Which AV would you choose?

Which av is the best of the best...meaning most comprehensive and not resource intensive.
KaV 4.5
Nod32
AVG
MaCaffe
panda Plat
Norton 2004,2003
Bitdefender
PC-Cillin
etc.

If you were buying an AV and want the best most comprehensive protection while running an 500mhz system which one would you choose?

 

Well, the low resource ones are mainly NOD32, F-Prot, and DrWeb, but for what's the adamant best of those three. I have to say there is no correct answer. Give them a try and see which ones suits you best is the best advice I can give.

 

There are a lot of good av's. They all have there pros and cons. As VikingStorm stated you should trial a few and see which one suites you and your computer the best.

 

Hi,
Over the past couple months I have trialed most of the AV's you listed trying to find one I liked.

I think you'll find that most of the ones listed perform very well. Honestly, it really comes down to a matter of personal preference.

I began by reading reviews.....some great info from the experts here on this site for example:
http://www.wilders.org/anti_viruses.htm

..and checking out indendent testing companies like,
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/

Most importantly trial run three or four of them, and I think you'll find one that suits your needs.

 

Do you mean F-PROT (www.f-prot.com) or F-SECURE (www.f-secure.com) ?? I think you mean the second one and I recommend it, too!

My vote for F-secure.

And now, you just write, wich antivirus you use, and why?

 

I have just installed and paid for NOD32 as my main av software, with Avast home as a free back up/confirmation utility. I have just swapped from Panda, which I always thought was good until I trialled some new ones ,as the license on Panda expires soon, only too find virus and trojans on my pc which Panda didnt say were there.
I did try to instal and run F-Secure, but after installing it, it wouldnt let my pc boot up at all...so that was uninstalled .

 

personally Id go for NAI Virus Scan only because I have had a lot of good reports out of it and from a networking point of view it is well worth the money investing in Epolicy orchestrator from mcafee as for personal use i just take a copy home and us a false licence "SHhh dont tell any one lol, only for testing purposes of course, and whicle i use it I get unlimited downloads and updates but as was stated its all down to prsonal preferance

 

Unfortunately the most comprehensive also tend to be the most resource intensive so it ends up being a compromise. I've used Norton (2002), McAfee, KAV, and NOD32 and honestly its all a personal decision and what plays well on your machine. As far as protection goes, assuming you are an average user that doesn't download loads of warez (via P2P or other) and practice safe hex any of the ones you list will do. Most importantly get a well respected AV (most, if not all, of the ones you list are) that updates on a regular basis.

FWIW, the following is my personal opinion of the above referenced software from a users prospective, your mileage may vary considerably. Keep in mind that all offer excellent virus protection and some provide very good trojan and other malware protection as well (notably McAfee and KAV):

• Norton: simple interface, automatic updates never worked right for me, the program used a lot of resources on my machine, not to mention that support was non-existent (without paying a ridiculous amount), updates were too infrequent in my opinion.
• McAfee: didn't like the advertisement portion of McAfee's control center which along with the suite theory they have made the software "feel" bloated, perhaps the best engine but I don't feel like they take advantage of it, honestly didn't use it very long as my initial opinions turned me off.
• KAV: excellent overall malware scanner (the best in my opinion), updates several times per day, good support, program updates included in annual price, didn't like the interface of the personal version and the Lite version was too simplified (though a great bargain at $15), caused random hits on system resources (suddenly would take a minute or more to open the update module), difficult to make the on-access scanner as functional as I would like and not seriously affect system resources.
• NOD32: excellent virus scanner (the best in my opinion), excellent heuristics (the best in my opinion), low system impact (no impact at all on my system), approximately daily updates, program updates included in annual price, some bugs/unimplemented features remain in version 2 that haven't been fixed (not related to effectiveness or stability), not the best at miscellaneous malware, interface probably not the easiest for the uninitiated, support is improving.

I was torn between KAV and NOD32 and put them through their paces (no scientific method just everyday use and reasonably obtained samples from newsgroups, websites, etc.) over the last three months. I found a couple of obscure samples that KAV caught and NOD missed (all trojans) and one that NOD caught that KAV missed. Bottom line is that no AV is perfect and I was never infected with any malware during daily use while using either. Especially considering I also run BOClean (great anti-trojan), I've decided that I'm not willing to make the performance compromises of KAV for its scanning prowess. While certainly improvements can be made, I believe NOD is probably the best balance of usability, minimal impact, and protection.

