Survey: which anti-virus do you recommend?

[jducoeur]

We've finally got the desktop machine up and running again -- after a fair amount of work getting the hard drive backed up, it actually recovered surprisingly easily, and with less data loss than I was expecting. The operating system per se got wiped, but all of the ancillary bits (including things like desktop settings and programs) didn't, so it's about 80% functional right off the bat.

However, one of the things that didn't come up immediately was the Norton Anti-Virus, which was pre-installed on this machine and which I've been updating since we bought it. And when it came time to re-activate it, I found myself unable to do so. Norton is *so* irritating that I would really prefer to find something else. It interferes with every process, slows down the machine dramatically, and is generally a pain in the butt. (I'm noticing that the machine is running much, much quieter now, with Norton not running constantly in the background.) Surely, there must be better options.

So a question for anyone with an informed opinion: what do you think is the best Windows anti-virus software? And why? Note that I care a lot about basic anti-virus and convenience -- the thing should protect well and update itself without hassle -- but I care a lot less about most of the bells and whistles like phishing protection (which is better handled in the browser and emailer). While email washing is useful, I don't want it to slow things down as much as Norton does. And the fact is, we've received less than one real virus a year by email -- Comcast actually does a pretty good job of filtering those before they get to us.

In short, I'm looking for a package that is designed for relatively experienced and well-set up Internet users, that isn't going to cost me half my CPU time. I'm also going to check various review sites, but I value the opinions of my friends, many of whom are pretty experienced in this field. So -- what do you use?

Comments

[anastasiav.livejournal.com]

Josh's hacker brother put something called Avast! on my new laptop. Seems to work well, in that it doesn't get in my way - but I ran the upstairs PC for years with nothing on it and no problems ... I'm a safe surfer!

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

My recent experience has shown me that no one anti-virus program will catch all the active ones at any given time. I've heard decent things about Avast; I make sure I keep Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, and a couple of others handy too (these seem to be the source of most of my problems). My mail server has Clam-AV installed and it works quite well; I think there's a desktop version that you can use to scan email from servers you don't control, but I've not researched it.

[laurion]

Clam-AV is an on-demand scanner only, so you have to schedule it to run, or remember to run it manually. It does not have an 'on-access' feature that scans files as you open them. For this reason, it's a great mail server AV, where you can easily pass all messages through it, but it is a poor desktop AV.

Ad-Aware and SpyBot are wonderful, and I keep them handy at all times, but they are not antivirus programs.

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

The differences between spyware and viruses are starting to blur. My work desktop was virus-infected for several days, a few weeks ago. Some AV scanners detected certain viruses, some didn't; none were able to remove them. The two I mentioned, in addition to malwaresupport.com's tool, were able to do most of the removal work. The spyware is becoming increasingly virus-like in its behaviour; gone are the days when they simply reported back to their origin what you're doing. Now they can infect your boot sector, Windows registry, delete files, send personal information, self-replicate, and use your machine to send spam or as part of a bot-net - just like viruses.

[laurion]

Oh, I agree. Traditional viruses are disappearing in favor of taking control of a machine; far more profit in building a botnet. But for the time being, most applications classify themselves as AV or Anti-spyware, not both, and it's a bad idea to think you only need one or the other. Your first comment said nothing about what AV you run, only what anti-spyware utilities you keep handy.

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

Sorry - at work I use MacAfee, which was useless. I also ran f-prot against this machine; my mother has run AVG which has been a royal pain to maintain. Others I know have run Avast with success. My point, though, was that an AV solution in and of itself isn't a great solution. I tend to be better with the non-traditional solutions, even without the AV.

At home I run Linux, which makes the AV solution easier. ClamAV is on my mail server, and very few of malware can cope with Linux anyway.

[laurion]

Oh how I used to love F-prot back in the day. Fast, thorough, and could be run from a floppy...

Oh, and as I haven't said what I run yet, I don't. At work I'm running linux, and at home I have a Mac. I've got a decade of work experience in the desktop support field though, so I've seen most of what's out there...

[corwyn-ap.livejournal.com]

I use AVG anti-virus free. It is minimally intrusive. Don't consider this an informed opinion. After the amazing hassle which is Norton, I switch to it, and have had no problems, (a low-valued data point). Put it on your list for consideration.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

I used AVG free version for several years and then updated to the pay version about a year ago.

It runs pretty much imperceptibly.

[the-resa.livejournal.com]

I use AVG.
And I have also heard good things about Avast, and have been tempted to try it. But I've been so happy with AVG, I just can't see making the change.

I suspect both are good programs. (Hated Norton)

(opens my AVG interface for details

[the-resa.livejournal.com]

Free Version has:
Anti-Virius, Anti-Spyware, Email Scanner (works beautifully - you hardly notice it), and Resident Shield - which scans all programs before opened or used, and forbid their use if there's a problem (though it allows you to decide if you still want to).

PRO VERSION $34.99:
Also has Anti-Rootkit, Safe Instant Messaging, Safe Search, and Safe Surf.

AVG SECURITY $54.99:
Also has Anti-Spam and Firewall

To Try and Buy:
http://www.avg.com/special-buy-avg-menu-appf8.tpl-mcr1

For the Free Version (what I still use):
http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I've been using ClamWin for a while now, and am pretty happy with it. It doesn't auto-update its code, though it will let you know when a new version is out (it does auto-update its threat database, naturally).

