Reader shoutout: What anti-virus application or suite do you use?
This post was published 2 years 9 months 24 days ago and its content may not be valid anymore.Limited as far as Windows anti-virus application experience is concerned, I recently found myself recommending a suitable anti-virus application / suite for a friend. The catch is that this particular users computer was on the lower end of the power house computing scale running a 1GHz Mobile Centrino processor with 512MB of ram.
Immediately, I recommended Eset’s Nod32 based on my personal experience and success with the application keeping my old Windows notebook free of viruses. I am sure that I missed out on a handful of notable solutions.
Chime in with your comment concerning anti-virus protection applications. Let’s turn this post into the defacto source for candid recommendations of anti-virus applications.
I use ClamXav for Mac OS X to scan my email attachments etc. to prevent spreading any PC viruses – it’s free, open source and will most likely add support for any Mac viruses that appear.
AVG Free. Its free and its good!
Eset’s Nod32 does it for me! :)
I use Nod32 everywhere too, mostly for its low ressource use. For the occasionnal scan on a alien computer, I always carry ClamWin portable (http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/clamwin_portable) on a USB stick wherever I go.
Tell your friend that you really wish you could help, but that you can only really help with things when he or she gets a mac, likely in a few years anyway based on the outdatedness of his/her computer…
I’m also on Free AVG, for about a year now. No problems so far, and it doesn’t slow your copmuter to death like Norton.
Linux ;)
I use Mac OS X. I don’t need anti-virus protection :)
I use the AT&T Yahoo! Online Protection… It came with my browser and so far it seems like it’s working…..
AVG Free. Can’t bring myself to buy the infearior Norton for £50.
avg and clamwin are both good, small, and free
I work in the PC industry. Every PC I’ve worked on in the past two years now has AVG Free. It’s light weight, fast, reliable, and it’s FREE. The constant automatic updates are a plus too.
Also, Guys – I love Macs. I sold my Powerbook G4 a little while ago, and I’m saving up to get a MacBook. Please stop saying “Get a Mac” in response to “What anti-virus application or suite do you use?” I don’t want to sound like a dick here, but you’re just wasting space and it doesn’t add anything to the conversation.
AVG wants to charge me money after one year!
Then you didn’t get the free version! Try http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-virus-free
You can read the tweakguides.com XP guide on how to configure it to it’s best potential.
Really?
“AVG Anti-Virus Free and AVG Anti-Spyware Free is for private, non-commercial, single home computer use only.”
Maybe your license becomes invalid after one year without updating. But gets renewed when updating. That’s how that thing works with Avira Free AV. (http://www.avira.com/).
And you all know you should update your anti virus suite more often that once a year, right? ;)
NOD32 for Windows… Mac is safe…
Great responses guys. AVG Free slipped my mind. It’s been awhile since I’ve sat behind Windows. I opened up Google and had way too many options listed.
I use ClamAV for other peoples’ computers. I personally just use common sense and don’t run “HappyBirthdayJohn!!11131eleven.exe”.
I normally will recommend NOD32 since it’s light, powerful, and has a great detection engine. If one has to go the free route though, I would highly recommend AOL’s Active Virus Sheild ( http://www.activevirusshield.com/ ). It’s light, is constantly updated, and is based on the excellent Kasperky Anti-Virus (it also happens to be the only good piece of software AOL has distributed).
I rely on both AVG Free and Ad-Aware to keep me virus-free. My laptop also came with a 90 day trial of Norton which has yet to expire, and it’s not doing much harm, so I’m keeping it for now.
I use Mac OS X as my anti-virus software
On the PC AVG free… been using it for about … 5 years now, solid stuff and has only improved over time… on the Mac… Nadda
Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic (www.free-av.com) and Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall (www.sunbelt-software.com/Kerio.cfm) works. I’ve been using such combination for several years now and I cant complain. However I’ve had 2 false positives, but few searches with Google and you know whats going on.
Also for spyware removal, I use Ad-Aware SE and Spybot S&D.
I recommend such combination of softwares for all my friends, it works great if you dont spend your time with computers for searching viruses or spyware alone…
AVG on all my PCs and nothing for my Mac.
jsut because you have a mac does not mean you cant get a some sort of infection on yoru computer… the odds of it are slim.. but it can still happen and mac or not its still a good idea to have some sort of scan for your computer
I’m using avast on my computer and my gf…. works great for me…
I got a Mac about two years ago, and have never liked it. Oh, I use it, but I’m never very happy doing so. Thankfully, I hung on to my notebook PC, and once that Mac bites the dust, or it’s OS becomes obsolete (which it almost is), I’ll be getting a PC. So, for all the Mac fanboys out there who think it’s that simple to switch, I’m here to point out that not everybody loves the Mac, even if it doesn’t need an anti-virus suite.
