No offence to your uncle but using Symantec on a stand alone Desktop is a bad idea, especially on older systems. The resource footprint of Symantec is HUGE. It can be done in a corporate environment because it uses a Server-client model allowing most of the resource intensive work to be offloaded to the server (Updates, Active Scanning, Email Scanning). In a home environment this all has to be done by a single system and the slow down is not worth it

 

Just for my own curiosity I looked up some reviews for anti virus software and noticed that many of the programs you guys mentioned are rated higher. Reviews though can be biased. There were dozens of options to choose from. However I also found a recent article on MSNBC about some super virus and the expert the media went with to identify it was from the company that develops the software I am using. He was not from any of the companies that develop that other software. You can look up the article if you like. I don't have the link, but it was posted just the other day.

 

I am sure many of you have done your own research on those other programs, but I don't have to. I have an expert in the family. I'll stick with the advice of my uncle on this over anything I read on these forums. He was building computers before anyone owned personal computers and working in the industry longer than most of you have been alive. He is not a typical computer geek. He is a life long super geek that has been trusted by huge corporations and the government to repair and maintain multi million dollar computer equipment for the past thirty years. I trust him more than you. Sorry.

Edited June 1, 2012 by Pcolapat

lol and the people working on this game are all experts and you should trust them too.

Actually Nortons/Symantec scored top marks this last year for malware identification, second to webroot. It did however take #1 for malware removal.

 

I've used both and as webroot runs 100000000x faster ( 4mb footprint ) i go with webroot.

 

Oh and the mox parser doesn't trigger anything for webroot.

 

By who? PCMag?

 

Here are some other un-authoritative reviews:

KAV7 rates first.

KAV Rates second and norton isn't even on the list!

KAV rates 3rd.

 

Now, on to something with a little more authority:

 

Virus Bulletin

VB100 Graph

VB100 Awards List

Virus Bulletin's profile for Norton

Virus Bulletin's profile for Eset

Virus Bulletin's profile for Kaspersky

 

Av-Comparatives

KAV Earns "Product of the Year"

 

West Coast Labs has a great many product tests of the leading AV Software on the market today as well. Potential buyers may want to read through some of their findings.

 

Lastly, lest we not forget that it was Kaspersky who discovered and concluded the origin of both Stuxnet as well as the new Flame virus. *Looks around for Norton*

 

My personal top 5 (in no particular order):

1.) Kaspersky

2.) Eset

3.) Avira

4.) Bitdefender

5.) Webroot

My uncle is the family computer expert and I asked him about this AVG virus software someone recommended to me. His reply was to not come to him when I got a virus. I went with Symantec Endpoint Protection like he suggested. I don't know if one is better than the other, but I like having someone around who can help me with computer problems.

 

The best virus protection you can get is to stop running windows.

 

Tragically , SWTOR is a windows only game ...

 

download firefox and lock down your internet explorer so bad that if it ever accidently opens it won't even be allowed to fart , thats all I can say.

Its unlikely that its malware, but this points out a valid potential problem with requiring third party applications to gather the data or for any purpose. If BW added a ingame damage meter, visible combat log you wouldn't have to use thirdparty applications.

The best virus protection you can get is to stop running windows.

 

Tragically , SWTOR is a windows only game ...

 

download firefox and lock down your internet explorer so bad that if it ever accidently opens it won't even be allowed to fart , thats all I can say.

 

True statement. My uncle has told me that as well. Although internet explorer is a hard habit for me to break. I have been using it for years and years. It is one piece of advice my uncle gave me that I should listen to but habits are habits. I try to use firefox to view my email and for any downloading I am doing.

Ugh, Symantec AV's are resource hogs. Never will I go back to that *** again. Edited June 1, 2012 by Nemhauser

True statement. My uncle has told me that as well. Although internet explorer is a hard habit for me to break. I have been using it for years and years. It is one piece of advice my uncle gave me that I should listen to but habits are habits. I try to use firefox to view my email and for any downloading I am doing.

 

The reason why "stop using windows" is the cure for almost any virus has nothing to do with Internet Explorer. It has to do with the alternative that most people go to from Windows - *nix based systems.

 

*nix systems are not immune to malware / virus attack, they are simply more resilient.

