what is the best antivirus sftware for WinXp?

[amaze122]

I have a newly purchased computer on the way. For protection this time around I am not going with Norton Systemworks, or any of the other suites, choosing instead to buy a separate firewall, virus scanner, spyware deleter, and registry editor/cleaner. I already have the best in every category, Zonealarm for my firewall, Spyware Doctor for spyware, and "Registry Repair" for registry errors. What I cannot decide, is what antivirus to buy! Whereas all the reviews on these other products were pretty straightforward, and therefore enlightening, reviews for antivirus progs seem to be rather wishy washy, and indecisive. Any suggestions? (along with urls that I can check out personally, if possible)... Thanks. :cool:

[J_Search]

amaze122,

I've been (very very) happy with Avast.

J_

Edit: http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html . Oh yeah, it's free.

[j1979c]

Been using AVG scanner... works well for me and does not suck system performance like the commercial ones. Plus it's free....

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

[Mr. D]

I would suggest NOD 32. Very good Antivirus Program

[Rueful Rogue]

The November edition of "Computer Shopper" magazine (see Pg 86) has an article naming the top 100 picks for technology items. Here's what they recommend:
Best Internet Security Software: PC-cillin Internet Security 2005. $49.95 www.trendmicro.com (This is a full suite of protection, AV, FW, etc.)
Best Antispy software: Ad-Aware Se Personal edition 1.06. Free. www.lavasoft.com
Best Antispam Software: MailFrontier Desktop. $29.95 www.mailfrontier.com
Best Antivirus software: ZoneAlarm AntiVirus 6.0 $29.95 www.zonelabs.com (includes a firewall)

[jwenting]

I don't trust mags like Computer Shopper that are wholly paid for by advertising.
They'll recommend whichever product gives them the most money to advertise it...

Having tried a variety of products over the years (Norton, McAffee, AVG, PC-Cilin, Panda, and several others) I've settled down on Kaspersky.
Excellent product, and excellent support (OK, I get in-house support as we use it at work and have a direct line to the manufacturer as a reseller).
Not the cheapest, and no nice flashy user interface but who needs that anyway?

If you don't go using P2P crap and refrain from other illegal activities you should have little problems anyway. In those cases your Windows XP built in firewall with a good virus scanner (to detect the incoming email virusses from your friendly spammers) should suffice.

Most people also don't get enough spam to warrant expensive anti-spam software, especially since many ISPs nowadays have spamfilters installed on their servers which catch anything consumer grade spamcatchers would catch.
For high capacity users you're likely running your own mailserver with built-in features, or else you can simply use Spambayes (look for it at sourceforge).

[J_Search]

Not because I care to argue with you, but because there's no reason to provide incorrect, (or perhaps) less than accurate, information. Not to mention the implications to users who accept your comments as reasonable.

If you don't go using P2P crap and refrain from other illegal activities you should have little problems anyway.

A. Lack of participation in these activities will not prevent the problems that the programs in question are designed to protect against. Porn sites are not illegal, but they have plenty of malicious code. Email? Instant Messaging? All very legal, yet breeding grounds for malicious activity. What are "illegal activities"? Not sure, but P2P and "illegal activities" are not the source of our problems. It's the perfectly legal activities, that the majority of the users participate in, which are the most profitable targets. B. Using P2P programs that are not bundled with adware/spyware are safe in the pure respect of "safe use", which leads to C. Proper use of the program (practicing "safe use"). "" as defined as ensuring what you're downloading is the true intended download by checking file properties, user ratings, as well as just being overall knowledgeable about the intended file will keep you almost as safe as not using them at all.

In those cases your Windows XP built in firewall with a good virus scanner (to detect the incoming email viruses from your friendly spammers) should suffice.

Since when does XP built in firewall "suffice". Not sure if you're aware, but the XP firewallonly provides protection against incoming connections. I am NOT disputing this firewall's incoming protection, and by no means is this a BAD firewall, but how exactly are you going to protect against the outgoing communication from malware, spyware, key loggers, ect..? Here I'll help, with a better firewall and a variety of adware/spyware/malware removers and products to prevent infections.

So let me get this straight, all you have installed is an antivirus program and XP firewall?

What's your IP address, again?

J_

[amaze122]

heheh. That's pretty funny, J Search. :cool:

[nanosani]

I've used AVG antivirus for quite a while now .... it was good until it let come a virus that ruined all the apps of my hard drive. Then I tried ZoneAlarm security suite ... it was also good not taking much resources... but I had some minor problems with the program. Now I'm testing Panda's Titanium and PCTools AV.

