PC World - Top Standalone Antivirus Software for 2010

i use avira free and a few on-demand scanners + common sense which is never going to be available for download or sold

but i mean interface to me doesn't mean much, i've never ran into many virus/spyware/malware programs that are hard to get the updates and scan going..they should have said " you need 9gb of ram and a multicore proc to run Norton

 

Interesting comment from a seasoned IT professional. In all honestly no matter what security suite the average end user is running they can become infected. IMO the way you single out Avast appears to be an opinionated response. None the less I sure do work with a lot of infected pc's running Norton 2007 & up.

 

Well that is definitely not true.
My oldest computer has 1GB RAM and C2D processor and no problems in running NIS 09 and also NIS 2010 (after seamless upgrade).

 

AV needs polished interface or new GUI. I would say wtf huh.

If criteria is defined by this way, I am more than happy to use so old fashion Avira.

 

Just this time mate. They are evaluating AV's based by GUI. HuH.

EDIT:

Avira AntiVir Premium

Bottom Line: Avira AntiVir Premium Edition needs more features and a face-lift before it can become a top choice.

 

It appears that it depends on how much importance they give to each test.

FS beats BD in every test, except for the behaviour blocker against zero day malware and probably the scanning speed. F-Secure also has the same behaviour blocker as Bit Defender? It appears not.

For the rest it appears that they valued that test and speed of scan more than the other tests, so they put Bit Defender on top. I suppose it's their test, they can put more weight to whatever they like most...

One thing that i 've noticed in magazine tests in general, is that usually rank high the most commercially known products. Personally my biggest doubts are about Trend Micro. In PCSecurityLabs tests this year, it has been most of the time trailing even Twister. How it ends up just below Avira, it's yet another mystery, which again has to do on how much weight they give to a feature. Apparently if you have great GUI, you are better than most , even if you have crap detection. That's what magazines are for.

For example, if i go to a PC shop here, i m not sure i will find easily F-Secure boxed. But Trend Micro surely will be easier to find. And if you find a product on stores, chances are this product will also be making advertisement in magazines. Which means the magazine earns money. So you wouldn't want to "burry" a product that gives you money, would you?

I also know another thing. Tests have inconsistensies between them, specially when there are magazines involved. Avast GUI, ok, i admit it too, it's a mess. v.5 looks like it's from another planet compared to v.4.8. But saying that it has inconsistent detection... How many times in this year it got "Advanced+" in Av Comparatives?

There is something rotten in the realm of magazines and tests.

There's more. BitDefender is also accused of confusing interface and poor rootkit removal, but it's 4th. Again, it seems they penalised too much Avira on the grounds that lacks behaviour blocker. Basically, even if Avira sweeps the floor , they penalise it, because "it doesn't have behaviour blocker".

Again, it's their test, they make the rules...

 

Since apparently aesthetics are more important than protection according to some parties,my vote will go to WinAntivirus 2010,it has a lovely clean interface with easy to navigate options.

 

Lets not forget our old friend the one wins over all. Should be ranked #1

PlaceboAV
http://news.nitecruzr.net/2008/08/placebo-av-ultimate-solution.html

 

You are right on the lack of support for sure. I have it on 2 computers, one being a Pentium M 1.3 Gig witrh 1 gig of ram on XP & it runs very light! It is not a heavy A/V in my experience.

 

Thanks mate! You saved my evening and I got warm feeling inside me.

 

The aesthetics is what makes money . This is very important part of the Marketing process .

I have watched a very interesting film on Discovery channel and their role in the marketing , and how colors attract attention . Have a look at this and think about the interface and the colours of AVs.

In the film on Discovery they said that statistics show that products in gold are being top seller (it was about some kind of chocolate) . Why do you think that products in yellow/gold are the best sellers ?

And what do you think a red color of a product represents ? this


"...you would use reds, blues, pinks and yellows for trust, reliability, security, and playful."

"Pink, teal, light blue and navy attract smart budget Shopper. Pink, rose and sky blue attract conformists"

 

ASpace, I was only busting your chops earlier. I know you know this stuff and on occasion have asked you for advice. So please, no hard feelings.

And Norton is good, better then they have ever been. But once you change the road you traveled, it is best to not look back at what was wrong along the road you traveled, but more important to focus on the road ahead because potholes will arise, it is just the nature of the beast.. Peace bro.

 

Are u serious? Avast v4.8 has one of the simplest straight forward AV's there is with barely any option menus, how can u possibly be confused, i think ur mixing up a Polished interface with a simple interface, their GUI isnt polished, but it does its job and is very minimal, when u open Avast regularly, THERE IS ONLY ONE PAGE AND U CAN DO A SCAN (im not talking about the ~snip~ media player theme which can be disabled right at the beginning) and the advanced menu just has a bar on the left for each shield, with relevent settings right beside it on the right, i REALLY dont see how that can be a mess...

and in this case, NOTHING can help a home user, thats a fact... no AV is gunna keep ur typical home user safe...

with a little bit of digging and testing u will see that GDATA is significantly heavier than several other AV's. its avg. IO read/write i around 100,000-200,00/50,000-100,000. thats is VERY significantly higher then my current solution 25,000/25,000 (aprox.) and Avast is even lower (10,000 range) as well as Avira and several others.

its CPU time is also a decent amount higher and memory consumption is negligible so i dont even think about that. GDATA may feel fine on ur system but it is DEFINITELY heavier than many other AV's u can choose from...

 

Oh man... I use ESET so having "my av" down to #9/11 with the review title "ESET NOD32 Fails to Impress" is disappointing. But the review lacks any actual data. So who knows what was made up to make the the antivirus company that bought out PCWorld's soul look good. Is v4 of ESET's software still top notch for performance? That's what I really want. AV-Comparitives hasn't done a test for performence in over a year (since v3).

 

And I thought that PCMag was the worst computer magazine..

LOL on me

 

There are far more knowledgeable people in this forum who could replace those in the PC magazines. Even a Wilders Mag could garner a world class reputation in the PC security sector. We complain and praise but the truth is always in this forum.

 

Eset is fine. Just like Most other AV's out there again this "Rating system" they used is complete junk!

 

The cornerstone of any security application.

"Is it effective in virus protection and removal?"

"Nope."

"Will it protect my laptop from spyware and phishing scams?"

"Nope."

"Does it have a polished interface?"

"You bet!"

"It does? In that case, I'll take it!"

 

seems the Eset and Avast reviews are gone.

 

I am running avast and im free of malware. Am i now a super certified security expert?

 

That is pretty interesting , by the way . I remember everything written + I have printed all of the reviews . I'll check back later and if they are changed from what was yesterday ....

 

Well was waiting to find out if anything changed, But it looks like you done left the boards. Anyways the reviews are back and don't looked changed maybe just a glitch ?


Edit.
Correction seems the reviews them self's are still gone. Meh! maybe those 2 company's took notice and cried fowl ?

 

They are not crying, the so called test was just plain lame. Trend Micro almost topping out and avast! all the way at the bottom. They both had so called low end detection, yet there was a massive difference in position on chart.
It's understandable that the unjustifiable tests were taken off. It's not something AV companies made up, it's clear if you look at this review. It just doesn't make any sense. If it was a "Which AV has a better inteface" with avast! at the bottom, i wouldn't really mind it. But now, it's just awful.

 

Hey they should have checked the skin made by you (Mac inspired skin)
what say

 

I was not meaning they were "crying". In other words they seen the test seen something was wrong and wanted it removed. That's all I meant by cried fowl.