Virus and security software

[remulon]

Hi all

I am lookinng to purchase decent anti-virus and security software. Would anyone care to share their favorites and why?

Also, while looking around I see some of the vendors offer licences in various quantities. i.e. for 1 or 3 or 5 computers. I have a few computers on a network at home but I only use one at a time. Is there anything in the various offerings that prevent a one licence package being installed on more than one machine?

thanks

[thecoalman]

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1 AVG, Free for non commercial use.

[jman98]

I recommend AVG as well and got my friends and family to use it.

AVG is not known as some anti-virus programs are for complaining about perfectly fine software on your PC. I feel very strongly that Norton stuff is not a good idea other than their Ghost program. I've heard that Kasperksy often complains about programs that aren't viruses.

[ahhaa]

hey Ontario, you can shut off the Lake Effect snow anytime now!

this showed up yesterday from zdnet:
Trend Micro flaw opens PCs to takeover
A serious security hole in a wide swath of the company's antivirus products could let an outsider crash or hijack a computer.

something similar happened to Norton recently

as far as the multi machine Q, it can get subjective. You don't just install IS software, you block & scan with it which requires updates, during which your installation is checked for legitimacy.

Currently I'm having a battle with McAfee, which every day or so wants to verify itself, during which time it says my machine is not protected. This is after a long session with McAfee tech, which advised using a special program to uninstall McAfee, and then reinstall it. Not really confidence building...

If you have a number of machines, do they all need to go online? Some folks swear by a hardware firewall; a lot depends on what your machines do & how arranged...

[remulon]

The snow is free of charge....hehe
We have little snow here, compare that with places in NY state south of us with 8 feet or so in the past few days...
Thanks all for comments re software
As far as the multi licencing goes, I've asked the question to various vendors. Will see what they say.
I had Norton but have removed because of crashes with other software on my computer. They at least did not care about my three computers running with the same licence.

[Cobra]

I've been swithering over antivirus software recently, too. I'd always used Norton AntiVirus but wanted something newer for my Vista system. I tried NOD32 - it appears to be a very good package (with a 30-day trial) and has a good reputation. I wasn't too sure about it - in a full system scan, there were many files it encountered errors with.

I bought NAV2007 yesterday. Under Vista, you don't bother with the CD - download the Vista version from Symantec and use your key. Installation was a pain in the backside, though, but that may well have just been a fluke that I got errors and problems.

When I asked for suggestions for AV software, I got many different opinions. There doesn't seem to be a definitive answer, just what you're comfortable with.

If you're a complete newbie, you could look into Microsoft OneCare. It covers three computers, and is probably the easiest of them all to use. Not sure how well it functions in comparison to other packages, though.

[Poppa_Meth]

I'm currently testing AVG Internet Security bundle at work. It's been decent so far with a small footprint and minimal system slowdown. We've had Trendmicro, but the 2007 version slows the system to a crawl if you don't disable immunization in Spybot. No other AV/AS combo I've used has this problem so it's TrendMicro that goes, not spybot.

[guns1inger]

Trend is bad news. The two smallest footprint, high power suites are Kaspersky and (wait for it) Norton Internet Security 2007. After the complete botch up Symantec made of 2006, they seem to have put a lot of effort into getting 2007 running in a very small space. The biggest problem is it's disc footprint - 330 MB or something. If I was in the market for a new suite, I would look seriously at Kaspersky.

[fatbloke88]

If its free "AVG free antivirus" and "PC TOOLS free firewall" or if you want to pay NOD 32,
All good and don't use loads of resources.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/avg-anti-virus-free/lng/us/tpl/v5

http://www.pctools.com/firewall

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

[ahhaa]

zdnet offered this Antivirus Software and Disk Defragmentation test report:

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=131600&promo=589

[Ron B]

I'm using NOD32, it's a very good AV program with light resource use. Before that, I used Bitdefender9. Also a very good AV program, I'd rate it a close second to NOD32, only because it uses slightly more computer resources. Both offer excellent protection.
If you want free, I'd rate AVG and Avast! a toss-up, AVG is easier to use, Avast! with slightly better protection, but not as easy to use.
Norton Personal AV is the worst of the bunch. Once it's on your computer, only a reformat will get rid of it.

[MJA]

I also use NOD32 on my tower,and Avast(free) for my Laptop. I heard alot of good reviews about Comodo Firewall (free)

if you have a fast PC try Kaspersky .I tried it for the 30 days.best AV I ever used.