I would recommend you to try ZoneAlarm security suite if you want all in one solution.

[DaveSW]

Panda: died on me the other day, so I ditched it. They keep reactivating the built in firewall and stuff like that, so it doesn't run smoothly alongside Zonealarm - at least, not for me. It appears to have kept the pc fairly clean while it was installed, but it slowed the pc down by a vast amount - uninstalling it halved the boot time from 2-3 minutes back down to 1.

AVG: Runs happily with ZoneAlarm, and appears to be doing ok, but it has a few annoying habits:
- the installer for the virgin digital player is detected as a trojan and deleted. I don't think it can be infected since it came from the virgin site, and panda never picked it up, but... I don't know.
- Installed it the other day on a system infected with a worm that affects HTML pages & it deleted them all, instead of cleaning the infected lines of code.

So, no reccomendations, but some information as to my experiences with them... Might be of use to you, might not.

[jwenting]

A. Lack of participation in these activities will not prevent the problems that the programs in question are designed to protect against. Porn sites are not illegal, but they have plenty of malicious code. Email? Instant Messaging? All very legal, yet breeding grounds for malicious activity. What are "illegal activities"? Not sure, but P2P and "illegal activities" are not the source of our problems.C. Proper use of the program (practicing "safe use"). "" as defined as ensuring what you're downloading is the true intended download by checking file properties, user ratings, as well as just being overall knowledgeable about the intended file will keep you almost as safe as not using them at all.

Since when does XP built in firewall "suffice". Not sure if you're aware, but the XP firewall only provides protection against incoming connections. I am NOT disputing this firewall's incoming protection, and by no means is this a BAD firewall, but how exactly are you going to protect against the outgoing communication from malware, spyware, key loggers, ect..? Here I'll help, with a better firewall and a variety of adware/spyware/malware removers and products to prevent infections.

So let me get this straight, all you have installed is an antivirus program and XP firewall?

What's your IP address, again?

J_

1) A lot of the stuff you get over P2P networks is itself infected, even if the P2P client isn't.
2) Most of that stuff is illegal content
3) If you use common sense you won't get nasties. That includes not clicking on suspicious links, disabling unsigned and scripted ActiveX controls, and not opening Email attachments you aren't expecting.
4) If you practice safe computing like that, you won't get any nasties installed in the first place so no outgoing connections to worry about.
5) I've indeed only a good AV program and the Windows firewall active (which btw DOES block outgoing traffic unless you tell it not to, or maybe if you tell it to). I've not had any nasties on my system in years, the last time being around 1994 and that coming in on a floppy with only data files which got infected on the university LAN.

[J_Search]

jwenting,

1) A lot of the stuff you get over P2P networks is itself infected, even if the P2P client isn't.

Explain how it's possible to be infected by a music or movie file? I ask, because these file types are predominately shared over P2P networks, and if "a lot of stuf you get over P2P networks is itself infected" I was just wondering if you figured out a new way to infect these types of files. Good work if you have, because you'd be the first.2) Most of that stuff is illegal contentNo argument here. However, your first claim was "using P2P crap and refrain from other illegal activities" again I ask, what are "illegal activities" if you're not referring to the use of P2P?3) If you use common sense you won't get nasties. That includes not clicking on suspicious links, disabling unsigned and scripted ActiveX controls, and not opening Email attachments you aren't expecting.Finally, some good advice. See, that right there makes your membership fee worth it!4) If you practice safe computing like that, you won't get any nasties installed in the first place so no outgoing connections to worry about.I would classify this as classic ignorance. By this logic if it's supposed to work, or if I think it's supposed to work, it always will. Edward sure wouldn't agree. That's Edward Murphy by the way.5) I've indeed only a good AV program and the Windows firewall active (which btw DOES block outgoing traffic unless you tell it not to, or maybe if you tell it to). I've not had any nasties on my system in years, the last time being around 1994 and that coming in on a floppy with only data files which got infected on the university LAN.I have two problems with this. 1st, 1994? You do know it's almost 2006? Come On! You would have an easier time convincing us you and Queen BEATRIX smoke marijuana on the weekends. You're not fooling anyone. If anyone actually believes you, I want their names and addresses because I'm having a HUGE sale on bridges. It sounds like you're in the market for one. And 2nd, I may not be able to convince you, but perhaps these reputable sources can, so please read:

The 1st sentence under the “Shortcomings of Windows Firewall heading: http://netsecurity.about.com/od/firewalls/a/aa081804b.htm &
The 2nd paragraph:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117380,00.asp

Where do you get your information from anyway?

