Which Antivirus?, Kaspersky Or McAfee? Options

[LukaBuka]

I am looking for an antivirus for Windows XP because I am tired of all that shit that tries to infect my PC. So far I looked into Kaspersky AntiVirus Personal and McAfee Antivirus. Which one is better or should I pick something entirely different?

[neutral_00]

I am looking for an antivirus for Windows XP because I am tired of all that shit that tries to infect my PC.  So far I looked into Kaspersky AntiVirus Personal and McAfee Antivirus.  Which one is better or should I pick something entirely different?

AVG is the best imho. There is a free version for personal use.

[Garf]

NOD32

Whatever you do, don't buy a Symantec product. They are thieves.

[kotrtim]

since both are paid version, I don't have any comments, just look for the one with better customer support

If your computer is meant for personal use

you can get the free version of Avast!
Avast also has a free forum support

Avast has more functions than AVG, if your computer is slow, AVG is a better choice as it is lighter on resources.....If you have a faster computer, go for Avast
Avast's autoupdate feature is unbeatable.....

http://www.avast.com/

Another free AV worth mentioning is AntiVir, it is also very light on resources

This post has been edited by kotrtim: Sep 18 2005, 15:51

[Sebastian Mares]

According to this heise test Avast doesn't even recognize all ITW virii.

You could have a look at this post I made at the IPS forums.

[kotrtim]

According to this heise test Avast doesn't even recognize all ITW virii.

Pls excuse me, English is not my main language
Ididn't claim that Avast is better than AVG in detection, what I want to say is that Avast autoupdate is much superior compared o AVG

AVG's auto update isn't really automatic, you must be connected 24/7 or you might miss the schedule.

just google search, found this
http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/erge...se/report06.pdf
http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/erge...se/report07.pdf

NOD32 tops the lists for In The Wild detection

This post has been edited by kotrtim: Sep 18 2005, 17:36

[Digga]

in my experience, NOD32 (2.5x) is pretty non-intrusive and good to handle.
while heuristics may be good, Kaspersky detected a lot NOD didn't on my system.

[emr]

Both scanners mentioned in the first post are good ones and according to some tests much better than the free ones. In a fairly large neutral test,

Kaspersky Personal Pro version 5.0.20 found 99.28%,

McAfee version 9.0.10 found 89.75% of the viruses,

Avast version 4.6.623 found 79.65% of the viruses and

AVG version 7.0.308 found 54.07% of the viruses.

Other good ones seem to be AVK (unknown to me), F-Secure, eScan (again unknown) and Norton.

This post has been edited by emr: Sep 18 2005, 18:58

[spoon]

>Whatever you do, don't buy a Symantec product. They are thieves.

Care to ellaborate? I use Ghost and Partition magic all the time, find they are great programs...and checking my wallet (yes it is still there) I don't seem to be robbed

[NiQCo]

I use Avast for some times now and have been pretty happy with it. It's free, doesn't use a lot of memory, has a nice integration with my system and it detected things that Norton couldn't...

[Brink]

If online scanning is not in your list of needs, you could try the F-prot antivirus. http://www.f-prot.com

[Garf]

>Whatever you do, don't buy a Symantec product. They are thieves.

Care to ellaborate? I use Ghost and Partition magic all the time, find they are great programs...and checking my wallet (yes it is still there) I don't seem to be robbed

There is a great rant somewhere in the offtopic archives about my experience buying Norton Anti Virus.

I am a happy NOD32 customer now. (They even have real support. Woo!)

[QuantumKnot]

I'm using NOD32 as well. It's relatively light on resources (compared with NAV) and has good detection rates.

[Lyx]

Symantec is similiar to microsoft - they cannot write good software - only buy other corporations, add a bit of bloat to the apps of that corporation, and afterwards release it under their label.

This leads us to:
bought app from other corp + bloat = new symantec product.

BTW: afaik norton doesn't exist anymore as it once was. They were bought by symantec as well. So, the word "Norton" nowadays is just a brandname, nothing more.

Concerning f-prot:
I had very good experiences with it as well, and it detected some stuff which kaspersky didn't. Disinfection/repair however appears to be the weak point of f-prot - which only leaves you with the option to delete infected files.

This post has been edited by Lyx: Sep 19 2005, 03:33

[William]

Symantec is similiar to microsoft - they cannot write good software - only buy other corporations, add a bit of bloat to the apps of that corporation, and afterwards release it under their label.

Actually I found Symantec AntiVirus (SAV) much better on UI and less bloat than NAV.

[William]

In my PC usage history, my computer has not been infected with a virus since the release of Windows 95 (The last virus my computer got infected called "11th November" when I was still running MS-DOS 5.0), so I cannot really comment on the performance of the AV engines.

However, I do know that McAfee, F-Prot, Norman, etc, have a long history on AV, and I think their AV products can be trusted.

On the other hand, NOD32 is a (relatively) new entry that has a very powerful AV engine. Great detection rates on ItW viruses, very light on resource, and fast. It seems to be a great choice nowadays.

There are tests that show that NOD32 detects less viruses than other major players, though I tend to believe that this is due to their short history on AV (i.e. they do not have database of some very old viruses). However I believe they have no problems detecting viruses discovered in recent years.

My impression on Norton AntiVirus is that I dislike it more with every new version released every year. The functions are essentially the same (i.e. No improvements), but the UI is becoming more bothersome and stupid, resource usage climbs higher with every release. So my advice is that, stay away from it.

(Frankly, I have seen too much computer issues, especially performance and stability issues, when Norton products are running on the machines. When they are disabled or even uninstalled, the machines became much more stable.)