I hope this may have helped, if I can provide any additional assistance certainly let me know.

Thanks,
sc

 

I mean, F-Prot, I never really think of F-Secure as a light-weight scanner (most KAV based AVs, I don't think are very light-weight).

 

I would recomend mcafee virusscan I have used it for years and it is without doubt one of the finest av's on the market. I don't like the interface on mcafee's version 8 so I still use version 7.0. It is the same as 8.0 but with the better GUI. And mcafee is fairly light on resources.

 

I use AVG the free edition. Never had one problem with viruses since I installed it.

Norton is really good too, but seems that there are some bugs that make web browaig slower, as reported by some security sites. But Symantec is working on them.

If I was to buy, I'd choose Norton.

I've had McAfee, and it missed a couple of viruses. I've seen peoeple complain that McAfee missed viruses in their PC.

 

Then again, I've seen every AV miss a couple viruses.
McAfee seems to have done better as of late. My only gripe with Norton at this moment is that super slow start-up bug that randomly shows up for some people. (even without the newest start-up bug, Norton added another 30 seconds to the boot-time for some odd reason, which I never figured out until a year after I bought the PC since it was preinstalled)

 

For the last several months, I've been switching back and forth between NOD32 to PC-cillin 2004. I like them both, but it was time to make a decission. I have finally settled on PCC 2004. I've been running it steady now for a little over a month. It's a personnal thing. NOD32 is great, but I just feel a little more comfortable with PCC 2004. It has nice features. Updates almost daily, sometimes twice a day. Easy to configure. Runs nicely on my PC.

Edit: Due to problems that have ocurred last night and today with PCC2004, which it don't want to get into right now, and was unable to fix, I am back with NOD32.

 

Hello,
I've used some av, KAV for years, NAV for years, Dr.Web and currently i'm using NOD32.
Some advantages of each one:
-KAV: Large malware database for detect trojans (backdoors, clickers, downloader, etc), excellent detection of viruses, worms and with extended databases spyware and adware. Daily updates, small updates files, good unpacker engine. The bad: slow down the computer, slow system scan, so so heuristic engine, I don't like the GUI, no pop3 or similar scanner, only a monitor or plug-ing that look for viruses in databases and not when receiving messages.
-NAV: beautifull GUI, easy to use, decent detection of viruses. The bad: bad heuristic (a really joke ), bad unpacker engine, update are released only in wednesday and in emergency, daily updates are 100 % manual, slowdown computers, big size of update files.
Dr.Web: Decent detection for trojans/viruses, daily updates, decent heuristic, quickly for scan. The bad: produce many falses positives.
And finally my NOD:
-NOD: Excellent heuristic (the best), daily updates and small in size, scan at winsock level incoming pop3 accounts, very quickly scanning files, decent unpacker engine, good GUI, very stable and don't slowdown the computer, easy to use and understand, 24 vb awards (you can don't like, however it's a plus).
The bad: don't scan outgoing mail.

 

I am for years happy with NOD32. No virus slipped into my PC, does it job quit well. But as mentionned here before, no antivirus is perfect nor the users. In my opinion, informed user and good antivirus (mentioned above) offer good level of protection.

 

I couldn't agree more with Spamcat. There's the obvious tradeoff in resource intensive vs. resource lean on a machine. If it's so intensive that you periodically disable it or think about disabling it, go with a leaner choice. I've used NOD32, liked it, and it is resource light.

Virtually any program that updates regularly will catch what is likely to be the virus de jour, and if you don't frequent unknown sites and blindly open e-mails from anyone, this is probably the majority of your need. KAV, NOD32, and any other that can perform an automated daily update should be fine here. Heuristics can help if you're patient zero on a new viral strain and NOD32 is good here also.

I've used KAV, NOD32, and NAV. Liked all, wish NAV had a better update strategy (the automated one was too infrequent for my taste). NAV 2004 didn't work well on my PC. Many folks have had no problems with NAV 2004, many have experienced minor to major problems with NAV (and with others) - do the limited time trial if possible to save yourself from grief down the road with whatever AV you select. KAV is my AV of choice now. On a lean PC, it would be NOD32.

Blue

 

I wouldn't use Trend, at work I had a lot of bad experiences with it.

 

F-secure2004 unbeatable

For me the main AV feature must be a virus detection and f-secure is the best for that.

NOD32 is on my PC for games