Looking for a new Virus Protection APP

Hey all!

Erm, for those of you who may be wondering: the fact that I'm looking for new virus protection the day after I upgrade Byte Me is ABSOLUTE COINCIDENCE.

...

Really! XD

Anyway, all kidding aside, my family & I are sick & tired of loping along with the bloated resource hog commonly known as Norton Internet Security. SO, any recommendations for good, tight, but LEAN & EFFICIENT virus protection APPs?

AVAST without hestitation. Very little disprution. It doesn't make a song and dance about the fact it udpated the database. Other than a little corner window which closes soon afterwards.

Oh, and one of its best options => "[*] Check for full screen apps/games before displaying popup"

As for scannning it is very low-key. I never actually notice it running the scan. Which is a good thing in my book

There is a free edition too. Just register via email and away you go

Hmm, sounds good Jim! I've also heard good things about AVG in the past... Any comments, anyone?

I've heard that the free version doesn't get as many updates as the paid one. I would recommend Avira instead. It's the best on most benchmarks.
Just a reliable example:
http://www.av-comparatives.org

I like AVG -- it's unobtrusive, fairly low resources, and seems to do a decent job.

I've also used avast, but find their default settings a tad annoying in that it uses audio prompts like blabbering "Virus database has been updated" over your speakers.

That's the first option I switched off. Now I just get the little blue update window in the corner

I was an avid fan of AVG for a long long time until v8 kept refusing to update properly and would not connect to the server. Thus I was constantly plagued by popups telling me the last update failed.
AVG does have one slightly annoying feature though. When it has updated it always opens a 30 second inactive window to tell you it has finished the update. Every time. It can be somewhat irritating when you are in the middle of doing something only to be bugged by the dialog window

I like Nod32 best, seemed to use the least resources on my somewhat aged system. It's not free though.

I vote for AVG, I didnt like avast! or mccafee at all.

long time user of AVG. Recently switched to Avast just for a change to see how I'd like it. So far I think AVG is more low key than Avast, but I haven't given much time to customizing Avast (why should I have to do this?). I don't notice it scanning in the background like AVG, but the updates could be silent (even the pop up IMO could be silenced). Otherwise, I'm liking it so far.

AVG has gotten very slow and heavy since the version 7 to 8 upgrade. I think I'll switch to ClamAV soon, it's updated daily, although the Windows version is still a bit in beta. On Linux ClamAV is fully production reap.
It's definately the fastest and the least memory/cpu hogging Anti-Virus scanner on the planet.

I found AVG slowed down boot times by quite a few seconds and made windows slightly less responsive. Nod32 felt like there was no AV installed at all and boot times were normal. Doesn't interfere with my game playing either, I just leave it on the whole time.

I recommend trying the 30 day trial and see how you get on with it. You can get an OEM version for under $20 online. Thats what I did. After a month I was a bit bummed and tried a handfull of others and figured what the heck, it's worth it since it makes my somewhat ancient PC feel a lot more responsive than with other solutions installed.

Ya, no kidding. I was very happy with AVG7, but 8 is just awful.

The biggest difference between 7 and 8 is that 8 also does some background predictive scanning by prefetching links on webpages you're viewing. In later updates they made this an optional component, after getting complaints.
You can download & reinstall AVG skipping that feature, which would make it a bit lighter weight.

Avira

The irony is the newest version of Norton gets reviews for being faster and less bloated than most of the competition in the one article I was reading earlier this month.

I used AVG for years but switched to Avast when they SAID it was no longer going to be free, but changed their minds.

As it turns out, on first scan Avast picked up on a trojan virus in an old archive folder that AVG had missed for years! So I'm happy with Avast, it works a treat and you can configure it to be less intrusive (not that it's too bad anyway).

Big ol' vote for Avast! Also was the first to support Vista, which doesn't help much now but does give you an indication of just how quick they are to jump in and fix things.


Huge big intrusive pop ups = bad.


Caused BSODs on my XP SP2 setup, which was not an isolated incident. Unless you paid there was no support.


The one negative I can say about Avast! is it does pick up a tonne of false negatives, though I suppose it is better to err on the side of caution.

Huge intrusive pop ups due to malware = worse

It's only one pop-up for each update and Avast and AVG simply aren't on par with Avira.

my brother was recording direct to pc once and sent me a miss-take partway into his riff his AV chimed in with "virus database has been updated" or words to that effect, thankfully it didnt record what my brother said afterwards

my box came with a time limited version of bull guard which without online activation switched itself off after a while, it was ok the pc didnt have internet access so it wasnt going to be getting anything nasty
but i did want an AV and knew of the names "norton" and "McCaffe"? but not their current reputation, so still with no online access to check i got norton from pc world and no where on the box did it say it needed online activation, i had entered its cdkey and everything seemed to be going ok and it did a full system scan then said "im not going to work again till you go online" and it didnt, not untill i got a 3broadband usb dongle and found out norton was the most well known and loathed AV out there.
i was tempted to take it back to the shops for a refund cos it never said "online activation" but the cost of it vs all the "but its been opened bla bla bla eula bla bla bla" i thought sod it im going online at some point.

I don't understand how Norton AV is constantly rated as the best.
My brother had all sorts of problems running under Vista Basic.

Every time I walk into PC world I almost fall over the stupid big yellow boxes plastered all over the place. Norton AV, Norton system wonder tool, Norton 360, Norton guard, Norton Firewall, Norton DIY cake making, ..

Not to mention the PA system banging on about protecting yourself with Norton. Why don't they just rename the shop to Norton World?

Almost impossible to avoid .. just like the AOL CD's

There's a AV site that compares all the AV software out there and their perfomance under different criteria.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/ergebnisse_2008_08.php

AVG and Avast have a ton of false positives. Avast has average scanning speed, AVG got Fast.

Viruses in my experience are extremely rare, you don't really need protection so long as you take basic precautions. I went through about 8 years without and did get a virus a couple of times, mostly through stupidity and being a bit naughty and downloading something I shoudln't lol.

So for me the most important thing is that the damn thing doesn't interfere with my day to day computer activities like slowing down my email.

That's one screen sized pop up up to twice a day in some cases and Avira hasn't any functions that the other two don't have. Less, from my experience.

No pop ups from malware or otherwise = best.

ClamWin / ClamAV doesn't bother me with anything. Not even virus warnings :P
(I ran a free copy of Kaspersky through there just recently and I do indeed have no viruses, so it could indeed be working).