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What Anti-Virus do you use


rridgely

What AV do you use?  

304 members have voted

  1. 1. What AV do you use?

    • Antivir
      42
    • Avast
      75
    • BitDefender
      8
    • ClamWin
      1
    • eTrust
      0
    • F-Prot
      0
    • F-Secure
      1
    • AVG/Grisoft
      15
    • Kaspersky
      22
    • McAfee
      9
    • Nod32
      27
    • Norton
      22
    • Panda
      4
    • TrendMicro
      3
    • Microsoft Security Essentials
      29
    • Other
      32
    • None
      20


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I don't use any av whatsoever. I am very particular about the few sites I visit, and even more particular about what I run on my machine. Keeping an eye on the running task list and how software behaves in general has served me well. Coming from the school of hard knocks and 300-baud modem BBS days I've been privy to watch and see how things developed over time. Thus giving me a 1up on observing suspect behavior and rogue code.

 

The 2 or 3 times I did get zapped was from visiting "nefarious" sites, and wasn't wholly unexpected. It was also quite obvious and I quickly put the fire out. A simple restore from backup saves the day everytime and no harm done.

 

But overall, I recommend MSE as a general good, free, unobtrusive anti-malware program. The folks I've recommended it to have been quite happily using it. In fact, they forget it's there.

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Agreed about MSE. Pretty unobstrusive but maybe not the best detection ratios. I find most antivir programs quite "useless". I will explain: the first source of infection nowadays is the user "opening the door to viruses" by installing certain apps (without custom installations) that will install third-party crap that will make your PC unuseable (toolbars for instance). 99% of the time they don't get detected as malware by most antivirus programs. I don't know why.

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agreed about mse. pretty unobstrusive but maybe not the best detection ratios. i find most antivir programs quite "useless". i will explain: the first source of infection nowadays is the user "opening the door to viruses" by installing certain apps (without custom installations) that will install third-party crap that will make your pc unuseable (toolbars for instance). 99% of the time they don't get detected as malware by most antivirus programs. i don't know why.

 

100% agreed. Sweet im toolbars, & rogue programs that are borderline infection, but mayn't be listed as such. Many times, they aren't auto detected.

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Agreed about MSE. Pretty unobstrusive but maybe not the best detection ratios. I find most antivir programs quite "useless". I will explain: the first source of infection nowadays is the user "opening the door to viruses" by installing certain apps (without custom installations) that will install third-party crap that will make your PC unuseable (toolbars for instance). 99% of the time they don't get detected as malware by most antivirus programs. I don't know why.

 

That's why I unpack setup files, and scan them unpacked and then see what's in there for myself. To do this you'll need 7-Zip which can perfectly unpack NSIS installers, and then for IS installers you'll need Inno Setup Unpacker. NSIS and IS are probably 90% or more of the installers I run into nowadays.

Edited by Andavari
Fixed typos
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That's why I unpack setup files, and scan them unpacked and then see what's in there for myself. To do this you'll need 7-Zip which can perfectly unpack NSIS installers, and then for IS installers you'll need Inno Setup Unpacker. NSIS and IS are probably 90% or more of the installers I run into nowadays.

 

Which will work for programs that only bundle rogue programs with them.

But I expect there are some programs that directly have malicious scripts/activities tied directly to their EXE when they operate.

I cannot see how it would be too hard for them to attach a rootkit backdoor installer, that silently executes when you are running a game or program.

 

It would certainly complicate things!

 

But for now, unpacking seems to work.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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been using AVG for about 8years now.

also been giving Avast a go a few times (on other test rigs in the house) and also find it excellant.

 

had on more than 1 occasion I've installed AVG on someone's PC, ran a scan and had it detect an infection that the previously AV didn't, usually Norton's.

 

used to be a Norton fan but found they got really bloated and needed too much grunt from the Pc to make it run smoothly.

but i think they have streamlined their product alot now (they had too) they were losing to many customers and if these votes are any comparison to real life stats, it's reflected here too.

Backup now & backup often.
It's your digital life - protect it with a backup.
Three things are certain; Birth, Death and loss of data. You control the last.

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Which will work for programs that only bundle rogue programs with them.

But I expect there are some programs that directly have malicious scripts/activities tied directly to their EXE when they operate.

I cannot see how it would be too hard for them to attach a rootkit backdoor installer, that silently executes when you are running a game or program.

 

Too true. Some installers will download junk hidden in the background such as toolbar, browser, or worst yet malware.

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  • 1 year later...

MS Security Essentials (Now Windows Defender in Win8) - AntiVirus

Malwarebytes Antimalware (+ rKill on some machines) - Malware

SpywareBlaster - Spyware

 

Before Security Essentials I used AntiVir for years and I never encountered an infection.

