Whats the best anti-virus software?

[aliEnRIK]

PJPro:.......but maybe I'll give Zone Alarm another go.

I wouldnt suggest you do. Its gotten WORSE if anything

 

[Alec]

By teh by, every day since i got ZA again, it wanst to update to version 8. Every day. So i follow the prompts. And so it goes.

I mean, it doesnt take long at all, its just a bit disconcerting and irritataing.

 

[Anonymous]

Try Webroot, its slightly less annoying than ZA, still annoying nonetheless although it updates itself

 

[Alec]

moomoo2:Try Webroot, its slightly less annoying than ZA, still annoying nonetheless although it updates itself

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a go if i cant get ZA to play ball. I've never had the problem before, but i had it yet again today.

Anyone else experiencing this?

 

[Anonymous]

Anyone else find that Avira gives you nearly daily pop ups urging you to buy now?

its starting to really irritate me!

 

[Anonymous]

I now use Avast......had AVG for a while which worked OK. Only reason I changed was that I had to rebuild and thought I would try something different. Avast does everything thats required and you cant turn your nose up at a freebee can you.

 

[Alec]

I have Kaspersky now, as a friend has three free licences. it seems fine, tho i havent learnt exactly what to do about the various issues it tells you about during scans. So far it seems to slow things down a lot less than avg when you allow it to scan daily.

 

[RodhasGibson]

Kaspersky Anti- Virus for me now too, I am running it with Vista FireWall and Defender. All seem to be getting along together fine at present.[touch wood]. Don"t go on any funny sites anyway. I find it so much better than Norton which i got rid of, with guidance from Alien Rik. Thanks AR for that.Btw I have Kaspersky set to automatically do its stuff, and it doesn"t interfere wit anything at all that I can see.

 

[Anonymous]

Just to break the trend I used to have Norton 360 but it broke my heart with slowness and resource hogging. I now use Spyware Doctor & Antivirus from PC Tools. Very quick at running scans. I also have Malwarebytes to run scans in case the other misses something.

From what I have seen no spyware/virus checker is fool proof they all let something through but some leak less than others. Hence I run one actively and occasionally scan with the other.

When I got rid of Norton even with a year left on the licence I looked up reviews for recommendations, Spyware Doctor came top where I was looking and Kaspersky did very well also.

Norton did badly on detection and was extremely clunky.

I've seen threads like this else where before and no one will ever agree. However Norton usually does get a slagging by the majority. The rest seem to argue over AVG, McAfee and Kaspersky in the main.

 

[Alec]

No one will agree because tests of these programmes are of their time, and not understood by many*. And sometimes theyre badly done.

Im not defending norton but some of the slagging they get will be from people who always find the latest big thing/company and have a go, whether its IT, HiFi, whatever.

* I'm one of the many. I understand just enough to know what i dont understand and choose not to get into most the time as it hurts my head.

 

[Dazmb]

Any AV is better than nothing! Browse dodgy sites and you will need better AV protection, otherwise browsing safer sites and not doing mental things like opening files attached to emails that you are not expecting and you should be ok with any of the AV engines. I use Zonelabs on a server that is not used for browsing (running Network/Port Address Translation and performing routing duties), but SAV on my main workstation. And both are only as good as the virus definition updates I get for them. Never had any problems.

One more thing not mentioned here but **totally** recommended. That is the hosts file with entries for known malware/spyware/virus sites that is lovingly updated by a Microsoft MVPS guy. It resolves the names of these dodgy sites to local 127.0.0.1 by way of windows checking hosts file first for DNS resolution! Works a treat, so simple and effective. For example, nasty browser redirects to these dodgy sites are snuffled out by the hosts file before you get infected. Plus you can add your own entries to stop kiddies from going to certain sites etc (put permissions on file so they can't edit entries out...). Adds an extra layer to your security - totally free.

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

 

[Ravey Gravey Davy]

If you haven't got access to anything else,spyware doctor is pretty good and free.Type googlepack into google and detick every thing but spy d. I use it in conjunction with McAfee and so far so good.