Alternative to Norton Antivirus

Legacy_user · 7 September 2006 at 9:21AM

A message from Norton informs me that my AnitVirus is due to expire on the 11th Sept. Recently someone posted somewhere on MSE that there were alternatives to Norton which were as good, if not better and free. It so happens that I'm going on holiday on the 11th, so quite unsure what to do, now or after the holiday. Were someone to post a reliable alternative, would it present a problem, ie clash with the current protector ?, Should I have to reinstall Norton ? Should I allow Norton to expire and deal with it on my return ?.Simple basic questions from a non-techie to techie's everywhere.

reddy246174 · 7 September 2006 at 9:35AM

HI there, not a expert but while you're covered by Norton I'd download the trial editions (usually 30days) of programs like Zone Alarm Security Suite, Kaspersky, Bitdefender so that you can install them when you get back off holiday. You might find you get on better with them than norton and you get 3 months protection for nothing.

For free stuff I've heard AVG Antivirus and Sygate or Zonealarm firewalls are best bet.

lee634 · 7 September 2006 at 9:36AM

take a look here

f1charlie · 7 September 2006 at 10:25AM

From The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities:

"Best Free Anti-Virus Software Updated August 23, 2006
There are two equal recommendations in this category. First there is AVG Antivirus 7.0 Free Edition. This product [1] has been continuously refined since it was first released in 1991 and now offers solid protection capabilities. Additionally, it's relatively small, light on resources, has regular automatic updates and handles email scanning. There is a free and a pro version, the only difference being that the free version has a few non-critical features disabled and has no direct technical support.

Equally effective is the free Avast! scanner [2] though its funky media player style interface is not to everyone's taste. Avast! also required periodic re-registration while AVG does not. However Avast! does not seem to suffer the signature file update problems that plague some AVG users.

Both AVG and Avast! are excellent free products that will meet the needs of most users. However neither can be considered to be the best in their class. That title belongs to commercial products like NOD32, F-Secure, the full version of Kaspersky AV and others. They are however capable packages and offers the financially challenged a real alternative to the major anti-virus suites.

However if you use these free products in conjunction with a free on-demand scanner, you can achieve a level of detection approaching that of the best commercial products. Further improvement is possible by creating a layered defense using additional free security products such as Ewido.

On-demand scans should be run regularly, at least weekly, to check for viruses that may have been missed by your main scanner. My top recommendation as on on-demand scanner is AntiVir Personal Edition Classic [3]. It offers somewhat better detection rates than either AVG or Avast! but the lack of email scanning precludes recommendation as a primary scanner. However as an on-demand scanner, it's first rate. If you use it in this role, make sure you disable its resident virus guard during installation to prevent it interfering with your main AV scanner. Note that the recently released V7 unfortunately introduces a time limited license though apparently this will be renewable.

Another good option for on-demand scanning is the free version of the commercial AV product BitDefender [4]. It's a first class product with outstanding detection rates but as the free version lacks an email scanner and a resident virus guard, it's only really suited for use as an on-demand scanner rather than your main AV product. There are some other limitations as well. First it has an annoying habit of detecting malware products that have been quarantined by other security products and you can't exclude these areas from subsequent scans. Second it is only available on a one year non-renewable license.

[1] http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/ (16.0MB)
[2] http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html (8.8MB)
[3] http://www.activevirusshield.com/antivirus/freeav/index.adp? (13.9MB)
[3] http://www.free-av.com (8.7MB)
[4] http://www.bitdefender.com/PRODUCT-14-en--BitDefender-8-Free-Edition.html (13.2MB)"

If you do install a new Anti Virus, make sure you uninstall Norton first. It is not a good idea to run two AV packages at the same time.
Also, remember that if you do nothing, your computer will not be protected against any new viruses which may have emerged 'into the wild' while you have been away, as you will be unable to update Norton with new virus definitions.

Charlie

mrmilo69 · 7 September 2006 at 10:30AM

i'd recommend McAfee internet security, even though i've got a good system, norton makes it very laggy! zone alarm slows down my internet connection, but mcafee works just fine

Alfonso_Skinarelli · 7 September 2006 at 3:17PM

islandman,

Can you tell us what you use the internet for?

Do you use file sharing programs to download music or like to browse the odd site of an adult nature?

Or do you just browse a few well known sites and check your emails?

System · 7 September 2006 at 3:54PM

Hi, I don't file share or download music, neither do I browse adult sites. Sad though it is, I browse my favourites, ie ADSL guide, house exchange,ispforums,net4nowt forums, saynoto0870 forums,answer bank, MSE, web user, yahoo forum (of which I'm a moderator), collect yahoo email, diy,computer forums, a batch of general interest forums, UK webcams, clearly there are others, but you will see , some would say mundane sites. I'll be interested to see what comments come forth.