Best Virus Software

[Adam Howard]

I strongly suggest not using Avast, or just hope you never have to remove it or hope it doesn't block any of your programs.

I've been using Microsoft Essentials and Malwarebytes for over a year or two now with zero problems.

If I was going to use a paid service, I'd use Kaspersky.

I've never had problems with Avast. Been converting family members over to it as of not to recently.

Microsoft Essentials, eh? I got a few files for you to play with if you want them. Trust me, Microsoft will tell you they're safe. You can trust Microsoft to make secure products and services.

 

[Adam Howard]

What about Macs?

Avast and Kaspersky both make Apple additions.

 

[Slavik]

ESET 4 lyfe. (mainly because I have a lifetime license with them )

 

[Andrej]

What about Macs?

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/mac-antivirus.45697/#post-491127

 

[Sim]

Is bitdefender any good?

Bitdefender does very well in the virus suite tests from tech publications which test for effectiveness at detecting viruses, although I have also heard they get a lot of false positives.

However, what those tests do not accurately reveal is the relative impact the programmes can have on the performance of your computer. I installed Bitdefender on two machines (one of them my main laptop) and was alarmed to find just how unusable the machine became - it was constantly IO blocked and caused the entire UI to freeze while the machine waited for IO operations to complete.

I've since gone back to ESET NOD32, which I've been running for years on multiple machines (I buy 3 year licenses for 10 machines), and it was so nice to have my computer performing well once more.

I'd recommend against Bitdefender - their software just isn't mature enough.

 

[Shyuan]

Off topic (sort of)

But has anyone else notice the user interface for AVG and Bitdefender look the same?

View attachment 45348

Wow! When I first saw the screenshot, i thought it's Bitdefender. They really look alike. Or they may just argue this is modern flat or metro look.

 

[Shyuan]

@FaithFirst, I have been using Kaspersky for two years but it gave me lots of slowdown. So i switched to Bitdefender. Bitdefender works great on my laptop, no slowdown. However, i think kaspersky is giving you more control of what should happen what shouldn't and when should happen. In short, more settings. Bitdefender is a bit annoying when it comes to settings. Not too user friendly IMO. It always want us to go its way. Maybe that is why they say Bitdefender is very good in securing since you can't be the one who decide what you want. For example, when you put off for auto-scan, it will keep bugging you. And then you will change it back to what it thinks is the most secure.

 

[Adam Howard]

@FaithFirst, I have been using Kaspersky for two years but it gave me lots of slowdown. So i switched to Bitdefender. Bitdefender works great on my laptop, no slowdown. However, i think kaspersky is giving you more control of what should happen what shouldn't and when should happen. In short, more settings. Bitdefender is a bit annoying when it comes to settings. Not too user friendly IMO. It always want us to go its way. Maybe that is why they say Bitdefender is very good in securing since you can't be the one who decide what you want. For example, when you put off for auto-scan, it will keep bugging you. And then you will change it back to what it thinks is the most secure.

Kaspersky has been my favorite as it does offer more settings and is more powerful. But for some of the older computers & for those who are not so "tech smart" it can be intimidating (as well as eat resources).

I've tried Bitdefender and it would give me false positives. Not to forget as you said, little to no settings. Which is why I give more people who want a compromise of settings, easy to use, and mostly those who don't have super computers , I install Avast for them.

AVG is good too, but mostly it started to annoying the hell out of me. Felt more like ad-ware. Even when you do finally buy the damn thing, it kept telling you to buy more things from them. And they hide those ads as settings... ie.. You'll see that X is disabled, because a pop-up will tell you that its disabled (sometimes) and you click in able, only to be told that another $29.95 True commercial ad-ware at its finest.

 

[TheBoss]

My 2 cents worth..

GData ISS
or
BitDefender ISS

I laugh to myself when I see people write a certain program slows their PC down a bit... Believe me , nothing slows you down more if your PC gets infected or worse still hacked to the extent that they get in and grab important details. I would much rather have peace of mind knowing I am secure ( to an extent ). Hackers are like burglars , if they want in badly enough they will get in..

Regards..

 

[Sim]

I laugh to myself when I see people write a certain program slows their PC down a bit... Believe me , nothing slows you down more if your PC gets infected or worse still hacked to the extent that they get in and grab important details. I would much rather have peace of mind knowing I am secure ( to an extent ).

Bitdefender didn't slow my machine down a bit ... it slowed it down a LOT, to the point of being unusable. I have 8GB of RAM, it wasn't swapping - but there were some processes constantly accessing the (SSD) drive, which just seemed to slow the machine down.

Reading through pages and pages of bug reports and complaints on Bitdefender forums and support, it seems that a lot of people (but not everyone) has the same problem. Might be some quirk about the hardware or drivers involved.

Returned to the previous AV solution I've been using for years and my machine is now perfectly usable again.

Hackers are like burglars , if they want in badly enough they will get in..

... and Bitdefender won't protect you one bit if they want it badly enough.

If you happen to fall into the "sweet spot" where your PC configuration is such that Bitdefender plays well, then great for you (provided you're happy to put up with the false-positives). Personally, I think the product needs to mature a lot and become more robust before I'll consider it again.

 

[Moshe1010]

Best anti-virus software is OSX.

 

[Jeremy]

Best anti-virus software is OSX.

This is a myth. Although OSX seems to have less viruses, as it grows in popularity and numbers, viruses will be made for it. A goal of a virus is to infect as many machines as possible. When the number of Macintoshes were relatively small, the cost to develop a virus was much higher for OSX, so Windows, the bigger player, was targeted.