J_

[jwenting]

what's so weird about not having had a virus infection since 1994?
Goes to show that I'm smarter than the average virus :)

Yes, I've only ever had one virus infection in now nearly 20 years of working with computers and that was 1994 (give or take a year, could have been '93).

And I take no special precautions except common sense. While I do run a virus scanner it's never caught anything that I hadn't caught myself (like stuff in the deleted messages section of my mailserver).
It's more for peace of mind than anything else.

Most mp3s and especially movies are distributed as archives, often executable archives.
And those formats all have options for comments sections in which viral code can hide.
Or a virus is distributed as XXX.mp3.exe which on most peoples' computers will show as XXX.mp3 but if you doubleclick it to play it executes instead.

[jwenting]

and oh, if you believe any infomercial out there claiming something built into Windows is bad and telling you to buy alternative XXX instead I have this nice snake oil to cure all your diseases.

[jaishankar]

poor amaze122

[j1979c]

Wow....quite a debate in here....hehehe :lol:

Just scan anything that you're unsure of you'll be fine....

Or if you're crazy/paranoid enough and have a lots of patience... just scan your whole com everyday....

Can't say which is good or not..unless you know the techniques of making an antivirus program...

Everything's got it's pros and cons...it's just that whether you can live with the cons..

Not having a virus for 2 decades is quite possible.....for anything's possible.....there are 40 year old virgins out there...now that's a possibility.....:lol:

End of story... :idea:

Cheer up guyz! :mrgreen:

[Gizmo78]

I use Panda Platinum internet security, and yes it does slow down performance a little, but it doesn't use nearly as much CPU as Norton. My PC starts up faster, and works faster than before. Shuts down slower, but so what, It shut down eventualy if I press shut down, no need to watch over it.
I do a full scan when I have some idle time, maybe once a week. I also use the built in firewall.

I also have Spywareblaster and MS Antispywareblaster enabled at all times when connected to the internet, + a scheduled MSAntispyware scan every day.

Ad-aware SE Scan if I suspect something has gotten through my other defences. I also use CCleaner after scans. Just incase.

The one poster that said P2P was safe when only downloading movies and music is SO WRONG. I'm a businesschoolstudent, so I don't have the resources to go out and buy or rent movies, music etc. He should go check out the Gnutella forums for treads about Malware and then come back and apologise for lying. It has almost become an art to manege getting what you want with P2P. I manage, but it's sad to think about all the newbies falling into traps.

I use PeerGuardian2 as extra protection when using P2P apps, pretty effective in blocking known malicious IP's. Remember to update regularly. Link below

PeerGuardian2

I use Registry Mechanic for optimization, but only scan and clean, not the System Optimize, because I find it causes more bad then good (unstable)

and thats it I think :D :D

[clementine]

So far I hav trend Trend Micro and Norton. Performance has been rather disappointing as it does not always manage to clean trojans. What the heck did I pay $ to get stuck with it for a whole year when certain viruses /trojans are undectable....

I have now bought F-Secure (All in one - Internet, E-mail, Fire-wall etc.).

So far so good! Helps to automatically block malicious virus when you surf the web. Frequent auto update.

Negative points - not recommended on notebooks. I think it does take up alot of resources and at times may slow things down. :eek:

If you're using a PC, this is it!

[rasputinj]

I use McAfee at work with EPO and it works well, I use Norton, TrendMicro. They both work well, trendmicro seems to have a smaller memory footprint. I use AVG on a few other systems I have and it works well, but I have had a couple of viruses get through that Norton picked up.

[gemini4]

From my tech support experience I can say that Trendmicro and Norton create the worst problems.

The Symantec Norton Internet Security Suite is the worse thing that somebody can do to their computer. It will not detect any spyware, it will crash very easy, if it crashes you cannot remove it unless you download SymNRT, you cannot reinstall it back once you uninstalled it, secure websites won't work; e-mail won't work, IT'S A MESS.

Trendmicro Internet Security is a joke. The interface for their firewall is incredibly stupid designed. If you want to turn of the firewall component that will also turn off the antivirus. I have to say though that I appreciate very much the trendmicro online scan which I used a lot of times to cleanup infected systems.

McAfee Antivirus is pretty efficient and fast. The only problem with them is that stupid ActiveX based installation system. The program is also based on Internet Explorer and if the security settings are damaged the antivirus will give you errors.

Considering that AVG is free and that rarely causes problems I strongly recommend it. System performance is excellent with this antivirus installed.

I also had tried Kaspersky Antivirus which is pretty powerful.