Which Antivirus

[richie]

What is the best ANTIVIRUS. I am using Norton 2003 but am told that it really slows things down. Should I remove it and use AVG???? Or any other free Antivirus software thats any good....

Comments please...

 

[trotsky]

What, only using one?

Norton Antivirus slows your machine down if you don't tell it to ignore checking some of the more heavily used files, but all anti virus thingums do that. You probably aren't using enough of your machines power for a slowdown to really matter unless you are dealing constantly with a badly designed database or doing lots of graphical work. Or a very old hard disk

Norton Antivirus is good value if you buy it as part of one of their "Internet Security" or "Systemworks" packages where it comes as an add on to other useful stuff.

Don't limit yourself to one though...

Professionally we run different AV on the file servers, PCs and mail servers (even different AV on different mail servers).

At home I run Norton AV on one machine and McAfee on another, but both also have the freeware A.V.G (http://www.grisoft.com) which runs a disk check occasionally. Both also have Spybot S&D and AdAware installed. And I have a baby Cisco Pix 501 and an ADSL router with address translation and access control lists. And the more important stuff is held on a secured FreeBSD file server...

Paranoid, moi?

 

[miconone]

AVG

I have the 'paid for' version of AVG, which seems to work very well. I think it was about £35 for licences for 2 PCs. It certainly keeps a lower profile than Norton AV. I ran the Norton Internet Security package for a year, but the automatic update of the virus encyclopaedia never worked properly.

My 2p, go for AVG from http://www.grisoft.com

 

[richie]

I have avg on my sons PC which is rarely connected to the net. I like the look of it and was wondering basically wether to use it on mine. I have never used two antivirus packages on the same PC and thought that it could create conflicts. (doh)

 

[trotsky]

I have never used two antivirus packages on the same PC and thought that it could create conflicts. (doh)

It can - set one to check all writes and reads, but not regular whole disk check scans, and the other to do a regular scan, but not the read/write checks, and you'll get very few conflicts. I use Norton for read/writes and AVG for scans. When I feel particularly careful I run a scan with Norton too, when AVG ain't doing it.

I'm not even prone to viruses; I don't have children, Kazaa, Limewire or eMule. But then again I've never had a virus or suffered an unhappy exploit either, and I'm on an "always on" connection.

I used to work as an IT contractor and I was always terrified I'd infect someone else's network so I was extra careful, just never lost the habit.

The only thing I'd say about the freeware AVG is the dearth of updates, I don't know how much better the paid for version is for that. My experience is that McAfee are best for updates.

 

[Jezza]

I don't take any chances when it comes to PC security, I use Norton Internet Security Professional, it has virus scanner, firewall, email spam filter and detects trojans and keystroke recorders and other nasties.

The update goes to 27 locations, and I run it most days, also do a full system scan every week. You would be amazed what it picks up.

Paranoid? what me? no, its like riding your bike, I'm just being careful.

 

[wessie]

I use the free version of AVG.

It is less intrusive than some I've tried.

My pc is connected to the internet whenever it is on, via a router. The router provides a very good firewall so that a separate software one (e.g. ZoneAlarm) is not needed.

I've not had a virus infection which means AVG must be working.

I've run scans from various website such as Symantec, PC-cillin and they have never found an infected file that has got through AVG.

 

[ralphy]

We have had repeated problems on our systems with several anti-virus programmes (one after the other, not all together!) until we used E-Scan. Since then (1 year+) we have had NO problems and NO viruses. Just done a straw poll of 6 colleagues & they all have put E-Scan onto their home pc's as a result of our experiences in the offices.
HTH

 

[Deleted Member MM]

Just installed Norton Antivirus & Personal Firewall 2004, since doing so I don't have the buttons (ie: search) at the top of UKGS'er forum page & my Digi camera won't download pic's.
Any idea's as to why this should happen?

 

[richie]

The firewall is blocking the script, do a search you'll find the answer

 

[Deleted Member MM]

The firewall is blocking the script, do a search you'll find the answer

Thanks Richie... half way there now

 

[Cheesy Mike]

Latest copy of PCW came through the letter box at the weekend. In their comparison of anti-virus package the editor's choice was Norton, but Grisoft's AVG Free got a highly commended.

Mike

 

[cookie]

i normally use mcafee virus scan 6 on my own machines, but i put mcafee virus scan 8 on a pc a few weeks back. quite impressed after using it. very slick updater, but better if you on broardband as updates are a fair size & it downloads them all on it's own by default.

 

[mikeh501]

I have used pretty much every av system out there for home/business. I wouldn't touch Network Associates / McAfee with a large barge pole.

We use Trend and find it one of the better ones.

 

[Fanum]

I've just imported all my Emails into Mozilla Thunderbird (actually, failed to import...an error occurred ).....but my week-old newly installed AVG freeware picked up a virus..........Immediately afterwards i started running the scanner and although it's a lot slower to scan than McAfee was, it's already picked up three virii.

The interesting thing though is that they were in files that would have been recieved months ago when I was running McAfee.....and i ran a full scan every couple of nights with that.....

I'm impressed