 

[Moshe1010]

This is a myth. Although OSX seems to have less viruses, as it grows in popularity and numbers, viruses will be made for it. A goal of a virus is to infect as many machines as possible. When the number of Macintoshes were relatively small, the cost to develop a virus was much higher for OSX, so Windows, the bigger player, was targeted.

Nobody says that there are no viruses or malware for OSX. It's just way harder to develop a virus for UNIX based machines than Windows. What's greatest about OSX is that Apple has so much control over it that it would be so hard to get infected.
Most of my apps are from the AppStore = free from viruses. The other half are from official websites. The only way to get infected either through surfing online (but Chrome is pretty good about blocking infected websites) or some external devices that aren't yours. So basically the chances are slim to none compared to Windows.

For example, take iPhones. There are around 250 million iPhones out there, and I can't see any virus being developed for it. There have been several viruses for Android though.

 

[DRE]

Eset

This is the best one I used in my experience for PC.

What about Macs?

I use iAntivirus by Norton but I probably don't need it.

 

[DRE]

Best anti-virus software is OSX.

I love OSX.

http://www.8thos.com/threads/macbook-pro-thread.19394/

Why you should buy a Mac... You can run Windows on it without most of the viruses.

Why Macs are expensive: Because only Apple makes them. No cheap computer parts. Microsoft lets Windows be sold by almost any PC manufacturer. That's why so many people buy cheap PCs instead of Macs... but then their cheap PCs end up being less reliable while Macs usually last longer.

Why Windows sell more than Macs. See Above.

Why OSX is more secure than Windows. Mac OSX was created from Unix which was built with security in mind. Windows was a OS that later added networking due to business demands. It wasn't built with security at the forefront. Also because of the reason above, hardware that is cheaply made by other PC manufacturers sometimes come with flaws of their own (bad firmware etc).

Why OSX will always be more secure than Windows. Because Microsoft integrates Internet Explorer into large part of Windows instead of walling the browser off. Because IE is so thoroughly integrated into Windows that makes it easier to spread viruses. It also doesn't help that IE sucks but yeah...​

 

[eldritch1969]

Linux. Any distribution of it. Never ever had to deal with any virus.
You don't even need to defrag.
You save a lot of cash each year.
You have ONE button to update ALL your apps.

 

[Luxus]

Yeah, Linux is a way to avoid viruses but that's not the point as this is about Windows.
Frankly speaking there is no best anti virus software. All work basically the same and all have one thing in common: They can't protect you against new viruses which makes them kinda more pointless.

 

[DRE]

I might as well buy ESET again. Can I use the same ESET lifetime software for each computer in my household or do I have to buy ESET for each one?

 

[Luke F]

Why you should buy a Mac... You can run Windows on it without most of the viruses.

The experience is crippled by Apple's lack of effort towards drivers, particularly in their laptops. (e.g. battery life hours shorter than it should be, touchpad not as good as Synaptics despite having the potential, etc.)

And a mac running windows is just as likely to get viruses as any other Windows system.

Why Macs are expensive: Because only Apple makes them. No cheap computer parts. Microsoft lets Windows be sold by almost any PC manufacturer. That's why so many people buy cheap PCs instead of Macs... but then their cheap PCs end up being less reliable while Macs usually last longer.

The same amount of money spent on a prebuilt PC will likely be equal in reliability, and more so if you include the ability to replace parts yourself.

A self-built PC will be easily more reliable if you pick the correct parts

Macs are expensive because Apple can set whatever price they like on what is really mediocre hardware. Paying for the design/'build quality' makes no sense when companies like Sony can easily match their engineering prowess on high end portability/business focused laptops at a lower price point (e.g. Vaio Z series, Vaio Pro series).

Why OSX is more secure than Windows. Mac OSX was created from Unix which was built with security in mind. Windows was a OS that later added networking due to business demands. It wasn't built with security at the forefront. Also because of the reason above, hardware that is cheaply made by other PC manufacturers sometimes come with flaws of their own (bad firmware etc).

The NT kernel/system is probably just as fundamentally secure, all things considered, except it's just commonly used in a way that makes it inherently insecure (e.g. UAC disabled, admin account for normal use, etc.)

Why OSX will always be more secure than Windows. Because Microsoft integrates Internet Explorer into large part of Windows instead of walling the browser off. Because IE is so thoroughly integrated into Windows that makes it easier to spread viruses. It also doesn't help that IE sucks but yeah...

While IE is certainly tightly integrated, it hasn't been a major source of security issues since Windows ME, as long as you keep up with windows updates

 

[DRE]

The experience is crippled by Apple's lack of effort towards drivers, particularly in their laptops. (e.g. battery life hours shorter than it should be, touchpad not as good as Synaptics despite having the potential, etc.)

And a mac running windows is just as likely to get viruses as any other Windows system.



The same amount of money spent on a prebuilt PC will likely be equal in reliability, and more so if you include the ability to replace parts yourself.

A self-built PC will be easily more reliable if you pick the correct parts

Macs are expensive because Apple can set whatever price they like on what is really mediocre hardware. Paying for the design/'build quality' makes no sense when companies like Sony can easily match their engineering prowess on high end portability/business focused laptops at a lower price point (e.g. Vaio Z series, Vaio Pro series).



The NT kernel/system is probably just as fundamentally secure, all things considered, except it's just commonly used in a way that makes it inherently insecure (e.g. UAC disabled, admin account for normal use, etc.)



While IE is certainly tightly integrated, it hasn't been a major source of security issues since Windows ME, as long as you keep up with windows updates

Some of your rebuttals are like what if scenarios for the few users who build their own computers.