Which anti virus in your opinion is the best one to use for windows OS

shamrockman1

I use Microsoft Security essentials. It does the job and is not a resource hog.
Ive used Avast free in the past, which seems like a good one too, and with a lot of extra features. some more useful than others

What's your choice of av?

srsly78

I use MSE also. Lots of people will probably post here telling you that it is the worst AV and so on - but it works fine for me. Your browsing habits and malware awareness are much more important. If you keep installing malware no AV will help you.

Many of the other AV products are resource hogs, and worse. I cannot run emulators for work because of some aggressive AV products like kaspersky. So the cure is worse than the illness in many cases!

Haven't had any malware in years, but this is more because I am savvy enough not to click on the wrong things!

edit: I upgraded to windows 8 - so it's the builtin AV I use. This is just the newer version of MSE I think.

Deliverance XXV

srsly78 wrote: »

Your browsing habits and malware awareness are much more important. If you keep installing malware no AV will help you.

Completely agree; Sensible attitudes towards web browsing, downloads (bundled freeware, torrents, P2P, etc), email links/attachments and patching applications/OS' and plugins will go a long way to preventing infections.

In terms of decent resource usage, MSE and Sophos are pretty decent. I always install MSE where possible, if not - I would install Avast or Avira (after uninstalling trial versions of McAfee or Norton) but I find both are fairly similar in that they do the job but can be a nuisance in terms of being regularly in your face.

Dariukas

I used to use AVG alot and used to recommend to others.

After last patch my computer become unusable on win8 decided to give a shot to Avast.

Been using free version for a year now, and i have to say i'm pretty happy with it.

Stavro Mueller

Might be worth having a look at this http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-anti-virus-software.htm

bd0101

With so many government-sponsored spyware floating around, I would not trust any US-based vendor, such as Symantec or Microsoft.

Some personal favorites are Kaspersky and ESET, but there are many more out there.

A good rule is not to run any untrusted code on your computer. No antivirus will protect you against new (and unknown) threats or a zero-day vulnerability (an unknown vulnerability, for which there is no patch, nor communication).