AV for Newbie

Hi, I'm looking for a good, but easy-to-use, AV program for my parents.

I'm probably stating the obvious but the program should offer excellent realtime protection and cleaning abilities, but it's also very important that it doesn't bombard the user with all kinds of questions.

Would Avira do the trick here? Or are there other, and perhaps even better, options?

Can someone also recommend an AS program to accompany the AV?

 

MSE here or AVG here.

Both worth a look - nice and quiet ..... and straightforward.

HTH

philby

 

Avira should do the trick, I have it on my laptop. I've set heuristics to medium (recommended), did a full scan to exclude any false positives (there weren't any) and left it with default settings.

It gave me some RISK positives (2 or 3) when I selected all categories under extended threat categories, so if you plan to do that run a full scan and exlude any new "false" positives.

 

i've set up my parents (and other non-techie family members) with NOD32. If set to clean automatically, which it is by default, then it just gets on with the job without user intervention. I've not used any other AVs for a long time, so I can't comment on how suitable others would be, but this set up works and I know they are well protected too.

 

Assuming -
1. Your parents are not tech-savvy
2. You are referring to the free version of Avira,
it would not be a wise choice beacuse
1. Avira's pop-up adverts
2. recurring update issues
3. non user-friendly virus alerts

My recommendation would be avast! Free Antivirus set to operate silently and take actions automatically.
MSE can also be a viable alternative if you combine it with some sort of Web Filtering product like OpenDNS, K9 Web Protection etc.

 

AV for parents? Norton AV 2010. Or even better, Norton 360 V4.0.

 

Panda Cloud AV also is a good choice.

 

paid: Norton
free:MSE

 

Free AV: MSE
Paid AV: Norton 2010

 

hope this is not going , "my av is better" thread but i would go either with AVG or AVAST free

 

All of these will work well. Paid or free. The problem facing many who are not as up on all the crap on the internet are rogues. It is getting to where you will get popped sooner or later.

I would set them up with a good AV, but the smartest thing you can do for them is to make a backup copy for when the time comes.

 

Sandbox them!

 

MSE
Very simple interface, pretty much hands free....set it and forget it.
No nags
Low system impact.
No nags
Very effective...check out av-comparatives.org
No nags.

 

I would recommend Avast! Free or MSE Free.
Beware, AVG free doesn't have anti-rookit protection.

 

Avg has rootkit protection and as far as compare it has quite as great as avast ar protection. But other issues are fallowing avg such as system impact or cpu hit etc.

 

Do not go with AVG.. For the love of god do not go with AVG...

If anything just use MSE or Avast.

 

please people stop bashing AVG and do not mass up God's name

 

... mass up?
Everybody's entitled to their opinion, no one is bashing AVG.

 

AVG Free has only basic rootkit protection so it is not wise to use it when you can get better options for free.

http://free.avg.com/ww-en/download-avg-anti-virus-free