I have tried some version of McAfee, like 4.x, 7.0 and 8.0. 4.x was trouble-free, 7.0 was not stable on my computer (it crashes every time during scanning). 8.0 crashed less, but still...and I have no experience on newer versions. The command-line version of SCAN.EXE is great though.

F-Prot is a great product as well, I liked it during the DOS days. Large virus database, fast, and light on resource. F-Secure uses the same engine I think, but I have not tried that.

During the DOS days I tried ThunderBYTE AntiVirus (I believe it is now Norman). It was very light on resource and fast too, though I don't know the detection rate. Maybe you can take a look at it as well.

Currently I am using AVG Free on my machine, simply because I think it is feature-complete, and light on resource (Yes I have a constant internet connection, so scheduled updates of database every day at 7:00am is no problem for me). The interface is OK (much better than AntiVir), and it does not look like a media player (like Avast). The only usage of AVG is just to filter NetSky virus from my POP3 account though.

This post has been edited by William: Sep 19 2005, 04:11

[Dilby©]

I dont use any of this detection type software, no anti-virus, no adware, no spy software, no personal firewalls. Interestingly, when I do check for such badies there are never any. What I do use is Opera web browser and email client, I'm behind a SmoothWall firewall and I employ good browsing habits. I only get spam in my free yahoo type email account, but never in my account with the ISP.

[Dibrom]

On the other hand, NOD32 is a (relatively) new entry that has a very powerful AV engine. Great detection rates on ItW viruses, very light on resource, and fast. It seems to be a great choice nowadays.

There are tests that show that NOD32 detects less viruses than other major players, though I tend to believe that this is due to their short history on AV (i.e. they do not have database of some very old viruses). However I believe they have no problems detecting viruses discovered in recent years.

I don't think Eset NOD32 is that new. It has been available for several years. I don't know if it goes all the way back to early DOS though.

And as for NOD32 detecting less viruses, where did you see these tests? On the Virus Bulletin website, NOD32 has often had a higher rating (more consecutive 100% awards) than just about all of the competition. In contrast, some of the more well known products like McAfee (in particular IIRC) and Norton have often failed to achieve 100%.

Anyway, I don't use Windows anymore for the most part so I don't use any of these, but when I did, NOD32 was definitely the best one that I found. Fast, non-intrusive, and easy to use.

[evereux]

>Whatever you do, don't buy a Symantec product. They are thieves.

Care to ellaborate? I use Ghost and Partition magic all the time, find they are great programs...and checking my wallet (yes it is still there) I don't seem to be robbed

There is a great rant somewhere in the offtopic archives about my experience buying Norton Anti Virus.

I am a happy NOD32 customer now. (They even have real support. Woo!)

Symantec (NAV/NIS) = thieves
Interesting post, but Symantec's attitude doesn't really surprise me.

[William]

And as for NOD32 detecting less viruses, where did you see these tests?  On the Virus Bulletin website, NOD32 has often had a higher rating (more consecutive 100% awards) than just about all of the competition.  In contrast, some of the more well known products like McAfee (in particular IIRC) and Norton have often failed to achieve 100%.

Here is one that shows. Of coures you can disagree with it. I disagree with it, as it did not say the criteria for choosing the viruses.

And I don't think we need to argue here:

On the other hand, NOD32 is a (relatively) new entry that has a very powerful AV engine. Great detection rates on ItW viruses, very light on resource, and fast. It seems to be a great choice nowadays.

I have been watching Virus Bulletin since the day of NOD-iCE and I know that it has passed ItW tests nearly continuously since it was named NOD32.

My point is that NOD32 is definitely one of the best bet in AV today, though I guess it may miss some older viruses that, say, McAfee can detect, simply because McAfee exists longer in AV history (12 - 13 years IIRC). Many AV tests can manipulate test results by incoporating different kinds of viruses in a test. By including older viruses in tests, older brands can achieve better results. However I don't think missing an old virus is as important as 100% detection of ItW viruses.

To conclude, I think NOD32 is great, not to mention that it costs lowest here in Hong Kong. However, I don't think this means that other AVs are not worth checking out, e.g. take a look at AVG and AntiVir, they are doing well for the more recent VB100 tests.

This post has been edited by William: Sep 19 2005, 14:18

[ddrawley]

I have been very pleased with AntiVir. It has many good reviews.

http://www.free-av.com/

[Garf]

Symantec (NAV/NIS) = thieves
Interesting post, but Symantec's attitude doesn't really surprise me. 

BTW. NOD32 has addressed almost all the complains in the original post. I dumped Kaspersky after I discovered it adds hidden data streams to every file.

[Brink]

I have been very pleased with AntiVir. It has many good reviews.

http://www.free-av.com/

Yep, thats a good one too. And now they have an english version (I was using a german one).

[Digga]

BTW. NOD32 has addressed almost all the complains in the original post. I dumped Kaspersky after I discovered it adds hidden data streams to every file.

AFAIK it stores information if the file has been scanned and/or changed in ADS.
new versions of KAV Pro have the option not to do so and will give you the chance to delete it's traces if you allowed it to store infos there.

[legg]

I dont use any of this detection type software, no anti-virus, no adware, no spy software, no personal firewalls.  Interestingly, when I do check for such badies there are never any.  What I do use is Opera web browser and email client, I'm behind a SmoothWall firewall and I employ good browsing habits.  I only get spam in my free yahoo type email account, but never in my account with the ISP.

I'm another that don't use an AV. Last time one of my puters was infected by a virus was back in 1993 (or 1994) by Natas.