Nod32 x64 or Avast! x64?

I am about to purchase an x64 antivirus for my new system and have been running the Avast! x64 trial but it cheated me of the 60 days and is only allowing like 2 weeks. Anyhow I need to buy something soon and Avast! seems to be working ok but I have read alot of people are big fans of nod32 and now that they have an x64 version can anyone recommend one over the other?

 

Hmm... You dont need to "buy" Avast. its free (the home edition)! Just do a registration here. But if you ask me which is a better AV, id definatly say NOD32 (though NOD32 isnt free)!

 

Thanks, I know avast home is free but I want script blocking and other features not in the free version so I am going to buy something. Can you say why nod32 is better in your opinion?

Thanks

 

In my opinion Nod would be the better choice.

bigc

 

I was an Advent Norton User Untill I woke up and smelled the Roses (NOD32>64)

Cheers,

 

NOD32 has better detection rates, better heuristics (Avast has almost NO heuristics) and also NOD32 runs lighter than Avast. If you ARE buying, buy NOD32.

 

nod32 for resident and avast as backup (only script blocker, im, p2p, and network modules enabled) is my current setup. works both in 32-bit and 64-bit.

 

The nod32 system rocks! You won't look back... and the resellers are just AWESOME! I got my copy from NOD32USA.COM, but I'm sure all the resellers are helpful - these guys helped my with uninstalling norton and getting the new NOD32 installed and up to speed with some REALLY GREAT SUPPORT!

Whatever you choose, I hope you get some great help....... I don't think you'll go wrong with NOD32 for your 64bit machine though!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Same advice here

 

Thanks for all the replies everyone. Sounds like Nod32 is the favorite around here for sure. The only details on the differences I got from this thread seem to be it is less of a resource hog on the system and it has better heuristics. Is this correct? I am going to buy this week so any more details as to what is better over avast from you Nod32 users is appreciated.

 

Well - I'll pipe in but not with anything overwhelming. I tried to switch to Avast! over AVG for my secondary 2 PCs but the information required was rather extensive - more personal info that NOD need for a license if I'm not mistaken or if nothing has changed.
Anyway the thing was I was annoyed by a free AV license needing renewed per year as well as the amount of info needed to renew so I uninstalled and put AVG back on those two machines. AVG has made me happy but they are also low-risk users. My wife uses email and some embroidery sites while my daughter (6) uses only predetermined websites and her games.
I use NOD32 on my main machine where I check out sites etc.

 

Atomic_Ed, why don't you try them both before you buy, most if not all the experiences with both in this thread would be with the 32bit version and you're asking about the 64bit versions. And registrering Avast cant be more work than buying and entering your data when/if buying Nod.

 

Quite possible - and let me clarify - I only found Avast! invasive (as per my opinion) for a free AV. Otherwise I was quite impressed. So as Don urges do try them both - I am sure neither trial will let you down or leave your "doors unbarred" so to speak. See what you prefer.

 

Thanks guys. I will go ahead and give the nod32 trial a run and see. I generally as a rule don't care for loading trial software into my new installs because of all the registry clutter that almost always follows but I will give it a go. Is there any registry cleaners out for x64 yet that will remove all trialware traces once your through with them?

 

Hm well I'm not sure about how it works so far with 64but OS etc but EasyCleaner has never let me down so far in win98, 2k and xp.

 

i use ccleaner but a better option is to use a program like acronis true image to image ur drive before trying any software. after u used it and decide u dont want it just revert to an image that u created before u installed the software.

 

I have Acronis TI8 but it doesn't work under x64 yet. Acronis tells me that the x64 version should be out by the end of the year. AFAIK there are currently no drive imaging apps out for x64 yet.

 

Ok guys I am now running Nod32 x64 but cleaning out the registry manually to rmove all the traces of avast was a pita! Many many places and half had to be done in safe mode as well as changing the key permissions. Well I got it cleaned out and installed Nod32 so we will see how it runs for me.

