Antivirus

[Brohz]

So, which one is the best? I am using NOD32 but I heard that it protects against spyware only, not against viruses. Is this true? The same guy I heard this from said that Panda was better.
What are your opinions and experience on this matter?

 

[azzaman333]

I use AVG (Free), and haven't had any virus problems in years. Unless you frequently download high-risk files or websites, it shouldn't make much difference.

 

[Snerk]

The guy who told you that is full of viruses. Nod32 has both anti virus and anti spyware protection, and it is a great program. I use it myself.

For a free alternative AVG is superb.

 

[LucyDuke]

I use avast 'cause it's free.

 

[Mise]

I heard that Avast was marginally better than AVG, but Avast is just far too intrusive for my tastes.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I use AVG. It caught a virus I accidentally downloaded. I got rid of it easy.

 

[illram]

I recently had a nasty case of the Vundo virus/trojan/whatever it is and Anti-Malware was the only one that was able to actually get rid of it all. AVG didn't find all of it.

 

[Emperor Giulio]

Norton Anti-Virus is horrible, now that my subscription is expired with them, I am gunna give AVG a shot.

 

[Padma]

Now that Norton has expired on my wife's Vista desktop, I ripped it out uninstalled it and put Avast on in its place. We'll see how it goes. (I put AVG on her XP laptop.)

 

[Brian Boru]

My ranking:

1. Nod32
2. Kaspersky
3. Norton

Dropped Norton when it became too much of a resource hog and inclined to conflict with other apps. Kaspersky is lighter [in intrusiveness/conflict] than Norton, while Nod32 is an excellent system player--ie it does its job without messing around with the system or apps.

All three had/have top-class detection and protection, my prime criterion.

 

[Trajan12]

Nod32, nothing has been better for me. Detects everything, and I can run a full scan without having to stop any other intensive work I'm doing.

My mother's laptop has Norton, it takes hers about 5 minutes to fully boot, and about another 5 minutes for everything on the taskbar to load. My laptop, by comparison, runs Nod32 at startup and takes only a couple of minutes from power button to whatever I need to do.

Norton is bloatware.