Windows Pro Media 8.1 x64  |  8GB Ram  |  500G HDD 7200 RPM  |  All  that I know about my graphics is that it's Intel  :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

The best security a pc should allways have is the own pc owner. I mean, people must know what is safe and what is not. For exemple, when you go on the street, before you cross the road you know you should look both right and left. With pcs it is the same thing. You know that the piriform site is safe and secure, but you have to suspect of sites like porno sites and others like that.

That being said, for windows xp and windows 7 i always use microsoft security essencial, it is an excelent antivirus, it is lightweit, does its jobs pretty good and don t guive you any headache at all. For windows 8 i use the built in windows defender, because is the same as security essential. As for spywares i use malwarebytes anti malware.

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  • 1 month later...

Eset NOD32 (current 7.0.302.26)

For about 4 years now.

 

They are fast to help if you find a new infected file, light on resources and it does what it stands for and that is protect your PC.

 

I was never a fan of AntiVir nor Avast since at the collage where I did some studding real while back I have seen first hand how many misses both got.

 

Upload a file/url to this site to see if any of about 52 AVs catch something

http://www.virustotal.com/

Every line of code written by man can be undone by man

.

"A loser in the real world is still a loser in the net!" - .hack//SIGN

.
Getting old is inevitable,  growing up is optional !!

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  • 2 months later...
  • 7 months later...

Avast with Hardened mode enabled aggressive, Heuristics set to high, scan priority set to high, automatically fixes infections, site blocking enabled and version 10.2208 with their enhanced new version of DeepScreen and EVO-GEN Password Protected and to think I almost dropped Avast after v 9, fortunately they uped their game on this one! The detection isn't where it was, but it's still one of the better detection rates I think.

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Now that I have migrated to Win8.1 and Windows Defender is not so cool as standalone MSE, I have been testing Avira, AVAST and AVG to see the differences among them.

 

Under memory consumption I have found...

 

AVIRA          57,60 MB
AVG 2015    75,00 MB
AVAST         39,00 MB

 

So, AVAST seems pretty slim in the memory department (I only installed NG as advanced options). The three of them performed equally well but I had a problem with AVAST. It seems there is no way to tell the antivirus of "false positives" and ignore files, or at least, I was not able to find it. If I had to choose among those three, I would choose AVIRA.

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Regarding Windows Defender on Win 8.1 (which I rate quite highly) you might find this post of interest eL_PuSHeR

 

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/is-windows-defender-with-system-wide-smart-screen-enough.370877/page-3#post-2433854

 

Just a point of view I thought you might like to read :)

 

Support contact

https://support.ccleaner.com/s/contact-form?language=en_US&form=general

or

support@ccleaner.com

 

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So, AVAST seems pretty slim in the memory department (I only installed NG as advanced options). The three of them performed equally well but I had a problem with AVAST. It seems there is no way to tell the antivirus of "false positives" and ignore files, or at least, I was not able to find it. If I had to choose among those three, I would choose AVIRA.

 

You can input exclusions into Avast, although I can't remember where since I haven't used it for a very long time - try looking in the settings, I think it used to be buried in there, if you can't find it there look in all those resident shields. Any av worth anything will have to have an exclusion ability.

 

I have chosen Avira, I like the fact they have a classic GUI. It scans on my old XP system from about 45 minutes to 52 minutes which is significantly faster than any other free av. Avira is what I went to after going from MSE (took over 6 hours to do a full scan with the last compatible XP version, scan time alone made it rather unusable for me) to Panda Cloud Antivirus (took just over 2 hours which is one hour too long in my book).

Edited by Andavari
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If memory consumption is a considering factor, that's one of the reasons I left AVG IS behind (plus the fact is was up for renewal anyway).

I have retired Norton Internet Security, it has 2 process running, using 6MB and 4MB respectively.

 

Having read an article in a PC mag and reading some reviews claiming similar benefits with the 'new' and improved Nortons, I can certainly confirm them.

Of course, it's not free which is usually another considering factor, but at $29AUD for 1Pc/1yr, it's priced competitively too.

(God, I sound like a Norton salesman)

Backup now & backup often.
It's your digital life - protect it with a backup.
Three things are certain; Birth, Death and loss of data. You control the last.

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Andavari how on earth do you cope with the Avira Online Essentials? Most folk I know uninstall it straight away but then get offered it again a few days later.

 

http://techdows.com/2014/01/uninstall-avira-client-installed-avira-online-essentials.html

 

Not what I would want on my machine (the Launcher (aka as Online essentials) Why on earth don't they just allow Avira free AV only as a download .

 

Support contact

https://support.ccleaner.com/s/contact-form?language=en_US&form=general

or

support@ccleaner.com

 

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