Anti-virus software - what would you recommend?

I've used Norton Internet Security for a couple of years and it is a huge system hog that just slows everything down. I'm getting a new PC running Windows Vista 64-bit, so I'm looking to get some anti-virus, just not sure what.

I've used AVG before which was OK, but did let a couple of trojans through prompting a full system re-install and a switch to Norton.

So what anti-virus do you have and would you recommend it?

Norton 2009 is probably one of the best anti-virus software ever made to date. i switched from nod32 and couldn't be happier. It does not slow your pc down at all.

http://reviews.cnet.com/internet-security-and-firewall/norton-internet-security-2009/4505-3667_7-33246586.html?tag=mncol;lst

Norton 2009 is probably one of the best anti-virus software ever made to date. i switched from nod32 and couldn't be happier.

http://reviews.cnet.com/internet-security-and-firewall/norton-internet-security-2009/4505-3667_7-33246586.html?tag=mncol;lst

Deihmos

Honestly I love Avast it's got a great surface an ez to use Scan Feature and it takes up like 352K for a Process which is really nice to have.mechwarrior_bob

Yeah, what's with everybody recommending retail antivirus packages? They are terrible imo. Avast is great, it's free, doesn't use up resources. I will never use anything like Norton, Mcafee, etc.

Get Avast and Spybot Search & Destroy. You'll be fine after that.

[QUOTE="mechwarrior_bob"]Honestly I love Avast it's got a great surface an ez to use Scan Feature and it takes up like 352K for a Process which is really nice to have.zomglolcats

Yeah, what's with everybody recommending retail antivirus packages? They are terrible imo. Avast is great, it's free, doesn't use up resources. I will never use anything like Norton, Mcafee, etc.

Get Avast and Spybot Search & Destroy. You'll be fine after that.

SO TRUE, Avast and Spybot are all you will ever need

Well personally i have absolutely nothing on my PC ... dont need it if your smart just a simple firewall is necessary.ColdfireTrilogy

Quoted for lulz.

Anyway, I've used AntiVir for a while now and it's caught things that AVG, Norton, and Kaspersky have all missed. Never had a problem with it hogging resources, even on my old pentium 3 machine.

Anyway, I've used AntiVir for a while now and it's caught things that AVG, Norton, and Kaspersky have all missed. Never had a problem with it hogging resources, even on my old pentium 3 machine.

The-Hegemon

Yeah, I use AntiVir, and it's always caught everything and has absolutely no effect on performance.

i recogmend getting a mac, seriously. )Breakfast_Clubber

Then you might as well suggest that we quit play PC games as well....

For my gaming PC, none. I don't connect to the net and refuse to install any software that slows down the system during gameplay. However that means you can't play MP or activate some of the newer games, so you might not like that idea, so check out Norton Internet Security 2009 which claims to have vastly improved the performance of real-time monitoring.Or since you are probably getting a multi-core processor with your new PC, don't worry about it so much; that is precisely what multi-core processors are good at, running multiple threads simultaneously. wigginender

You guys need to stop being so stiff. I don't use any anti-viruses. Or firewalls. Or anything for that matter.

How do you guys manage to get so many viruses? Do you guys just download every .exe you find that's under 1 megabyte or something? I've only caught a few viruses in the past few years. Took me 5 minutes to remove them manually and then I was good.

1) Playing games doesn't give you viruses. No matter what.

2) Unless you use outdated internet browsers, surfing the internet alone won't give you any viruses. At the most you'll catch some harmless spyware/adware cookies. I recommend downloading Spybot Search and Destroy and Immunize - and you should be fine.

3) Hackers aren't randomly targetting you. For 99.9% of PC users, your firewall is doing nothing except hassling you when you try to play games.

i've often wondered if some of these so called anti-virus software companies actually put out viruses and stuff just to try to get people to buy their product...maybe i'm just too skeptical in my older age.iwilson1296

AVG istrulythe bestlatir1993

i dont understand why people say this, avg was a virus its'self for a long time...

There is no point paying for security software for 95% of internet users. Just get the free stuff.

