Best Antivirus?

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shadowrage
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Post by shadowrage »

right now I use what you told me a while back Atelo
avg fee edition.
Malwarebytes
Superantispyware
Spybot
and i also love the script blocker for firefox
and i i still use Ad-aware aswell.

I use the free edition for everything.

my sister was here for spring break and i ran scan on her laptop for her and i want to say malwarebytes found like over 500 objects. I'm pretty convinced it was because of her frostwire program she used to download music and shit.
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Ander
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Post by Ander »

shadowrage wrote: my sister was here for spring break
>.>

-Ander
It's kind of like watching "The Guild" and realizing you're one of the characters.
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Dartagn
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Post by Dartagn »

ESET isn't bad at all. I have to use it at work...

I put Comodo on people's machines that I work on. Though it isn't as lightweight as it used to be, it is still very good and easy to use.

Personally, everything I read about MSE says that they did a great job of making it, and it should be solid enough for most uses...

I don't run an anti-virus on my primary system. I periodically load portable scanners to check, but avoiding viruses is all about watching what you do online.

Under no circumstances should you be loading applications in Facebook. None of them... I am sure most of them are just fine, but why take the chance? There are also tons of bad ones, and you can't figure out which is which until it is too late.

All I am saying, be careful online, trust nothing and don't do business without knowing who owns the website you are on.
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fritter
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Post by fritter »

i used AVG free for years until i upgraded to windows 7 64-bit then went to MSE and i love it. i also use malwarebytes and spybot all the time.
godpigeon
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Post by godpigeon »

Norton did improve a while back when they merged their corporate and consumer versions. They went with the lower overhead corporate scanning engine.

I personally use ESet, as when I was buying a couple years back it was the most efficient(MB/Time vs items scanned) of pay(auto update) out there. Though they have changed things since then (added a few features) so that might have changed.

For malware, yeah, you don't need active scanning (anything that specialized programs would keep you from getting your antivirus would probably catch). And to clean an infection you want to use at least 3 scanners, as it's a constant "war" between the scanners/cleaners and the makers of it.
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Goodgnome
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Post by Goodgnome »

Personal preference: Avast!

McAfee & Norton are both competent products. However, they both tend to resource hogging more than any other AV products I've ever used. I have a philosophical issue that prevents me from using MS Security products - it seems to me like asking the fox to guard the henhouse from inside, with the doors closed (has any software company anywhere in the world had more, larger security holes than are found in Microsoft's key software offerings - Windows & Office?), so I discount that on those grounds. It may be a solid product, but the track record isn't there.

I also use Spybot to help clean up cruft that lands on systems, and run Adblock Plus on all my browsers, and FBPurity (http://www.fbpurity.com) on any systems that I use to access Facebook.

So far, 5 years into using Avast, 0 infections. :)

{edit: Oh, and I use Avast free, because licensing costs are painful in my house (5 active systems). I don't run any extra firewall software or anything of that nature, because I'm behind a NAT router, and I don't want the extra overhead on my systems.}
--Goodgnome/Dez/Cayman/Proclaimer--
Tholia
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Post by Tholia »

Goodgnome wrote:(has any software company anywhere in the world had more, larger security holes than are found in Microsoft's key software offerings - Windows & Office?)
Windows is the safest and most secure commercial operating system on the planet.

We use MSE at home and the related corporate version (FEP) at work.

malware protection should probably be two separate categories. Realtime monitors should be judged primarily on the quality of their OS integration, which many third-party vendors are terrible at. Very sensitive detection with large numbers of positives, a large fraction of which are usually false positives, are more appropriate to a cleaning tool in the hands of a professional. trying to do both in one tool has not worked for anybody so far.

well, it's worked for selling AV software; certainly some companies get a lot of mileage from reporting fifty of the same tracking cookies as fifty vulnerabilities.
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Atelo
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Post by Atelo »

Unfortunately I agree with Tholia. I've read about many hacker/security conventions where they challenge people to hack an OS. Windows is usually their last choice since the others are easier to crack. Think about it. Windows has been the primary OS for 90% of consumers for decades. It's been attacked more than any other OS and those holes have been fixed. (Yes more are found every day but they get harder and harder to find as time goes on) The same can't be said for OSX or Linux. If OSX were to take the forefront and immediately hit 90% usage, you'd see some of the largest security patches released in the history of OS's because it hasn't had 20 years of attacks to deal with.

That said, Tholia is slightly biased since he works at MS...

You gotta love it when a malware program lists tracking cookies as "critical threats".
godpigeon
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Post by godpigeon »

And yeah... the "hack to own" the last few years have been the same guy.. often the same type of security hole. And he's said a few times Mac was easier to implement because Windows does random memory addressing for this exploit that makes it harder to predict where the exploit will be in memory.
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Dartagn
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Post by Dartagn »

Atelo wrote:You gotta love it when a malware program lists tracking cookies as "critical threats".
Yep...

They did it (some still do) for years, and scared the pants outta people with it.

That is one reason why no security software I use will ever be something I have to pay for. There are too many great free options that compete only on features, reliability and overall awesomeness. The fact that the "best" AV has been so many different names over the years, and that there is no true best at the moment is a good thing. The competition is healthy, and those simple tricks that Norton and Symantec played for years just aren't to be found anymore.
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