Anti-virus pros and cons...

I have already tried and used Norton, AVG and now Avast Home..

Haven't tried yet any antivirus aside from what I've mentioned above...coz at present I am happy with my Avast. But still, I'd want to know the differences and pros and cons of NOD 32, Kaspersky Pro, BitDefender 9 and Avast Pro.

Of course, aside from the anti-virus comparative test on some websites. In your own personal experiences and technical opinions using them in your pc...what really are the advantages and disadvantages of the anti-virus programs I have mentioned above?

 

If you are not a high risk surfer ANY of these AV's will do a good job.

ALL AV's have strengths and weaknesses but system compatibilty should be near the top of your list.

If you are happy with Avast and it is not affecting your system performance then stick with this one.

 

I can say NOD will seem lighter than Symantec, AVG, and Avast. Wether or not you use your computer in a way where you will notice, I don't know. Also in working on computers as my job, I've seen NOD pickup stuff the above miss. IMO Avast is quite a bit better than AVG in detection, a little heavier though.

Kapersky I haven't used in over a year, prior versions were a bit heavy, I read/heard the current version is much lighter, certainly it's commonly rated as abosolute tops in detection.

Haven't tried BD9 to compare that one.

 

Even AVG Free does its job, if you are NOT a high risk surfer.
I'm using AVG since 2004, it never reported anything, which worried me a little.
So I ran the trial versions of KAV/NOD32 and both didn't find anything either, which proves enough

On my new computer however, I want to get rid of that boring discipline and I'm trying to figure out how to accomplish this without having 30+ security softwares on my computer. For a newbie like me a real challenge.

 

I think so, safe computing practices are the way to go.

I hate to having 5+ security software on my computer, I have had only avast! Home Edition + Windows Firewall + Opera for almost 2 years without any infections, no cost, no slowdown and no problems. I've checked my machine with Ewido, Kaspersky online scanner, Trend Micro but nothing was found, avast! has caught all malware I met from time to time.

 

Avast Pro has a script scanner as does Nod32, IMO it depends on how often an AV updates that's important. Nod32 is indeed light & updates frequently as in at least daily. Avast sometimes goes days without an update. Kav does more updates & new version is extremely light on the system...Also in consideration of AV I'd look at AV-Comparatives and look at detection rate but how it runs on your system & how you use your system is bottom line...