Best overall anti-virus program for home use

I posted a poll at the polls section and would be more than happy to hear your opinions!

The things is that i'm looking for buy a anti-virus program and haven't decided yet which one to buy. I've heard that Norton Anti-Virus is ok, but it's not the best.

I've heard lots of good things especially about Kaspersky Anti-Virus and lately also about NOD32.

So go there and give me your opinions which one should I buy? I'm targetting the the usage for normal home use. I'm also using ZoneAlarm so the firewall isn't important.

I'm also quite familiar and learn easily new programs so the ease of usage isn't important.

Does NOD32 have Office Guard like program like KAV has?

Has anyone experience that are there any speed differences in KAV Personal and KAV Personal Pro? I understand that KAV Personal Pro has this thing called Inspector (and also the Office Guard) do they slow down the machine compared to KAV Personal?

How about the speed of NOD32 compared to KAV?

I'm asking about the speed issues because I might also going to install the product to my Pentium 120MHz.

SO ---> Which one should I buy? NOD32/KAV Personal/KAV Personal Pro?

Thanks in beforehands,
Toni

 

Toni - From personal experience: I have a 100MGz processor computer that I still use frequently (it only has 52MB of RAM).

Both AVG (free) and eTrustAV work great on it - PC-Cillin wouldn't (slowed down things tremendously if you used everything available that comes with it) and Norton (resource hog, problem/issue-prone thing that it is) was never an option (ditto  McAfee - although I did use the online version of McAfee's AV - VirusScanOnline, with some success and not very much of  a noticable slow-down).

Can't comment on anything about Kapersky - haven't ever used it. Probably wouldn't ever try NOD32 on the older computer, either, strictly from a resources-used standpoint.

HTH Pete

 

The difference between KAV Personal and Personal Pro is that the Pro versions has two more utililies: OfficeGuard which is a tool for macro virus protection and KAV Inspector which is an integrity checker.

A normal user would not need the Pro version because it is too expensive.  

wizard

 

But is there any speed difference between KAV Personal and KAV Personal Pro? does the OfficeGuard and Inspector slowdown the machine much compared to KAV Personal?

How about speed compared of NOD32 compared to KAV?

And (wizard) which one is better in your opinion NOD32 or KAV Personal (Pro)?

How about NAV? Is it any good?

 

KAV Inspector is an on demand tool. And the office guard does cause any slowdowns.

The speed issue between KAV and NOD32 is that NOD32 is much much faster. But KAV does scan more packed or crypted files than NOD32. This unpacking engine from KAV is very powerful. At the moment it seems only McAfee comes near to that level. Packers and Crypters are often used (especially by trojan users) to hide known malware from anti virus scanners.

I personaly use KAV Personal Pro. But I must say that the Pro version is too expensive for these two additional features. The office guard is only usefull if you are really working with Microsoft Offices VBA macros. The integrity checker can be replaced with some free tools like NISFilecheck (see the new forum for more informaiton) or with http://www.adinf.com which is cheaper but as powerfull as the KAV solution.

It is very hard to say which anti virus software is the best. It would be a good idea if you download the trial versions of KAV Personal and NOD32 and judge on your own. Both are high quality products.

I personaly would not recommend any Symantec products anymore. But regarding your question comparing NAV to KAV and NOD32 I would say that it is far behind both.

wizard

 

I speak only from personal experience and I am unable to give you any technical aspects of any program.  I am interested in results combined with user friendly.   I am willing to pay more for a better product and I am willing to try new products.  

Given that I started out with McAfee changed to NAV shortly thereafter for obvious reasons and stuck with NAV for a few years.  Just yesterday I installed NOD32 and paid $40 bones to do so.  

In the first scan NOD found 3 different  virus that were previously undetected.  I was happy in that NOD already was worth the 40 bones yet I was dissappointed with NAV in that after  30 full system scans NAV never found the 3 items NOD found the first time.   Unreal.  

Speed.  NOD ripped through my 60 gigs, all files option, in 7 to 10 minutes.   Being used to the scan taking a while I went and did something else.   I was so blown away I ran it again because I figured there was no way it could have done the whole scan that quickly and I sat there and watched this time.  Bitchen.

It took NAV 30 minutes minimum to do the same full scan with unacceptable results comparatively.   I'll call NAV "The Blind Hog" from now on.    See ya hog.  


