Best Anti Virus Software Free v Paid

Irish Gunner

Hey

Collecting new pc and want to install anti virus software and firewall

What is the best either to pay for or free ? Is AVG any good and is it totally free including updates etc and does it come with Firewall ??

Tried it on my existing PC but it slowed it down but new pc more memory
so maybe better

Cheers

Zombienosh

theres a free avg yes, doesnt come with a firewall though.

Jammer

you get what you pay for...

Rew

AVG is very good caught stuff the paid for one I had didn't. The combination of AVG, WinXP SP2 Firewall and Adaware does me grand.

Hobbes

The problem with AVG is they give you a free version but never send you out a license key to activate the free version.

dave13

Get ZoneAlarm. Free and much better than the SP2 Firewall.
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp

Rew

Hobbes wrote:

The problem with AVG is they give you a free version but never send you out a license key to activate the free version.

Cannt say iv ever had that problem. I think the latest version dosnt require a key.

RicardoSmith

Irish Gunner wrote:

What is the best either to pay for or free?

Some of the free ones are paid then some of the paid for ones. But some of the paid for ones are better then the free ones. AVG scores pretty high in most rankings I've seen. Works fine for me.

Irish Gunner wrote:

Is AVG any good and is it totally free including updates etc and does it come with Firewall ??

For personal use yes. No firewall. There are free firewalls though.

Irish Gunner wrote:

Tried it on my existing PC but it slowed it down but new pc more memory
so maybe better

All scanners will slow a PC down. Some worse than others. I think AVG is one of the faster ones.

Hobbes wrote:

The problem with AVG is they give you a free version but never send you out a license key to activate the free version.

I don't remember ever having a problem with this either. I have a licence key. But I don't think the latest one needs it. Can't remember though.

bringitdown

License Key???

I simply downloaded AVG Free (new version at the mo) and installed and bob was my uncle, no need for license key or anything???

I believe the latest AVG Free to be as good and in some cases better then many commercial products. Another alternative is Avast.

No matter what methods you have of protecting your computer there is always some muppet out there trying to circumvent it. Some common sense should prevail.

Drapper

McAfee Security Centre.

Pay the money had all the free stuff on my PC and I got a serious virus over the Crimbo, reformated and "paid for a good" virus guard !!!!!

To many holes in the freeware and some of it it conflicts with Win XP SP2 !!!!

RicardoSmith

Drapper wrote:

McAfee Security Centre.

Pay the money had all the free stuff on my PC and I got a serious virus over the Crimbo, reformated and "paid for a good" virus guard !!!!!

To many holes in the freeware !!!!

Which one was it. I thought you were using Norton when you got that Virus?

Rew

Drapper wrote:

McAfee Security Centre.

Pay the money had all the free stuff on my PC and I got a serious virus over the Crimbo, reformated and "paid for a good" virus guard !!!!!

To many holes in the freeware !!!!

Thats all a bit non-specfic. WHat feww ones did you have and what virus did you get? Were all your free ones up to date at the time?

Drapper

RicardoSmith wrote:

Which one was it. I thought you were using Norton when you got that Virus?

I was using norton free scan to find the trojan had AVG installed.

brettmirl

I use Panda Platinum from www.pandasoftware.com

Found it really good. Includes a firewall, spyware, dialer, spam and content filtering too.

Drapper

mick_irl wrote:

I use Panda Platinum from www.pandasoftware.com

Found it really good. Includes a firewall, spyware, dialer, spam and content filtering too.

Did you pay for it ?

NotMe

AVG + ZoneAlarm is the best combination for me.

aaf

I use Norton Antivirus + built-in router firewall. I hear Kerio Personal Firewall is a good free firewall.

Rew

Firewall gets thrown around alot so diferant people mean difearnt things. Hardware firewalls are generall NAT boxes and/or packet filters. Software ones are generally packet filters and/or control access to the internet at an appliction level. They all do diferant things things though.

jessy

I had a bit of time of my hands during the summer and tested quite a few different AV suits.