I recently *stopped* using (and would disrecommend) AVG and the SD-Resident component of Spybot. AVG got into a state where it kept asking me to reboot my machine for an update *every day*. Probably not *entirely* AVG's fault, and due to some Windows wackiness, but I still couldn't live with it. SD-Resident is a hypothetically useful program that does real-time monitoring of the registry and allows you to explicitly allow or deny any changes. In practice, whenever you install (or uninstall) software, SD-R interrupts you a dozen or so times, and sometimes in ways that causes the install to fail, even if you click 'allow change' all the time.

[eclecticmagpie.livejournal.com]

Ah. I always wondered why all the installers come with warnings to turn off virus-blockers while installing. I've never done so on a Mac, and never had to -- dismissing the warning does the right thing and doesn't cause the install to fail.

[corwyn-ap.livejournal.com]

I have never had AVG ask me to reboot (after the initial install of course).

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

What OS?

[laurion]

SD-Resident is a case of an overprotective nanny. SpyBot itself is worth keeping (along with AdAware and SuperAntiSpyware), but the Resident is a little bit too much sending-your-toddler-to-school-with-a-football-helmet level protection.

[laurion]

I really want to like ClamWin, but it only scans files when you tell it to, unlike most windows AV solutions which scan files when you open them, which is a far better solution.

There are a few utilities out there that will tap into Windows to scan with ClamWin every time you open a file, but they add a _lot_ of overhead.

[redsquirrel.livejournal.com]

I've been using AVG Free and while I really liked the 7.5 release for its unobtrusiveness, I've been much less happy with it since they "upgraded" to 8.0 It slows down my machine terribly (I only have 1 GB RAM, I'm poor, more is budgeted for but not yet), needs to reboot all the time, and is just in general more of a nuisance.
I haven't gotten rid of it yet because I do need something and it is free but if you get some good recommendations for something else that's out there I'd certainly like to check it out as well.
(I might mention that I found McAfee even more annoying than Norton, if possible. Don't even bother looking.)

[the-resa.livejournal.com]

That's two people now who talk about constantly having to reboot. Are you updating the whole program? Or just downloading the virus specs? I've had AVG for years, and never had this problem.

Maybe is the OS -- I have Windows XP, 1gig ram.

You might try Avast. I've heard it's also very good.

[eclecticmagpie.livejournal.com]

Some of what you're looking for should be available by simply changing the settings on Norton -- email washing, for example, should be optional -- at least it used to be. I used to run Norton (on Macs) and it didn't cause the continuous thrashing you're complaining about.

Other than that, I've also been told that on Windows you need at least three different programs for full protection. I'll be interested in what you go with, as I am slowly setting up a WIndows machine (well, a partition on my MacIntel) and need to deal with this before letting it talk to the Internet.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Last time I checked Consumer Reports (I was looking for something else) they had an excellent test for anti-virus software and they recommended Trend Micro.

So far (for quite some time), so good.

[the-resa.livejournal.com]

I loved Trend Micro for about a year (even bought it) up until they sold the company and redesigned it ... I think it was last year. At that point, it stopped working well for us, and we had to switch back to AVG.

[laurion]

Norton used to be an excellent product, but it has gotten bigger and hungrier with every release.

No, I don't know why.

[hungrytiger]

After years of getting annoyed with McAfee and Norton, I recently said what they heck and switched to Microsoft's Windows Live One Care. I have to say I like it. It seems to be doing the job, it has far fewer pop-ups to interrupt whatever I'm doing and when it's running scans or tune-ups in the background (updates, defrags, and file backup), I don't notice much slow down the way I did with Morton or McAfee. Also a much smoother UI than either of those tools.

I know some folks will avoid this out of dislike of Redmond, but I'm happy with it.

[laurion]

One thing I can't find is how often OneCare updates its AV and AntiSpyware definitions. If it only updates Monthly like most of Redmond material, then I cannot in good conscience recommend it.

[hungrytiger]

Although I like OneCare, another thing to note that I heard recently was that Microsoft is planning to stop elling OneCare in the next month or two and will be replacing it with a new product (which everyone who owns OneCare will be given free of charge). That's the extent of my knowledge on this though.

[laurion]

I've had excellent luck with both Avast and AVG in the past. Both are much lighter than Norton (Or McAfee), both can be tweaked if you need to. Both offer autoupdate and on-access scanning of files.

These days the biggest source of viruses and other crapware comes from tricking someone into isntalling something hey shouldn't. As such, you're fairly safe to begin with (being a more educated user), and AV that is lighter on resources will be much better for you.

[aishabintjamil.livejournal.com]

I'll put in another recommendation for AVG. I've been using it several years now, without incident. Last time I got totally disgusted with the lack of customer service that comes with NOrton (and you really ought to be able to get good customer service when you're trying to give them money, because if you don't then, you'll never get it any other time), I read a number of reviews.

Kaspersky looked promising, but when I downloaded their free trial, it insisted on disabling my internet connection, and I couldn't get any attention from their web-based customer support because I didn't have a sales order number. So, again, no response when I'm looking at spending money, I'm gone. A month or so later they found my email and replied that there was a known problem installing it on systems which had previously had Norton, and sent instructions for registry edits to fix the problem, but by then I was long past even considering them.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

I'm currently working with the MIT-standard flavor of McAfee (free and supported by the Institute is a win). It works fine on my work laptop (an IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad T-60).

On my home laptop (the Thinkpad T-30 I bought off the company when I left Convoq), the on-access scanning eats up resources like crazy at startup. I have to wait 15 minutes or so until the thing becomes really usable. I don't turn it off, because I am not convinced that I'll form a solid habit of running scans manually.