Best antivirus

Eternal_Life

What is the best antivirus I can get for my computer?

MattLFC

Nod32.

Period.

There are many good alternatives however, Kaspersky being one of them. It all comes down to which one you prefer using. Just so long as you dont go for the crap that the likes of McAffee and Norton sell year on year you should be okay.

ESET Smart Security is a great, un-intrusive package, that covers all aspects of your PC security, and includes Nod32 Antivirus. It runs almost silently in the background (does not rape your system resources, the firewall does not interfere when you do things etc) but actively keeps your computer safe at all times.

http://www.eset.com/smartsecurity/index.php

DatabaseError

depends on who you ask, I like kasperski and avast, others prefer others, none of us are wrong (except those who prefer mcaffee or older symantec (norton))

Eternal_Life

MattLFC wrote: »

Nod32.

Period.

There are many good alternatives however, Kaspersky being one of them. It all comes down to which one you prefer using. Just so long as you dont go for the crap that the likes of McAffee and Norton sell year on year you should be okay.

ESET Smart Security is a great, un-intrusive package, that covers all aspects of your PC security, and includes Nod32 Antivirus. It runs almost silently in the background (does not rape your system resources, the firewall does not interfere when you do things etc) but actively keeps your computer safe at all times.

http://www.eset.com/smartsecurity/index.php

Why not Mcaffee or Norton? Are their detection rates really bad? A friend of mine used Nod32 but kept getting lots of popups about viruses and trojans and he found it really annoying, so I'm not sure i want to go for that.

Reluctant_spender

The best anti virus is one that you are comfortable using and have confidence in.

No anti virus is 100% effective, so in essence it's user choice.

Having said that I am a NOD32 user

awzm

I'm a user of AVG but the current version (v8) seems a bit flaky in terms of auto updating. Avast or Kaspersky are nice alternatives.

Stang

+ 1 NOD32

The only one that I have not had problems with.

gaming_guy

nod32 and kaspersky get my votes for paid software

avira antivir gets my vote for free software

MattLFC

Eternal_Life wrote: »

Why not Mcaffee or Norton? Are their detection rates really bad? A friend of mine used Nod32 but kept getting lots of popups about viruses and trojans and he found it really annoying, so I'm not sure i want to go for that.

Neither are particuarly effective, and McAffee especially (from personal experience) simply thinks it has a right to use all the resources it wishes to.

Nod32 will only warn you if it detects problems, so obviously if your friend has tonnes of virus's on their PC, they will get notifed time and time again. Just because Nod notifies of them, and others do not, does not mean that Nod is at fault, it usually means the others are not good enough to detect the threats.

Myself and all my family all use Nod32, I have been using for 5 years or more now and had no such problems. It has helped me keep all my systems healthy. As an IT Engineer, I have seen so many systems with McAffee crap on them, and it has been taking the pi$$ with regards the amount of CPU time and speed it is using whilst simply running in the background. It usually trebles the startup time of Windows, which is simply wrong.

Nod32 has over the years consistently done well in all virus detection tests, and has been rgearded the best in its class for many tests, and by many IT professionals.

As said though, its simply a personal preference as to which you prefer. Some people like other AV's, just because I prefer Nod does not mean that Kaspersky is no good, because we all know it is a great AV. But I doubt I am the only IT professional who almost feels like crying when I see a user machine, which is "riddled" with McAffee and Symantec crap.

[Deleted User]

Coming from someone who works in IT as well I'd go for a free copy of Avira AntiVir. If you were happy paying some dosh then I'd either go for Kaspersky or NOD32

I can highly recommend http://www.wilderssecurity.com for discussions on all things security related.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/free-anti-virus-software#virus

• Grisoft's AVG 8.0.
  
  AVG has a long history, and has been through loads of modifications to provide a better service on its way to the current version, AVG 8.0. The company makes its money by selling virus protection to small businesses, and offers free home-user versions as a means of promoting its professional service. It's protection is reasonably thorough, though it doesn't offer any real tech support. It's quite unintrusive, doesn't use too many resources, and it will regularly auto-update.
• Alwil Software's Avast! 4.
  
  Alwil software's Avast! 4 is free for non-commercial users and offers regular updates, as well as proper technical support via e-mail or phone. Protection-wise it's very similar to AVG, covering all the same bases and not hogging system resources, but it has a funkier interface (for those who like a pinch of fashion with their computer security). The only downside is that you have to re-register it after each year of use.
• AntiVir.
  
  AntiVir by Alvira actually offers better standard virus detection than both of the above, but lacks in other areas. It won't scan your emails before you open them, uses more resources (less of a problem if you've a more powerful PC), and maintains a perhaps-too-visible presence on your desktop. You'll also have to occasionally re-register it to keep it going.

For me I like AntiVir as it's got one of the best virus detection rates and you can turn off the splash screen etc. to make it less unobtrusive. I also don't need email scanning, if you do then maybe go for AVG.

The comment above of

uses more resources

for AntiVir is, in my opinion, not true. AVG (version 8 onwards) on the other hand did seem to slow my system down especially for logon times.

For a comparison of detection rates take a look at the table here (Select Comparatives on the left, then select Online results for the latest month):

http://www.av-comparatives.org/

They update it monthly. Also for an Anti-Virus Poll take a look here: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=213806

First: Avira/AntiVir
Second: NOD32
Third: Kaspersky

Electron_2

I'm really surprised so many people say NOD32 is the tops when a recent report says its falling behind in detection rates game.

http://www.anti-malware-test.com/?q=node/55