AV in Windows 7

What would be a good and compatible AV for Windows 7? Any recommendations?

 

What else ? From Microsoft itself, MSE

 

This may be of some use, though personal experience and tests are the best basis for choosing your win7 AV;
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/list-of-anti-virus-software-compatible-with-windows-7/

 

Just a heads-up, cruxx, you've posted it as a code instead of a link.
Howtogeek.com

 

Fixed, thanks.

 

Why bother to fix this outdated link which did not evaluate MSE in its final form who is the clear choice here ?

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/antivirus-partners/windows-7.aspx

 

Guess they use an a wheat from chaff evaluation method.

 

The way to choose great security for W7 is the same way to choose great security for any OS - read the product reviews.

The only real reviewer left of security products is PC Magazine - check out http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351871,00.asp

These are security suites - that is they include not just AV, but also intrusion prevention, firewall and lots more. I am a strong believer that just installing virus scanning is bad idea - because it is a single layer of security - and a single point of failure.

Next week a testing firm called Dennis labs will be posting a new report on detection of real-world threats that will highlight why layers of security are needed. Stay tuned.

 

Why is PC Magazine the only real reviewer?

Also, I'd consider looking at other things than reviews, for instance your usage and what you're willing to deal with.

A personal user can actually afford to have the system get hosed and do a low level format, but if they're doing online purchases and have PayPal and are giving their CC out online, having that stolen would be much more damaging. For such a user something like DeepFreeze or Shadowsurfer would be pointless (or even Sandboxie for that matter), or at least wouldn't serve as the only means of defense. For a school or internet café however, DeepFreeze and nothing else is the perfect solution.

You need to look at what you're actually worried about with your security and base your product choices on that.

 

These should work. I have personally tried NOD32 and ESET Smart Security, Kaspersky Internet Security, and Microsoft Security Essentials. Not getting into which is better, they all seem to work fine with Windows 7.

 

Just a FYI but I just saw where 3 AV companies are offering free one-year subscriptions for Win7 on Neowin.

IOBit 360
Panda (US residents only)
Kaspersky

Free offers on Neowin

 

Also FYI the Kaspersky offer is only good for attendees of Windows 7 launch parties, and requires the email address of the party host to qualify. Don't get too excited on that one, because most folks don't qualify.

 

masqueofhastur,

PC Magazine is the only real reviewer because the internet has killed the magazine industry - there no longer is revenue available for large test labs. Testing security software is a huge pain in the ________.

There are plenty of reviewers who will install the software, run it against a small batch of test malware and issue an opinion. But those reviews are useless. PC Magazine actually installs on both infected and non-infected systems, systematically tests blocking infected sites, phishing sites, spam filtering, performance . . . and publishes a series of reviews with all products tested on the same criteria. Even so, PC Mag's testing of real world infection scenarios is weak, as is their look at performance. CNET does some testing, but their reviews are far from complete.

AV-test.org and av-comparatives.org do a good job at testing malware detection in files - scanning disks with millions of malware seeing what is detected. But they don't do reviews of all the features of the product or of all the protection technology -so firewall, intrusion detection, web site analysis, search markup, rescue disks, phishing protection, spam filtering . . . . none of these are looked at, nor do they do more than a very limited look at performance. Typically they measure scan speed, not over all system impact. To measure performance you want to look at scan speed over multiple scans, memory impact when idle, boot time impact, impact on starting common applications, impact on common surfing scenarios, impact on downloads and video streaming . . . . and then come up with some way of consolidating the results.

Symantec hires Passmark to test performance - but for some reason not everyone accepts tests paid for by a vendor Go figure The Passmark tests are worth looking if you are a security geek - at the very least they can lead you away from a few major resource hogs.

We also are about to publish a study on protection from real-world infection scenarios. Again, many will not accept vendor sponsored research, but I've seen the results and they are worth looking at. This kind of testing is far more difficult and time consuming then file scan testing, but it does test over all system protection instead of testing individual security components. Pity none of the independent or magazine testers do it on a large scale.