Anti Virus Stuff.

[99 GTT]

For those that don't know, keep in mind you can not opt out of SPYNET when you use MSE!!!! Microsoft or anyone telling you that you can only do it there way is just not on in my opinion!

Just another reason i would never use it.. Invasive!!!!! And they do say that they may (accidently 'yea right') recover personal information. including where the information is stored on your HDD etc.

LINK TO REVIEW

Remember my friends the best of anything is never free...

Edited April 11, 2010 by 99 GTT

[R31Nismoid]

SpyNet -

Basic submits to Microsoft the detected software's origins, your response to it and whether that action was successful

Advanced membership submits all that plus the location on your hard drive of the software in question, how it operates, and how it has impacted your computer

Meh to that really.

Both basic and advanced warn users that personal data might be "accidentally" sent to Microsoft, although they promise to neither identify nor contact you

And meh to that, considering what Google has been upto over the last 18 months that is excessively worse.

Remember spynet will only be reporting if you get infected. Not like I'm looking at kiddie porn or trawling the depths of the hacker universe

[(OO)SKYLINE(OO)]

So I downloaded MSE and I gotta say, it took bugger all time to download and install and started a scan.

So far my PC's are clean and all it running fine.

[bozodos]

avg is a POS IMO, too many false positives and dosen't actually pick up the farken trojans!

a mix of Malwarebytes and a-squared does it for me

[BASHO]

Well so much for my new 2nd hand flaptop it's away at the fixers with its newly installed Kaspersky and WTFKs whatever else is on there for a hard drive total wipe and basics reinstall as apparently three and a half hours to do a scan is far from normal unless you have a drive the size of NASAs.

You'd have to think I'd have learn't by now, don't buy cheap stuff from a mates mate, just because they're a mates mate, no matter how good they recon it is.

Edited April 13, 2010 by BASHO

[FrangaR33]

avg is a POS IMO, too many false positives and dosen't actually pick up the farken trojans!

a mix of Malwarebytes and a-squared does it for me

+1 for Malwarebytes its a brilliant program thats got me out of trouble at least a half dozen times.

[funkymonkey]

Avira AntiVir personally.

Regularly updated, very low memory footprint, not many false positives, unintrusive, and best of all... free. Does come up with a nag screen when you update, but if you use windows to deny running of notify.exe (or make it run minimised) it stops popping up.

AVG is OK too, but its a little too cautious for my liking, and pretty crap at detecting even kiddie scripts.

[MSTRshenanigans]

i use avast. it is good. ran it on my mothers boyfriends computer which was running some other one (not sure if it was AVG or norton or mcafee) and it picked up 4 viruses when doing a boot scan.

QFT - best free vscanner I have ever used and I have been using for nearly 4 years with 0 problems uncleaned...

I use it with Comodo firewall... for security firewall and added protection runtime

[bozodos]

or you could run a router with a hardware firewall

[MSTRshenanigans]

I run a hardware firewall but my software firewall runs many rules for applications on my pc for in/out bw. Plus it does the runtime protect which is great

[funkymonkey]

hardware firewall won't stop your computer sending out information or using port 80, 22 etc, which is how most trojans work these days... they're intelligent enough to tunnel out, and then transfer whatever they need in or out.

[bozodos]

ye, I also run a software one and use malwarebytes too, i hardly ever get infected.

[Jawssh]

Norton is just pure rubbish and a resource hog,

Use NOD32, its got a 30 day free day trail, and if runs out just buy it ? or reinstall it to restart the trail again.

I've been using it for a number of years now and its never let me down thus far, so its one anti virus i can vouch for!

[tuk32R]

Ive tested heaps of antivirus programs and i've found Malwarebytes and Avira antivir to be the best ones,. They find infections and theres always new updates,,

[BASHO]

I'm plugging along with Kaspersky, it updates regularly dosen't seem to resource hungry, only cost $90 for 3 installs, is good for 2 years and so far it seem to have dealt harshly with anything it hasn't liked.

[V8EAT3R]

I'm actually using Norton Internet Security 2010! works fantastic!

doesn't take over my computer yay!

for recent years ive always used mcaffe. but thought id give Norton ago...

and haven't regretted once

[iseekool]

The standard for most desktops out there is usually Symantec, Trend and McAffee - Which tend to take alot of resource and I'm not a fan of their consoles - but have to admit Symantec beats the rest for ease of deployment.

"Microsoft Security Essentials" is the best all round - it's free if you have legit Windows from XP SP2 onwards.

Excludes all Windows Server versions - So don't waste your time - I already tried

What I like about it is that it integrates properly with Windows - being a Microsoft product.

Uses minimal memory and updates via Windows update - it's just "easy" for any noob and very fool proof - some people may dis-agree with me - but because its so light weight and un-intrusive - you will not have issues with end users always trying to disable the whole lot - instead it is kind of modular you an set exceptions (which I found I never had to do).

I had to "acid" test Microsoft Security Essentials for my workplace and for some of our clients (I'm a Systems Engineer).

I can definately say MSE beats the other AVs for locked files and deep registry infections.

The only issue is that installation is quite manual (not centralized like Symantec) - It doesn't have a console and is not yet recognised by many large companies.

You can get the MSE in the flavours below.

XP SP2+ (32-bit only)

Vista (32-bit and 64-bit)

Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Fingers crossed Microsoft will not make future versions of MSE bloated.

Key example is AVG - It used to be light now it just sucks

[bozodos]

I use SEP at work, it goes alright, would never touch their home products again though.

McAfee is f**king useless fyi.

I've yet to see anything which can't be cured with AVG/SEP + malwarebytes, apart from a few incredibly nasty infections that warranted hard disk removal for scanning the registry. On a corporate machine we'd of course merely SCCM / WDS it.

[Owens]

NOD32 has done me well for a couple years. Not a single virus has gotten in yet!

[D-G]

Agreed with above, i have used many different AV's over the years, NOD32 is the one that has always done its job the way i want it to. Its customizable to the way you want it to run, scans constantly to keep your computer safe.

I use version 2.7 still which comes with all in built necessities (AMON - File System Monitor, DMON - Microsoft Office Document Monitor, EMON Email Monitor - and IMON - Internet Monitor) All these combined run at around no more than 2200kb.

Honestly it has been the He-man of AV's for me. And probably the only thing i would ever register to pay for without me saying, "why would i waste money on crap?"

If you want something free, go with AVG i guess. But that didn't protect me as well as NOD32.

Good luck =]