What's the best Antivirus?

I took a look through Melih's forum posts - I've always thought one of the most unprofessional things for "professionals" to do on the internet, is fail to use capitalisation and real English.
 
I used to have bitdefender which was really working good and easy to use. Then I bought Kaspersky which was equally robust and good too. But it came with different levels i.e., anti virus for windows, for internet, etc., so it was little confusing. Then when I bought Dell laptop last year, it came with a McAffe which is doing until now. So I guess all these are good and do their work. But can't find the best one since I'm already careful using net and anti virus apps doesn't have to sweat much here :)
 
hey, I got a free McAffe which I just found on the table. I got it as a free one and I completely forgot about it till my last message(see above) here. lol!
 
Linda you're failing to see you already have the best anti-virus!

To quote John Carrona from an earlier post:
IMO, the best antivirus is user education.
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Which you clearly already have.
Everything else is preference, I run AVG on my desktop as it has more than enough power to not be bogged down by it.

I run MSE on my laptop as it has a weaker processor and battery life is a concern making more robust solutions unfavorable.

I have never liked norton as it often likes to tell me what it thinks is best contrary to my knowledge :lolg:
 
AVG and McAffe are both 2 of the worst AV programs out there in my opinion. I don't care if it's free or paid, some of the detection methods being used by these programs is really lame. MSE is not bad, regardless of what kind of ratings have been thrown around. The other ones I have on my top list would be Kaspersky, ESET (comes with lots of false positives, but can't beat security I guess if it blocks them), Norton (I'm talking about versions 2010 or later at minimum, pre-2010 versions were criticized for memory and CPU hogging), Avira and Avast seem to be up there as well, but I haven't tried Avira and I never liked Avast because of it's notifications. Bitdefender is really nice though, similar to Norton, but I think Norton has more configuration options. People that complain about Norton usually just don't know how to configure it to do what they want it to do. There's more configuration on that program than any other program I've even seen... I would consider it top notch for it's firewall though.

And although user education plays a role here, you're not going to be detecting things that run in the background just because of how educated you are, unless you decide to look for them manually. User education should be the first line of defense, a scanner should be second, and the last line of defense being your AV program with realtime protection.

Laxer said:
I have never liked norton as it often likes to tell me what it thinks is best contrary to my knowledge :lolg:
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It's by default configured to defend against nearly everything and anything. You just have to know how to configure it.

I think it's good that it is by default this way because there is a 60-70% chance that the user of that PC is going to know hardly anything about security.
 
I'm in high favor of avast. Easy to understand GUI and it practically takes care of itself.

However the only thing that is a pet peeve is the update notifications and the fact that it talks.
 
Anthony N said:
I'm in high favor of avast. Easy to understand GUI and it practically takes care of itself.

However the only thing that is a pet peeve is the update notifications and the fact that it talks.
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That's what I didn't like about it lol. That's why I mentioned it was annoying for notifications above. If you are unsure on what AV to get, and you don't have money to spend on licenses, then MSE is always a safe way to go for something good and lightweight. I would never get McAffee or AVG though. If I had money, I would probably either get Norton or BitDefender. With Windows 8 I've been reluctant to look at anything else though because Windows Defender (MSE) is already by default installed, so it would just be more junk on my system for no reason. Plus I'm fairly knowledgable about how viruses work. I may not have much experience removing them, (although I've never failed to get rid of one yet) but programming really helps you understand quite a few things on a computer... Well, if you do lots of low level programming anyways. If all you do is batch or VBS, you probably won't have much of a clue haha. :thumbsup2:
 
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MSE was good, however it didn't flag things until they made a rogue move and attacked a system file.

Norton.... Expensive, bogs the system down and has tons of false positives. My 'The Sims 2' constantly crashed because it would flag the texture engine.

But none the less, I love avast, it's light weight and live scanning, with optional on-demand scanning. Plus if I really wanted I could disable the notifications for updates or mute it.
 
Anthony N said:
MSE was good, however it didn't flag things until they made a rogue move and attacked a system file.

Norton.... Expensive, bogs the system down and has tons of false positives. My 'The Sims 2' constantly crashed because it would flag the texture engine.

But none the less, I love avast, it's light weight and live scanning, with optional on-demand scanning. Plus if I really wanted I could disable the notifications for updates or mute it.
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"Norton.... Expensive, bogs the system down and has tons of false positives." - This is not actually true, if you haven't configured norton it will detect even files that have not been scanned before to their database or files that haven't been seen much by other users. And this may have been more true about it bogging down the system in pre 2009 versions, but as of 2010 and later, it's not that bad. It does well though, so if you want the security, you can't complain, because as you say, and unlike MSE it will analyze much more for you. MSE is nice for a lightweight program however, but if others did as much as Norton does, they would be just the same.

Norton by default also is configured to trigger a notification for keygens, whether they are malicious or not, as well as hacking tools. So although these are not good to be using (because of the illegal activity that usually goes along with them), obviously they will be identified as false positives (if by definition that means detection even for clean/non-malicious files), but ONLY until configured not to be detected as such. You also need to configure the networking area for allow/deny options, as this will affect the detections too at real time. It's configured by default to be very strict though because I can say with confidence that 80% of computer users using Norton probably won't have a clue about some of the options in there. (Thus, I would consider it's strictness by default a good thing, because less experienced computer users probably would be better off with more strict settings.)

Too many people as I mentioned though, just don't configure Norton, because they are used to the lack of configurability given by other similar AV programs (?... Or just perhaps believe that everything should be, by default, set the way they want it to be configured?). Norton has much more in regards to settings than any other AV I have seen though. BitDefender does other very nice things that Norton doesn't, but it lacks the configurability that Norton has, and I think Norton's firewall for the networking settings is better.

