AntiVirus Software

[nV`andrew]

Well, i've been running this system for a couple months without protection other than nvidia's firewall and anti-hacking program and windows firewall and it runs great, but my dad wants me to get some kind of security. I know there was another thread on tihs somewhere. Anyways, i dont wanna spend a boat load. Probably will order off the egg or another popular e-tailer. So which one wont slow down my system a bunch? Is there one that will run on seperate computers without more than one license? The couple of comptuers it will run on aren't really on a bunch of p2p netowrks or anything but one of them is wireless. So i need protection for at least one of my dells and then my gaming system. would love to have it on my other two wireless dells instead of mcafee if possible.

Thanks

[Medion]

AVG, IMO, is the best out there with AVAST being a close second.

Bonus, AVG is free and has constant (near daily) updates. It won't slow down your system, and it's not intrusive.

For protection, I generally do the following.

-let AVG run at all times, and do a scan every weekend
-run SpyBot and AdAware eevry weekend
-for a firewall, I use my router's built-in hardware firewall, as it's generally more reliable than Windows Firewall, ZoneAlarm, and even NV's option, without using CPU resources

As for Windows security suit, I have updates turned off (do it every week), firewall turned off, virus set to AVG, and notifciation updates for all three turned off.

[eli]

I agree avg, check out TweakGuides.com for a handy method of configuring the virus scanner.:)

[|MaguS|]

I personally use AntiVir, It finds any virus that I would get before it could infect my system and almost uses no memory while in the backgroun doing deep scans (total of 20MBs).

[Capt. Picard]

Is AVG free to download?

Where can I find a full, free Anti virus that is still reasonably good?

[|MaguS|]

Heres the one I use... Its 100% free for Home Users.
http://www.free-av.com/

[nV`andrew]

Wow, thanks. One of my friends has this and hes like oh its all free and so i thoguht it was whack. But i'm convinced by you because i know your someone who knows how to treat a computer. I'll make sure it downloaded when i get home from school.

[nV`andrew]

with avg can u get rid of viruses?

[NightFire]

Yes, you can get rid of viruses with AVG. The top three free Antiviruses with realtime protection are AVG, Antivir, and Avast.

My personal experience puts Avast in the lead, with better detections than AVG and a more comprehensive scanning suite than Antivir.

AVG is very light on resources, finds the least of the three, and also has fairly good realtime scanning.

Antivir is fairly light, has the best detection, a great heuristics engine, but its real-time scanner isn't as good as Avast's.

Thus, I'd recommend Avast.

[j0j081]

NOD32 is the best. What are you fools smokin?

[nukem]

If your dad wants security dump windows and goto a secure os like Linux, BSD, or Solaris. But since I know thats not the answer your looking for I recently put clamwin on her computer since Norton 2006 was slowing it down to the point were she couldn't move the mouse. It works great and nothings happened yet. It dosnt have run time scan(you open a file and before the program can read the file your antivirus scans it) but that will help speed up the computer by not having to scan every file, I just have it scan her computer every night. Clamwin is bassed off of ClamAV which is a *nix antivirus used on my servers to detect if someone uploads a virus or sends it in peice of mail so it dosnt speard, its been trusted for many years on servers.

[-=Gib-McFragger=-]

NOD32 is the best. What are you fools smokin?Feckin eh! :thumbsup:

[supra]

AVG user here but nod32 also gets the :thumbsup:

[NightFire]

Well, if you want to spend money, sure, go with NOD32, Bitdefender 9, or Kasperskey. All three are at the top of their game.

[Peoples-Agent]

NOD32 rocks , very little resource usage, and it's beaten everything I have thrown at it , I dabble with viruses on a second partition.... more of a security test and have to say NOD32 whoops their ass everytime.

[rewt]

NOD32 or Avast!

Both are fully 64-bit compatible as well (useful for WinXP and Server 2003 x64 editions) which I run.

[wnd]

If I didn't get my licence for F-Secure from the University, I would be running ClamAV (http://www.clamwin.com/) under Windos.

[rewt]

Hmm I've always wondered about ClamAV... It does not have on-access scanner correct? So what happens if you go to a website (i.e. www.bad-virus.com) and download and run the most dangerous virus known to man? My guess is you'd be SOL.

[wnd]

It does not have on-access scanner correct? So what happens if you go to a website (i.e. www.bad-virus.com) and download and run the most dangerous virus known to man?

According to FAQ (http://www.clamwin.com/content/view/35/27/), no. ("Q: Can ClamWin check files as they are accessed (opened/executed). A: No.") On the other hand I wouldn't be downloading and executing abritary file from the Internet without somehow trying to check the legitimacy of the file. I know it is extra trouble and on-access scanning would be better. Like I said, if I didn't get my free copy of F-Secure from Uni, I would be using ClamAV anyway.

[Son Goku]

Using Kaspersky 6.0... That said 5.0 is the official release, so only bet 6.0 if you're ready to run something in release candidate stages of development. There's been almost daily, or weekly build updates/releases...

Kaspersky has the added advantage of having practically hourly updates to their virus definitions... That said, I don't tend up upgrade them every hour however (as a few times a day is sufficient), but it's good they're updated everytime one would go check...

[betterdan]

I have been using Antivir (just recently changed names to Avira Antivir) for years and have never had any problems. It was also ranked higher than AVG and Avast in this recent comaprison report by AV-Comparitives. http://www.av-comparatives.org/

[rewt]

According to FAQ (http://www.clamwin.com/content/view/35/27/), no. ("Q: Can ClamWin check files as they are accessed (opened/executed). A: No.") On the other hand I wouldn't be downloading and executing abritary file from the Internet without somehow trying to check the legitimacy of the file. I know it is extra trouble and on-access scanning would be better. Like I said, if I didn't get my free copy of F-Secure from Uni, I would be using ClamAV anyway.

I came across this program called Winpooch. It's a neat little app that, amongst other things, appears to give ClamWin real time virus scanning capability :)

Check it out at http://winpooch.free.fr/home/

[Treason]

I have been using MacAfee since 1991. (pirate)