Avast, AVG and AntiVir are all great!

BTW: iam a professional pc technician by trade so if that helps you decide.

There is no point paying for security software for 95% of internet users. Just get the free stuff.

Avast, AVG and AntiVir are all great!

BTW: iam a professional pc technician by trade so if that helps you decide.

Daytona_178

[QUOTE="Daytona_178"]

There is no point paying for security software for 95% of internet users. Just get the free stuff.

Avast, AVG and AntiVir are all great!

BTW: iam a professional pc technician by trade so if that helps you decide.

Lach0121

if you browse the internet and download sometimesit would be wise to have one!

Try the norton 2009 trial..it's now the fastest you can find,,,,I can't believe that some people don't use anti virus software,,Email is a huge portal for viruses......:roll:ttomm1946

Fastest for what? Scanning your comp? Fastest does not mean it's best.

[QUOTE="ttomm1946"]Try the norton 2009 trial..it's now the fastest you can find,,,,I can't believe that some people don't use anti virus software,,Email is a huge portal for viruses......:roll:zomglolcats

Fastest for what? Scanning your comp? Fastest does not mean it's best.

Faster, less resources, detection is spot on and has new tech that makes everything faster. Read the reviews.

[QUOTE="Lach0121"][QUOTE="Daytona_178"]

There is no point paying for security software for 95% of internet users. Just get the free stuff.

Avast, AVG and AntiVir are all great!

BTW: iam a professional pc technician by trade so if that helps you decide.

Daytona_178

if you browse the internet and download sometimesit would be wise to have one!

but for the peoplet that dont why would they need it, just rock it with a router, and be done.

Avira AntiVir Personal

Peer Guardian 2

Malewarebytes Anti-Malware

Those are my personal favs,

I used to use freeware avg ,because nearly everyone mentions it. Sadly its quite useless. I used to feel secure because it had daily updates and would scan my pc automatically daily, but recently my pc had become infected with a trojan/virus. But it never detected anything. Even if i wasnt on any website some random pop up ads would get displayed on my pc . I had tried avast before but its thorough scans would take way too long on my pc and it never found anything.

So i tried eset nod32 after randomly looking up some software. OMG its the best. Strangely i never even heard of this software before. It found 2 trojans,some adware and few other pests and got rid of them. no more popups or random processes popping up in my windows task manager. I coudnt be happier. Sadly its only valid for 31 days. What will i do then. Im not willing to pay.*cries*

Try the norton 2009 trial..it's now the fastest you can find,,,,I can't believe that some people don't use anti virus software,,Email is a huge portal for viruses......:roll:ttomm1946

The :roll: means your joking - right? Because you can't get viruses from email unless you visit links in spam mail. :P

The :roll: means your joking - right? Because you can't get viruses from email unless you visit links in spam mail. :P GodLovesDead

You are joking right? Because everyone knows that email clients that support HTML are highly susceptible to scripts running in the background meaning that you only need to view the message to be infected.

Try the norton 2009 trial..it's now the fastest you can find,,,,I can't believe that some people don't use anti virus software,,Email is a huge portal for viruses......:roll:ttomm1946

I've used Norton from '06 to '09, my last custom rig being bought with a fresh OS with Norton '07 on it, and in my personal experience, it's a resource hog and way too expensive when there are cheap (and completely free) alternatives available.  Sure, it's nice to have a flashy graphical menu and 100 kinds of scans and diag tools, but half of it is useless to a normal user.

The different in bootup without Norton was at least 30 seconds to 1 minute after I installed Avast, and Norton was insanely difficult to uninstall completely when I was trying to get rid of it.  Ad in that all the random crashes and ccAPP BS preventing a clean shutdown, yeah... I wouldn't recommend it.

i had kaspersky which was good then my free trial ran out but now i just use avg free. 

Like other users have stated, if your smart you can easily avoid viruses, this includes check the files you download and not using IE as a browser...

you can go here for some anit virus software tests and resluts, there are a little on responce times aswell.

http://www.virusbtn.com/news/2008/09_02

Avast

 Has kept me computer safe. :)