MacAfee
Norton
BitDefender
Panda Platinum Tru prevention
AVG (free)
Sophos
Ez Armor
Avast (free)
PC-cillin

And the two that really stood out were BitDefender and Panda. I eventually bought BitDefender but either of these would be an excellent choice. (Good firewalls and automatic daily updates, panda had by far the fastest scanner I seen).

Sposs

Found http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html to be very good and it's free!

RicardoSmith

Drapper wrote:

I was using norton free scan to find the trojan had AVG installed.

Which trojan was it again?

RicardoSmith

jessy wrote:

I had a bit of time of my hands during the summer and tested quite a few different AV suits.

How did you test them and do you have the results of your tests?

Chalk

best av ive used is extendia avk pro
dual engine kapersky and rav
never had a virus with it, ever
had panda [failed the most basic of av tests]
norton [crashes, misses stuff, detects falses]
mcafee [tried once, didnt like it at all( just a personal opioion)]
avg [fine for an older/less used pc, wouldnt trust it with something valuable]

go for avk
www.extendia.com

if your going for a firewall ive been using
agnitum outpost without problem for about 6 months

have tried
zonealarm, sygate, trend and some other free ones.
outpost has enough options for me without causing too much hassle
whatever vesion of za that went nuts, 5.0 i think it was just put me off using that company altogether

and generally the free ones seem too flimsy / not enough options / not even noticing when things have changed that puts me off

Dempsey

AVG does the business for me.

The windows firewall has all my ports invisible and secure.

bringitdown

http://www.av-test.org/sites/testdownload.php3?lang=en&test=2002-01

Click on the Excel file (assuming you have Excel) for a comparison of AV scanners.
Note: this was compiled in 2002.

jetsonx

Norton - way too heavy - like trying to armour plate a Morris Minor - you will notice around a 10-20% slowdown with this one even on new XP systems.

McAfee - a clumsy awkrawd program and impossible to remove. Update engine on it is about as reliable as a Citroen on a cold morning.

AVG - seen many a virus cripple this program - when you most need it,it fails to run. And Never seems to run in safe mode either.

Trend Pc-Cillin - a light program. good for those who don't do that much
surfing. However, start downloading music from dodgy sites and this program
can be like a sieve. Recommended all the same - (if you don't download music etc.)

Panda - Not bad at all. Good detection files for trojans and viruses alike. A good all rounder.

IANOC

i use AVG and sygate personal firewall pro
never had 1 problem

jessy

RicardoSmith wrote:

How did you test them and do you have the results of your tests?

http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm
to test the AV.(not a huge amount of work to it).

Timed the length it took to do a full system scan. Opened a few viruses to see what action the AV would take.

Noted how easily the AV would deal with a detected virus.(some would not delete the anti virus test file).

Frequency of updates.

Size of each update file (for people on Dial-Up who would not have much bw for large downloads).

Noted to number of Virus definitions (at time of testing).

Usability (Ease of use).

Feedback given to the user from the AV/FW.

Support from developers(Research this on the web rather than experiencing it my self.).

Used a program to test the Firewall, the program would list out everything in your “My Documents” folder and take some screen shots, also log searches in Web browser, then send the results back to the Developers server if your firewall would let it through. if it would the you would receive an email with a list of files in your My Documents folder and what you were searching for on the web.
Cant remember the name of the Program, but i still have it at home.

RicardoSmith

Do you have a list of your results?

Stephen

I've been using AVG plus my router's NAT firewall for ages now, its the business. Nothing's gotten through that shouldn't have.

dead air

I've used AVG for a couple of years now and have found it to be very reliable, unobtrusive and it doesn't use up too many system resources. I think I paid €30 for the full version and that license lasts for two years. It works well with Outlook Express too.

As for the firewall, zone alarm (free) is fine for my needs, I got fed up with the SP2 firewall fairly quickly.

jessy

RicardoSmith wrote:

Do you have a list of your results?

Yes of course I kept results, but installing SP2 did not go to plan, and I lost it in the format to reinstall (if the viruses, worms, Trojans, Spyware or Adware doesn’t get you windows will).

I’ve said it before and ill say it again, SP2 is crap and I would not advise any one to install it (all you need is decent AV/FW).