For my PC, I use AVG Free, and have used it without any trouble for a couple years. It updates itself daily, plays well with my other software, and runs without taking up a lot of system resources.
I’ve also heard a lot of people praise Avast:, which is also free
http://www.download.com/Avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10019223.html
According to The 46 Best Ever Freeware Utlities site (which in my opinion is utterly reliable in their recommendations) they recommend AVG, Avast, and AOL Antivirus Shield, as good free ones to use. However, they say that the best ones are the commercial ones like NOD32, F-Secure, and Kaspersky. You can read the site’s recommendations here:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm#2
By the way, I use a lot of the software that’s recommended at that site, and they are all every bit as good as advertised.
Wonder what will happen when the Mac actually gets a virus – I don’t know a single Mac user that is protected!
I use Panda Internet Security 2007 for it’s superior heuristics and daily updates. It protects against 300,000 malware and I haven’t been infected with a virus for years now.
Just recently installed Active Virus Shield, free from AOL. Its powered by Kaspersky’s Anti-Virus 6.0 engine. Good at updating itself. No problems so far.
Hey! I’m a Mac user and I’m “protected” – ClamXav! And I agree – Mac users shouldnt be so smug about it and do sound like twats – I’ve been using them for 20 years and love them but more and more exploits are being found and it is only a matter of time before a malicious virus is released on OS X.
McAfee Virus Scan.. yes I actually pay for a virus scan O_o
it’s like if i was going to get a steering wheel lock, why would I buy it at the 99 cents store? well that might not be realistic, but in my head i feel safer with a paid one, thats all.
Oh and along with that I use free anti-spyware programs. but this topic is about anti-virus, lol.
i think that now that there is a trend towards mac and the community using OSX has been growing. its only a matter of time for virus writers to start targeting OSX. mac users watch out.
meanwhile i’ve been using Symantec AntiVirus Corporate (Not Norton). ive had no problems with it. It’s pretty light on resource usage and it does a good job with Adware and Spyware too
Avast home!!!!
After the Mcafee subscription expired, I was googling everything I could, reading reviews of the softwares… Later, somehow I ended up with the Avast home edition.
We use F-Prot Antivirus in our household, the slowest of the computers being a PIII 733Mhz with 512MB RAM.
Why? Because it’s relatively cheap ($30 a year), a home licence allows for installation on up to five computer and most important I run F-Prot on several client (Linux) mailservers and so far (in more than three years) not a single virus has gotten through.
The place (or country) I live in have no restriction over illegal download and subsequent cracking of commercial products. So, it doesn’t matter if a product is free or commercial, eitherway we would be able to use it for almost next to nothing (disregarding the price of a software pack cd containing hundreds of such commercial products which costs about 0.3$ here). For this reason only, I’ve been able to try out a lot of AV-suites, and to me the best performed AV would be 1) Mcafee Virus Scan Enterprise 8.0 i and 2) Kaspersky (as if anyone doubted). Kaspersky came in second because despite having a higher detection rate, KAV consumed more system resource than Mcafee. Besides, I don’t know how this works, but Mcafee Enterprise seems to be free and you don’t even have to Scoff! CRACK Scoff! it.
As for totally free AVs..avast was the best. I haven’t used it in a while, so can’t say how it performs these days :_)
NOD32 is simple and doesn’t bog down the system like other av softwares does. It also have a high scan rate as well. I just love it having it on all my pcs.
I recommend Antivir.
It is opensource fast and it detects all trojans.
I uses trend micro internet security 2007 its a little pricey and requires an higher end pc but it updates and does most of my work of keeping my pc clean, automatically.
AVG Free edition-The current version we are using is being discontinued, but a new free version will be available!! It has been a great product for many years. From the website-
GRISOFT is announcing a new version of the AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition. This new 7.5 version with improved performance and full compatibility with the latest Windows Vista version is available. Users that are using AVG Free 7.1 will be provided with a specific dialog, within the next few weeks, with the opportunity to choose the right option fulfilling their needs. AVG Free 7.1 version will be discontinued on 18th of Feb 2007.