Antivirus program question

[sgorny]

Hey, I know I've asked this at least... three times, but for some f***ing reason, I can't seem to find the replies I got before, no matter how I search. But now, my antivirus subscription has run out, and I either need to resub or to get a new program.

I've been running Norton for about... 2 years. Before that, MacAfee. I'm not that happy with either. I'm considering Panda, but I remember hearing something about... AEG? Something like that, but when I Google it, I don't seem to find it.

Can anyone give me advice about the pros & cons of different antivirus programs? What you've used, what you love, what you hate. I want to make a good decision this time.

Of course, the other ones seemed good at the time, too...

Comments

[sweetbizzybee.livejournal.com]

AVG Anit-Virus is good:
http://www.download.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html

Panda Software has good progrmas too:
http://www.pandasoftware.com/

[jillapet.livejournal.com]

We run Norton, which is pretty good but a pain in the ass to get support on, and Counter-Spy, which is and awesome anti-spyware.

Whatever you decide on, you need to run at least one anti-spy with it. We actually have two, but the Windows Security was just a beta that we got. It seems that you can get in trouble without an antispyware these days.

*licks you*

[mi-nion.livejournal.com]

I made a post a few months ago about what antivirus stuff I used, complete with links. Let me see if I can find it.

found it

[mi-nion.livejournal.com]

this post

[hothwa.livejournal.com]

McAfee is not so sensitive with compressed files, otherwise it will be a good choice.

I am kind of paranoid about any Symantec programs... I think it involves more system file, so if something went wrong it would be really bad. Plus, it's a rather famous company so it's more likely to be the target of viruses.

Panda would be a good choice. Simple friendly interface, powerful antivirus functions... and you get firewall with its Platinum version.

If you want some more powerful antivirus programs then I'd recommend Kaspersky or F-Secure. They product test results are both great. But they relatively take more time for system scanning.

I'm using Kaspersky and before that I used Norton. I think Kaspersky better in every way.
And I use hijackthis to check my system log files every month, it's just my personal obsession to keep my computer under control...

(*Just think I'd give you some advices, hope you understand my English~)

[lucinda428.livejournal.com]

From: lucinda428 Date: April 24th, 2006 - 09:09 am (Link)


Thanks for this post! I've got the full Symantec shebang, and it recently turned ugly on me. It took hours to go through all the "fixes" on their site, none of which produced anything, and a full half day to make two phone calls to their Indian call centre and do what they told me to do, which also produced no result. (They also opined that if I had the 2006 version this wouldn't have happened, which is way unimpressive since I am a subscriber and my 2005 subscription is still current.) Anyway, the good news is that the only thing on the computer that doesn't appear to be working properly is Antivirus.

So I'm really grateful for all the advice about other products. I've found Norton actually quite a good product, but it doesn't play nice with Microsoft, and the pain service when it goes wrong is horrid.

Someone (it might have been in mi nion's other post) asked about uninstalling Norton. As part of the Fix That Wasn't, they sent me an email with the THREE tools for doing this manually. You can't just get rid of it by doing Uninstall in the usual way. The tools may be on their website: I haven't looked.

[hothwa.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't recommend Norton 2006, it's just too obscenely enormous and over paranoid. (I opened a word file and it asked for approval. o_O) And generally it's not good to have two different antivirus programs installed at the same time. It causes HUGE problems.

I don't know if the three tools are necessary. It's kind of tricky to uninstall Norton, there are various kinds of different situation. But I know that you can't simply uninstall Norton, otherwise it might influence other antivirus programs you installed later.