RicardoSmith

How will you fix all the holes and exploits in the various parts of XP if you don't install SP2? Theres more to it than the crap firewall and IE security changes. It doesn't like being installed over a old system. A fresh install of SP2 generally works fine. Even those that have problems can be tweaked back to full health.

RicardoSmith

jessy wrote:

Yes of course I kept results, but installing SP2 did not go to plan, and I lost it in the format to reinstall (if the viruses, worms, Trojans, Spyware or Adware doesn’t get you windows will).

I’ve said it before and ill say it again, SP2 is crap and I would not advise any one to install it (all you need is decent AV/FW).

So I'll take that as a no then...

jessy

RicardoSmith wrote:

How will you fix all the holes and exploits in the various parts of XP if you don't install SP2?

Easy, you go to the Windows Website and download and install the critical updates only. M$ must have known that an install the size of SP2 (trying to patch so many different things) would have caused problems.

RicardoSmith wrote:

Even those that have problems can be tweaked back to full health.

Yes tweaked back, after it destroys your partition table!

Dempsey

jessy wrote:

(all you need is decent AV/FW).

Ya, but I'd recommend to anyone to install SP2.

Stephen

I think you're being very unfair on SP2. I've installed it on a whole bunch of PC's now with zero problems.

RicardoSmith

jessy wrote:

Easy, you go to the Windows Website and download and install the critical updates only. M$ must have known that an install the size of SP2 (trying to patch so many different things) would have caused problems.

My understanding is that they stopped you doing that unless you have SP2 installled. They only allowed you to do without for a few months. Now you can't. Is this correct or not?

jessy wrote:

Yes tweaked back, after it destroys your partition table!

I never heard of it doing that. I've installed it on a good few machines with minimal problems. Besides if you don't have stuff backed up.... Most problems thus far have been system slow downs and incompatible applications. Now a few months after its release most of these problems have been resolved.

jessy

RicardoSmith wrote:

I never heard of it doing that.

Well Now you have.

RicardoSmith wrote:

I've installed it on a good few machines with minimal problems.

The Vast majority of people won’t experience problems installing it.

RicardoSmith wrote:

Now a few months after its release most of these problems have been resolved.

resolved by who?

RicardoSmith

jessy wrote:

Well Now you have.

Theres always one isn't there....

jessy wrote:

The Vast majority of people won’t experience problems installing it

That would be a few million then wouldn't it.

jessy wrote:

resolved by who?

What do you want here? A list of all bug and who fixed them, in XP/SP2/3rd party apps? You install SP1 without a thought. It will be the same for SP2 in another couple of months. New software always has bugs. End of story.

JohnK

Came across this the other day. Might be of some interest to ye: http://www.anti-virus-software-review.com

RicardoSmith

JohnK wrote:

Came across this the other day. Might be of some interest to ye: http://www.anti-virus-software-review.com

Interesting. These AV reviews seem to contradict each other an awful lot. Which is a real pain.

Capt'n Midnight

AV byitself is not a panacea..

Since this ain't the windows forum and the OS ain't been mentioned it's only fair to point out that an unpatched Linux PC takes on average 3 months to get compromised, but a windows XP machine (prior to SP2) would get probed in about 16 minutes.

Also when new types of viruses emerge very rarely do the existing window antiviruse programs become effective till later on. eg: word "concept" virus, slammer, msblaster etc. etc. you can also read this as meaning AV don't protect you from holes in the OS - patchs are still needed.

AV don't protect you from dialers spyware or malware etc.

TBH blocking as many avenues of attack is so important that with windows I'd rather have a fully patched, firewalled system, with VB scripting and MSjava and activex turned off etc. with an older free av than a bang up to date commercial AV with nothing else.

have a look at AntiVir Personal Edition too

RicardoSmith

All true and some common sense and some time spent learning the issues is required. I use AVG/Spybot/Adware/Spyware Blaster/ZoneAlarm/XCleaner and a Hardware firewall, and encryption on my WiFi amongst a few other things.

Dempsey

Hmmm I might Bit defender a go. Any other decent AV reviews like that one above?