I knew this gamer once that told me that he doesn't use virus protection at all. His reasoning was that he suspects that anti virus companies create viruses to perpetuate their industry. He said he feels safer with no anti virus software at all and that his computer runs better. He claimed that he has never gotten a virus. I haven't spoken to him in a long time so I don't know how that is working out for him. I assume he has nothing on his computer he isn't willing to part with. I couldn't take a chance like that. Edited June 1, 2012 by Pcolapat

My uncle is the family computer expert and I asked him about this AVG virus software someone recommended to me. His reply was to not come to him when I got a virus. I went with Symantec Endpoint Protection like he suggested. I don't know if one is better than the other, but I like having someone around who can help me with computer problems.

 

Basically you get what you pay for.... "free" will get you the support one can expect from something that is free.

The reason why "stop using windows" is the cure for almost any virus has nothing to do with Internet Explorer. It has to do with the alternative that most people go to from Windows - *nix based systems.

 

*nix systems are not immune to malware / virus attack, they are simply more resilient.

 

No, they are simply a smaller market share, and thus a smaller target set. However, with the Mac's starting to make inroads, the *nix systems aren't such a microscopic minority anymore. A rooted *nix box is just as owned as a rooted Windows box.

Basically you get what you pay for.... "free" will get you the support one can expect from something that is free.

 

No, you don't always get what you pay for. You can pay for products that are inferior to free products. Heck, there's some games I bought that I didn't get what I paid for.

Just saying, watch out with these third party combat log parsers, ive been using "Mox Parser" since they released combat logs and now AVG tells me it found malware in that file.

 

AVG and Avira have a disgusting amount of false positives. I know this for a fact because I have been trying to get them to take one of my programs off the heuristics list for ages and they just ignore you even if you send them the source code to prove its malware free.

I am an old gamer. I have owned them since the days of the Sinclair and Commodore and Radio Shack computers were popular and built them since 386's were the norm.

 

I don't run any antivirus programs. At all. The best antivirus out there is Your Brain. First and most importantly, I don't use Microsoft's email client nor Internet Explorer. I don't open untrusted email attachments. I can spot a scam email a mile away and delete it right off without even opening it. I watch what I download and if I'm at all suspicious, I run it on a virtual computer setup first. And I use Firefox with NoScript installed.

 

The only time in the last 10 years or more that I've gotten a virus, I worked for a place that didn't allow me to use NoScript so I had to run antivirus. I chose Avira. I got a virus from one of the pages I was required to visit. I quickly got rid of it but there ya go. It really helps to have another computer to download or make fixes on when that happens. No, my second computer is NOT networked to the first. Nor do I use a wireless modem. It's just so much easier to plug in that wire, brainless in fact. And much safer.

 

All of Norton's (Symantec's) products have been nothing but a drain on my computer's power. But then they're all a drain. If they aren't the biggest drain then you have way too much unnecessary garbage running on that thing.

 

So there you have it. This works for me and before you holler about risking it, reread. For me, I'm not risking much of anything. Were you to do this, you might make riskier choices in what you're doing and need the antivirus. I do not.

Basically you get what you pay for.... "free" will get you the support one can expect from something that is free.

 

Quite untrue.

 

There are many open-source applications out there which run far better/cleaner than their paid-for counterparts.

 

Windows has traditionally been a retail-software environment, and so many users buy into the whole "if you pay for it it is better" mentality. However open-source and collaborative products can indeed be superior. This is true even for anti-virus and anti-malware products. The best ones I've ever used/do use are free.

AVG and Avira have a disgusting amount of false positives. I know this for a fact because I have been trying to get them to take one of my programs off the heuristics list for ages and they just ignore you even if you send them the source code to prove its malware free.

 

You can do that yourself.

 

Heuristic is simply a "behavior-analysis" engine. It analyzes the execution of the code and watches for suspect behavior. If something you know is clean keeps triggering the heuristic engine, put it on your exception list. It's far better to get a false positive than a missed negative. Just because the behavior of that program isn't a virus/malware doesn't mean that other programs which utilize similar code execution aren't.

No, they are simply a smaller market share, and thus a smaller target set. However, with the Mac's starting to make inroads, the *nix systems aren't such a microscopic minority anymore. A rooted *nix box is just as owned as a rooted Windows box.

 

I never made the claim that they were immune, just more resilient. I also did not say WHY *nix systems were more resiliant, just that they are. So, I'm not quite sure why you are telling me I am wrong. You seem to be agreeing with my point.

 

To address yours:

Are *nix (and mac osx for that matter) users a smaller market share? Sure. And while market share surely plays a part, the requirement of having root access to perform any actual mischief is undeniably another. I would say its a combination of many factors that make it less profitable / desirable to craft malware for *nix systems as long as Windows is around.

 

Hope that cleared things up.

Quite untrue.

 

There are many open-source applications out there which run far better/cleaner than their paid-for counterparts.