In my humble newbeeish opinion I see the need for multi layers of protection in combination with different support systems with different specialties.   No one security program does everything at the highest levels from what I see.   The company that figures that out will make big bucks.  

   






















 

 

Hello draft,
Having been in "lurk mode" since the 13th of February I thought I might offer an opinion.
Sophos www.sophos.com offers probably one of the best AV's with excellent support but is a bit pricey.
Tend's offering is my favourite at the moment: www.antivirus.com this does well  in the "Virusbin" tests Uhg! can't find the link at the moment - Back into lurk mode.

 

Sophos is an anti virus program made for companies.  It does not detect more than other anti virus programs like NOD32 or Kaspersky Anti Virus which are much cheaper. That is the reason why I do not recommand it for home users.

PC Cillin is okay but it is not so strong in detecting polymorphic/metamorphic viruses.

wizard

 

Wizard, You are correct in saying that sophos is mainly used by companies, one advantage of working for a company that uses it is that staff are allowed a copy for personal use, a sort of beneifit in kind

PC cillin - On what evidence do you base your remark or was it just an opinion?

Peronally I would not trust an AV programme for any detection other than Viri. For instance I use TDS3 for Trojans & wormguard for scripts etc

IMO using specific tools for specific tasks is a more comprehensive approach. The so called "layers of security" -  having said that the best security still sits on the users shoulders  

 

Hi Pilli,

nice offer from Sophos. I do not know about that.

For PC-Cillin I refer to the last Virus Bulettin test. Last week I visited the german CeBit and get two Virus Bulettin issues for free. Very very interessting stuff. A real good magazin but for 'normal' people like me the subscription fee is too expensive.

Anyway PC-Cillin got 100% Award but it gets 93,x% on the polymorphic testset. The comment was that Trend Micro mostly takes no further investigation in complex zoo viruses.

My point of view on the quality of an anti virus program is that it should also handle complex zoo viruses. Most of these viruses (good luck for all of us) are not in-the-wild but as these people who code such viruses seek 'fame' and release the source code of their viruses.

So someone else can pickup the code, rewrite it and publish a new virus to the wild. So now it is up to the anti virus company to do research on that virus. A company which analyzed such complex viruses in the past with zoo examples is of course much quicker to handle that new virus.

Last year such szenario became twice realistic in form of Magistr and Magistr.b. Both are a virus/worm-hybrid which spreads around hours through the whole internet. Both viruses were very complex. Two polymorphic engines and 128-bit encryption technologie was used and a lot more nasty stuff was used. It took anti virus programs days (some more than a week) to update their software.

So that is why I am normaly more interested in the detection performance on complex viruses rather than on ITW detection.

wizard

 

Wizard, Thanks for your thorough & interesting reply.
I must admit I have tried most of the AV programmes around but never found the perfect answer. Kaspersky & NOD32 did not get on well in my system - probably because of all the other "junk" I have running.

Cheers Pilli

 

Pilli - Welcome!

I've been watching the replies and I think the answers have well-presented something without just baldly stating it - there is no 'best' - there's only what works best for you, given your computers' brand/specs, OS and what other software you've already got running.

So what it always comes down to is what's the best for your rig. Pete

 

You're absolutely right, Pete!  That's why there are so many AV programs out there that are still thriving.  If there was one that was agreed upon by everyone that it was the best (of course, this would never happen), then the others would eventually fall off.  Like anything else, each person has different desires, needs, environments, etc., so must therefore buy accordingly.  

This brings me to my question:
Is there a website in existance where one could be given a questionnaire asking what his/her system is, what s/he uses it for, etc. and therefore help decide what the best AV solution would be?  Something like the web pages that certain computer vendors have to help the person decide which computer system would best for his or her needs.

 

octogen - Not that I know of. Such a service would have to have an absolutely huge database of pre-existing good combos, and given the amount of variables involved - well, it looks like good old trial and error by each individual is the way it's always going to be.

(Even if such a database existed - and worked - it would also have to take into account the features that each user wanted the projected AV to have). Pete

 

Good point(s)!

 

Thank you for the welcome Spy1.
I shall probably drop in from time to time.

As to what is the "best" AV it is the same answer that you will get for any other software or hardware - There is no definitive answer.

Try what you can & make a decision based on informed opinion. Objective tests have not, as yet, reached an acceptable pinnicle of judgement IMO.

Regards Pilli