ESET is recognized as well, but it's the top contender for false positives, way above anything else. But if you are after security, then a few detections that may contain a handful of false positives and "true" positives, instead of not detecting something malicious is better than nothing I suppose. You can configure Norton to detect nothing however (without turning the AV off).
 
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Let's not get started on ESET, that, next to AVG; IMHO are the worst. There are others that contend as "freeware" but they are by far the worst for detection and usually offer no real-time scanning.

But then again, I find a brand I like and stick to them, and find reasons to knock other brands, I mean these are my opinions.

Now, let's ditch the GUI, I think the best things to consider in AV is your feature set, such as real-time scanning, or on-demand. Next you would want to look at it's definition library and detection ratio. Lastly, I would look at its resource usage.
 
I had never even used an antivirus product until I was hit with Blaster in 2004... My first AV was TrendMicro's PC-Cillin... It used to be right next to AOL "Trial" Disks at WalMart...

Now, I prefer MSE because it is relatively lightweight, has a simple configuration, and no presumptions. I back it up with a monthly scan with MalwareBytes Anti-Malware.

I steer clear of the other "Free" offerings because I can't stand Ads. (Avira... I don't care how good it is... Unsolicited popups on my Desktop are NOT ACCEPTABLE)... Confusing and overly complicated user interfaces (AVG) and... And locked features pushing for purchase of the "Full product".

If I were to use a paid-for product, it would probably be ESET or Kaspersky.
 
Personally, I like facts rather than opinions. ESET easily outperforms Avast, Avira, AVG, Norton and Kaspersky when it comes to false positives. However, it doesn't have the best detection rates - although it performs reasonably well on malware removal tests.

AV-Comparatives File Detection Test » AV-Comparatives
AV-Comparatives Removal-Test » AV-Comparatives

Performance wise, the latest versions of Norton seem to do okay. ESET and Kaspersky slightly leading.

AV-Comparatives Performance-Test » AV-Comparatives

The false alarm tests are also fairly interesting. ESET and MSE come top.

AV-Comparatives False Alarm Test » AV-Comparatives

As for Norton - any AV program should not need extensive configuration in order to work properly. The majority of users are not knowledgeable about computers. If an AV program is annoying, or doesn't work properly because the user hasn't dug through the settings, that is the fault of the AV program, not the user.

I think if I was going to go for a paid AV program, I'd be tempted to try ESET next. I used to use kaspersky for a while, but it was too resource intensive.
 
Ah one of those independent - not-for-profit comparison sites.

They have some pretty good data there, tho it is missing data for some months and years depending on what you're looking for. But we do cover the basic four in your links.

Hovering over the data bars states that ESET and Avast are neck and neck at 99.3% I have used both and granted everyone is right, your AV software needs to tailored to your computer and needs to be trained to know enemy from friendly fire.

According to EA, after a tech support phone call with them, back in 2011, AV software (no names were mentioned) tends to flag games because the game engine and texture engine behave in ways that viruses do, bog a system down, make an attack, and game over. According to EA they recommend disabling or suspending your AV into a "game mode". [These were the words of the EA Rep, rewritten, do not attack me, I am still a novice to actual virus behavior and their intended goals other than damage the computer and make off with valuable data.]

Sorry not happening, I don't care if I'm installing or uninstalling, or running software or games, I'm not turning my AV off no matter how much it is recommended.

Btw, those "zero day" chain letters I get from my dear grandmother, I delete those. I feel those only empower attackers to show off and do more damage than actual good.
 
I can safely say I've never had any problem running any game with an AV program running. I can't think of any behaviour a game engine could do that would cause it to be flagged as malware. Sounds like a poor excuse from EA to me - the only issues that I've ever heard of being experienced with games is notifications not taking account of full-screen games.
 
Will Watts said:
I can safely say I've never had any problem running any game with an AV program running. I can't think of any behaviour a game engine could do that would cause it to be flagged as malware. Sounds like a poor excuse from EA to me - the only issues that I've ever heard of being experienced with games is notifications not taking account of full-screen games.
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It'll be the copy protection drivers. But I still don't really see any reason why they should be flagged up (nor had any flagged up on my computer, ever), unless they're packed, but I really don't see why they would be, packing offers very little protection and sets off quite a few AVs. But they might be, I guess?? Anyway, agree it seems like a poor excuse.
 
niemiro said:
Will Watts said:
I can safely say I've never had any problem running any game with an AV program running. I can't think of any behaviour a game engine could do that would cause it to be flagged as malware. Sounds like a poor excuse from EA to me - the only issues that I've ever heard of being experienced with games is notifications not taking account of full-screen games.
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It'll be the copy protection drivers. But I still don't really see any reason why they should be flagged up (nor had any flagged up on my computer, ever), unless they're packed, but I really don't see why they would be, packing offers very little protection and sets off quite a few AVs. But they might be, I guess?? Anyway, agree it seems like a poor excuse.
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I didn't backlash the rep but she did try to blame the AV AND the computer, not the game, however I had to move computers and a fresh install, same AV did the trick to fit the crashes at that time. I really think niemiro, it was bad drivers. That computer I had moved from just had stable driver issues period.
 
AV Comparatives is reliable. As I mentioned though, and as those reports show, the false alarms for ESET are incredibly high. Most people try to compare an AV by whether a certain AV detects something while another doesn't, and this is the reason why that's not a good idea, unless you know that the file is malicious, it's not a good way to test. The reason why I don't like AVG is because it's the kind of program that just moves into your filesystem where ever it decides to create folders and move files to. The cleanup afterwards by the uninstall process is even more atrocious, and no wonder it's been known to cause BSOD's.
 
Unless you've seen something I haven't, ESET and MSE have the lowest number of false positives out of any of the AV programs tested.
 
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