes; and has a tendency be visible even when it's not to meant to be seen, I'm not a fan.

Does anybody have any suggestions that would surpass ESET? or should I stay put?

Thanks.

[scaryjim]

IIRC Microsoft pre-install Microsoft Security Essentials with Win 8, and it works fine with minimal resource use. TBH, even on Win 7 I rarely look past MSE anymore - it's a nice unobtrusive anti-virus that just sits and does its thing without bothering you

[karl751]

Same here, I use MSE, I did use Avast and was quite pleased with it, I've actually been thinking about installing it again tbh

[scaryjim]

To clarify, in Windows 8 MSE has been incorporated into Windows Defender, which is built in to the OS. It's a well featured AV software, so you don't *need* anything else. As always with AV, it's really up to you to decide what AV program you want to trust (AFAIK none of them have 100% detection rates). Like I said, on Win 7 I've always been happy with MSE, so on Win 8 I saw no reason to install anything in addition to Windows Defender.

[mikeo01]

I think it is a superb move from Microsoft, integrating their commercially free anti-virus into Windows 8.

To be honest I install the OS and forget the only other protecting I have is Malware Bytes (just because I like it ).


The last time I had any sort of Malware on my computer was when I was first learning about computers (16 and under). After that when I knew about "stuff" the problems disappeared. So number 1 advise is just keep safe really.


However if you can get ESET for free I'd get it just because it is nice don't really need it though. MSE/Win Defender does a fine job. Unless you start visiting things outside of "Google search".

[pp05]

Eset has lost some of its swagger from its early days in detection rate. Make sure it is certified. On 8.1 I ran AVG and for some reason it stopped working after 2 days. In the end I went with Windows defender until others are compatible with 8.1.

My setup now is Windows defender + Malwarebytes+ NoScript (with Firefox). Flash block plugin would also do trick.