Antivirus?

Dawelio

Active member
Hey guys,

Pretty lame subject, but my mom had bought an license for Norton Internet Security, which worked fine, but she accidentally messed something up and it's now invalid.

I used to have Microsoft Security Essentials, but that doesn't work for Windows 8.1 apparently... so, do you guys have any other recommendations?...

I also have the free version of Malwarebytes, in case you are wondering/need to know.

Thanks,
Chrazey
 
Bitdefender and Kaspersky have been the top 2 rated AV past few years. Think Bitdefender has been #1 since 2012/13 according to most sights.

Can't go wrong with Malwarebytes. It's not a full solution and you need another program to do what it can't. But for malware/trojans it'll get that shit every time.
 
on personal machines I use mse/defender in background with malwarebytes scan every month. At work we use kaspersky endpoint corporate AV, probably best corporate AV out there, great to work with as well as IT.

Never use free crap like avast,bulldog, avira or any other. At home defender is almost always "good enough", notice the quotation around good enough; if the users are idiots than there isn't a AV that will prevent that without locking users out of windows features and restricting their rights, i.e. open .exe's or .bin etc.

If you're dedicated to get some 3rd party AV then just stick to Symantec/Norton 360, Kaspersky AV or Total Protection, bitdefender. NOD32 is also worth mentioning(not as good but used it for long time and company has good rep behind it).
 
I've been using Kaspersky for a number of years now. However, if you're looking for a free alternative, the options mentioned above are quite good.
 
Pesonally I use Eset Smart Security, it's never let me down, and updates a few times a day. I have used this (using the trial) on machines that come to me to have viruses etc removed, and it tends to find more than any other virus checker I have tried, it also stop know bad sites from opening up in your browser, and stops things being downloaded that have viruses, trojans etc inside them.

Pesonally, I wouldn't recommend anything else to anyone.
 
^I had ESET on Windows 7 once and it treated a certain part of my OS install as virus (despite coming with the OS) and thus not allowing me to boot. So yeah, not the best experience with it, but luckily I could boot into savemode and remove ESET.

I've always had Avast as a free solution running in the background, however I've had this new computer for a while now and honestly I don't have anti-virus installed other than the built-in Windows 8.1 Pro one and Malwarebytes.

You'll mostly be alright by not visiting dodgy websites or downloading illegal stuff. Also the chances of any of us being victim to a targeted attack are fairly small. Kaspersky and Avast are definitely the ones I recommend though. Not a huge fan of Norton personally, I've had too many relatives come up to me having trouble with their PCs, which in the end appeared to be caused by that software.
 
^I had ESET on Windows 7 once and it treated a certain part of my OS install as virus (despite coming with the OS) and thus not allowing me to boot. So yeah, not the best experience with it, but luckily I could boot into savemode and remove ESET.

I've always had Avast as a free solution running in the background, however I've had this new computer for a while now and honestly I don't have anti-virus installed other than the built-in Windows 8.1 Pro one and Malwarebytes.

You'll mostly be alright by not visiting dodgy websites or downloading illegal stuff. Also the chances of any of us being victim to a targeted attack are fairly small. Kaspersky and Avast are definitely the ones I recommend though. Not a huge fan of Norton personally, I've had too many relatives come up to me having trouble with their PCs, which in the end appeared to be caused by that software.

I totally agree with the Norton sentiment, its a resource hog, and tends to cause more problems than it solves unfortunately.

As for eset, if it was a patched version, then it will cause problems, as it got a self defense thing built into it, to stop the files for the anti-virus being changed.
 
Microsoft Security Essentials is only designed to stop the very minimum. Its very lightweight and user friendly BUT it's one of the least likely to detect viruses/malware etc.

Bitdefender or even Avast are much better options. I use a enterprise spec version of McAfee on my PC and its been pretty good. I use Avast on my ancient core 2 duo laptop and its not had any issues.
 
I forgot to mention I'm using AVG Security Business Edition on my server (running 2008 r2) and that's been pretty solid thus far. I don't have experience with the traditional desktop version, but my brother swears by it.
 
Kaspersky here.

The test is scanning a drive that's had mcaffee\avast\bit defender with kaspersky and see what they have missed.
 
Used Norton and it sucked, did the run with all the free ones from AVG which is terrible, then Avast and it too was awful. Tried ESET and never switched again. Never had troubles with it ever, loaded windows 7 on my laptop with it and loaded perfectly, no issues. Highly recommend it.
 
Been using Kaspersky since 2007. You can usually pick up good deals as well.

Malwarebytes is always good to have alongside an AV should you suspect something has gone wrong and require a scan. It does look for some things other AVs do not.

Norton is just a bit OTT for me.
 
Get AVG free. It's realtime scan is great! Whole computer scan might take a while thats why I use it along with malwarebytes
 
So basically it's down to Kaspersky being the #1 here, 2nd seems to be ESET and 3rd seems to be AVG.

So what should I get?... I bet that Kaspersky is all licensed, ie have to pay for it. Not sure about ESET though, my friend has it though and I know that AVG is both free and licensed.

So what should I get guys?... need some deciding help here :p
 
So basically it's down to Kaspersky being the #1 here, 2nd seems to be ESET and 3rd seems to be AVG.

So what should I get?... I bet that Kaspersky is all licensed, ie have to pay for it. Not sure about ESET though, my friend has it though and I know that AVG is both free and licensed.

So what should I get guys?... need some deciding help here :p

Yes you have to pay for Kaspersky but you can usually pick up last year's edition for much cheaper.
 
Eset is license as well, 2 years cheaper than 1. Uses minimal resources, updates frequently and has real time scanning. Customer support is very good as well and fast, which actually means something to me.
 
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/security/3263332/best-antivirus-for-pc-laptop-2015-uk/

They have a list of the top 21. Safe to say ESET is not that great. Being #20 and all. But remember with AV... always look at more than 1 review. Lots of them are being paid/sponsored for #1.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/
This one for example i would hold in higher regards. Also seems to be more accurate. Again though ESET is not high on the list. But Bitdefender and Kaspersky in both are highly regarded. That means more than anything, consistency that is.
 
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/security/3263332/best-antivirus-for-pc-laptop-2015-uk/

They have a list of the top 21. Safe to say ESET is not that great. Being #20 and all. But remember with AV... always look at more than 1 review. Lots of them are being paid/sponsored for #1.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/
This one for example i would hold in higher regards. Also seems to be more accurate. Again though ESET is not high on the list. But Bitdefender and Kaspersky in both are highly regarded. That means more than anything, consistency that is.

Yeah, I'm a no go on ESET to be honest here. On the first one, Norton seemed highly regarded, which my family are using. But since a little incident, I'm not testing Kaspersky 2015 out, on a trial to see how it does.

And as far to say on here, it seems well regarded. Not sure about Bitdefender though, but I'm pretty certain that one would do just fine as well.
 
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