Do you know if this has a script blocker feature?

Wow, I just noticed this nod32 is using close to 40mb of ram. Is this normal? I had heard it uses less ram than avast but avast was using only around 25mb on my system. Funny though because my system feels a little snappier than it did with avast running. Strange......

 

I don't get it why are you complicating (actually everyone i have seen are complicating) about avast! registration info?
Just enter fake stuff,only thing that needs to be real is e-mail where you'll get a serial number. For other info just use your nick from forum,enter just the country and city name you're living in and do the same for your home address,make up the phone number and you're ready. I do this everywhere where they don't need my exact personal info and i never got any complaint about that.
avast! registration form is no exception. So why complicating?

This is just the way how Alwil estimates number of home users so they can always keep optimal update servers number and performance.
Did anyone ever encountered slow Alwil update servers? Um i haven't...

AntiVir does the same thing,only they generate unique serial number which is submitted on updates to their servers. But most people don't even know about this because they rush through installation program...

 

BTW we changed the avast HOME registrarion form recently (after hearing complaints such as the Detox's above): the only bold (i.e. required) fields are now email address, name and country. That is, we don't need you to fill in your address or telephone number any more (as well as the other stuff that was there previously). Also, instead of being a 3 step registration (3 separate pages) it's now 1 page only.


BTW Atomic_Ed your saying that you had to manually clean up the registry after uninstalling avast? That's kind of strage, I always thought that the uninstallation program removes (almost) all the traces. Could you please provide me with some details? It might be a problem related to Windows x64 only, and we'd like to fix it.


Thanks
Vlk

 

well if u already have the rescue cd then that will work, if not then ur outta luck.

 

Good idea, now i can better understand Detox's view on this yesterday, although it's still worth the five minutes spent for a good free AV IMO.

 

That sounds very good to me, vlk!

 

Yes I did have a time cleaning it out. I did the unistall from add /remove programs which completed successfully and then told me to reboot which I did. When I got back into to Windows I noticed the avast program directory was still there under program files. I manually deleted it and the using regedit did a search using "avast" and proceded to return many keys full of values all throughout the registry. Apparently the unistaller leaves what appeared to be almost all the registry entries before the uninstall took place. So anyhow I proceded to go throught them one by one and delte the orphaned keys since the app was already gone from my system at that point. I did not document all the places but it was alot. When I got to the last dozen or so keys I then found they could not be deleted. These were calles something like MCAVVMAKER, ASF or something like that cant recall as it was late and I was deleting keys like crazy. Inside though were alot of values for the various modules within avast and references to DLLs for them. Certainly not the kind of stuff that should have been left after an uninstall. So I rebooted into safe mode and tried again to remove those stubborn keys and still no luck. I then one by one changed the key permissions and then was able to delete them all. As you can imagine it was a pain. I wanted to ensure all traces were removed prior to installing Nod32 on the system as I didn't want any conflicts or issues. I actually liked avast for the short time I used it since my 60 day trial did not work and only allowed me 2 weeks to test it. When I first tried to install it I got an error so when I reinstalled it my 60 day trial period then said 2 weeks. I thought that was pretty poor but oh well. If you need actual manual registry key deleting details, then I would be willing to reload avast and then document the actual keys and such for you. Let me know if you need this info but it certainly needs to be addressed. It reminded me alot of how Nortons is after an uninstall with all the orphaned registry keys.

 

Thanks for all the comments everyone, but I thought I would let you all know that after having run the trials for both Nod32 x64 and Avast! Pro x64, I have made my decision to go with Avast! Pro. I think they are both very good but to me I felt that Avast! was a better choice. So I purchased the Pro license of Avast! tonight, uninstalled nod32 and reloaded Avast! Pro and it is running nicely and I personally feel better protected from trojans while surfing.

Once again thanks to all for their helpful inputs and thanks to Alwil for a great product that runs nice on my XP x64 system!