 

Windows has traditionally been a retail-software environment, and so many users buy into the whole "if you pay for it it is better" mentality. However open-source and collaborative products can indeed be superior. This is true even for anti-virus and anti-malware products. The best ones I've ever used/do use are free.

 

While I think that market is starting to gain traction, I do not believe they can (yet) compete with the likes of Kaspersky, Eset, or even Symantec in terms of False Positives, Proactive / Reactive detection, and Removal. Much less in the "In The Wild" area of detection.

 

I would imagine that most would probably do for the typical home user, but when security and detection are of serious concern, I sure wouldn't leave it to one of the Open Source counterparts to the established Top-of-the-line just yet.

While I think that market is starting to gain traction, I do not believe they can (yet) compete with the likes of Kaspersky, Eset, or even Symantec in terms of False Positives, Proactive / Reactive detection, and Removal. Much less in the "In The Wild" area of detection.

 

I would imagine that most would probably do for the typical home user, but when security and detection are of serious concern, I sure wouldn't leave it to one of the Open Source counterparts to the established Top-of-the-line just yet.

 

That would actually be somewhat the reverse In fact, some of those names you pay for now were once free/donation-only until they decided to cash in on their successes. Which, for most, is also around the same time they started to become bloatware. Pay does not equal better, and really never has in the AV/Malware tool market.

 

And if you are needing to remove an infection or detect some of the most stubborn ones, most of the best tools out there are not pay-to-use either. There are plenty of charts out there which show this information to be true.

 

You're correct that the consumer market is different from the commercial one. There are numerous things that should be done to lock down business environments and AV/Malware tools are but a small part of it. The size/design of the network as well as the limitations of the technical staff need to be taken into account of course, and sometimes the decision made is not based upon which tools have the best detection ratings but rather which tools work most efficiently within the contraints of the environment itself. Hence you'll see purchased tools used more in those implementations, but more because of certain features.

Just out of curiosity, you wouldn't happen to have any links to studies of these free and open source AV programs in comparison to Eset or Kaspersky would you?

 

At the very least, would you mind NAMING the programs that you believe would stack up to either application in a head on comparison in 1.) Proactive / Reactive detection, 2.) Removal, 3.) False Positive, and 4.) In The Wild catches? I could just look for myself at that point.

 

I have already listed several links in the previous page from just such sources citing why both Kaspersky and Eset rank higher than Symantec in all categories. I'd very much like to read some kind of independant review showing from an established and authoritative source on how the un-established free antivirus community stacks up.

 

I say un-established because, lets face it, as soon as a company has a reputation good enough to do so, they begin charging with one business model or another. That is the way of the AV world.

 

*Note: I do not mean programs that offer free versions that are limited compared to their "pro" versions. Avira offers a free version and I have already stated that it is even among my personal top 5 and has excellent scores where it counts.

 

Also, I'd like to say that I am now and have always been 100% behind the open source community (I am a Java developer and was quite angry with the Sun sellout). I push for Open Source tools at every position I have ever held and am well aware that, in the software community, "paying" doesn't always equate to better.

 

Lastly, I would like to point out (for a second time) that it was the experts at Kaspersky Labs that both found and discovered the origin of both the Stuxnet and Flame viruses. Considering the complexity, wide spread nature, and far reaching consequences of each of those two viruses, I would say that is definitely worth mentioning.

I haven't had any anti-malware programs installed for at least three years now, so I'm probably ill-qualified to comment, but from the tests I've seen Microsoft Security Essentials actually holds up fairly well against the competition and isn't a complete resource hog.

 

There is precious little difference between Norton in its present-day incarnation and an actual virus, imho.

Edited June 3, 2012 by Aurojiin

This thread in a nutshell:

 

Mox Parser doesn't have malware. My anti-virus can beat up your anti-virus because I'm a computer security expert.

 

PS: Norton > Everything. Come on! It came with my computer and everything!

Edited June 3, 2012 by Ganrax

This thread in a nutshell:

 

Mox Parser doesn't have malware. My anti-virus can beat up your anti-virus because I'm a computer security expert.

 

/win

Actually, its more like:

 

"Mox isn't malware. I'm not security expert, but here are some links to those that are complete with reviews on various Antivirus programs that are on the market today and a summation of the results."

 

But hey, flame on.

This thread in a nutshell:

 

Mox Parser doesn't have malware. My anti-virus can beat up your anti-virus because I'm a computer security expert.

 

PS: Norton > Everything. Come on! It came with my computer and everything!

 

love it.