Best free and best paid antivirus?

[EarthDog]

This has nothing to do with respect, but everything to do with readability of posts. While you may have good points in your posts, with you specifically they are lost in two places, 1. Translation. 2. The long drawn out nature of the posts.

Wordy posts are not really the big problem, its the language barrier AND it being long that is the cause for me to not bother reading most them anymore. Time is too precious to have to attempt to read through long posts AND try to decipher what you 'mean' in them.

While it may not 'feel' like it, the reason why I have repeatedly mentioned this to you was because I know in those long *** posts are facts that are helpful to members. I am trying to help your posts be read more frequently, truth be told...

@ c6 - Hard to judge intelligence in what feels like rambling diatribes...

 

[c627627]

We should also rely on reader's and obviously the poster's intelligence to make their own judgements.


Original poster, you should update your thread here with personal experience of what you liked/disliked with new versions of products you actually tried.

 

[Ivy]

feels like rambling diatribes...

Thats not the first time you use those words. Although my words are still as soft as marshmallows.

I tell you something to add in PM because its to much politics (against rules). Diatribes are in fact locked down by a true matter (check PM).

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Although my words are still as soft as marshmallows.

You may feel this way, but it doesn't always read "soft as marshmallows".

 

[Ivy]

No problem, im hardcore, you simply didnt experience the stuff i was experiencing so you simply have another judgement.

 

[c627627]

If somebody doesn't like an individual poster, they need to point out that forums have the ability to block displaying posts from an individual poster... All other "advice" should have been given in a private message from the beginning.


Hopefully we will now all abstain from giving any more off-topic public advice to anybody in this thread.

 

[wagex]

antivirus is MEH i do a scan every once in a while with trend micro house call, safe browsing practices / download practices i havent used antivirus on any pc in a long time not even MSE. the way i look at it real time virus watch is pointless long as you know what you are downloading and running if theres anything i want to try / download that seems sketchy i will download it and upload it to jotti fora good scan to see what it comes back with.

 

[c627627]

Strongly disagree because the analogy is to never use protection when being intimate with someone you recently met just because that person doesn't "look like" someone you need to use protection with.


On several occasions my anti-virus lit up like a X-Mas tree because a legitimate web site was taken over fully or partially by a third party.



Every few months we have this kind of a thread, and someone usually states the opinion that echoes this official Microsoft press release:

"Customers who follow safe browsing best practices are not likely to be compromised by any exploitation of the WMF vulnerability. Users should take care not to visit unfamiliar or un-trusted Web sites that could potentially host the malicious code."
Microsoft Corporation
January 3, 2006


A picture that shows how foolish that statement was is worth a thousand words. Less than six months before that statement was made, Microsoft's own web site was taken over and could have easily been used to inflict damage.

Dealing with Rootkits is no fun. Even if you make backups, after they zip all your personal files with an unbreakable password, you're going to have a headache if you saved just one new file after making a backup, let a lone several or hundreds. So even MSE is better than nothing.

 

[wagex]

welp if that happens i can reimage in a few minutes.

but i have intimate relations with my wife because i know and trust her i don't need protection...

going on like 6 years no virus protection no viruses, my computers reproductive organs arent oozing any foul juices yet. lol

edit: as i said just a scan with house call every once and a while to be sure i havent picked up anything funny seems suffiecient to me

 

[Super Nade]

I was an Avira beta user (no advts) until last week. I switched to Avast because Avira beta generated a lot of false positives, especially with Steam. I could not run Steam. My recommendation at this point would be Avast. As suggested above, a non-intrusive AV works best when paired with safe and sensible browsing practices.

 

[c627627]

Did you report this to them?
It would be interesting to know if non-test versions had the same problem with Steam? They experiment a lot in those Beta versions.

I am so upset with the new versions that I locked in the last Avira version where you can disable product updates: Avira AntiVir Personal 13.0.0.2832

I use the latest definitions but no product updates. Unfortunately that version only works with Windows 8.0 and not Windows 8.1.


In any case, always using the latest product version (let alone Beta testing versions) of Anti-virus software is tricky business because they can and do negatively impact the OS, up to not being able to boot. Most manufacturers messed up at one point or another in the past and released an OS killing update. Avast made the news as I recall several times for releasing new versions which installed through auto-update and messed up the OS.

Product updates and definition updates are two different things. Product version should be the most stable one, it may be dangerous to just update and update product version because SO MANY TIMES they all messed up and had to issues patches, but what if you can't boot...


Also, it is important to do this on Avira or else you will be bugged all the time about everything & anything:

Post what happens and if this new version has anything you don't like, or notice about it.


The configuration wizard will have this UNCHECKED: Application, Games, Jokes, Programs that violate the private domain, and Unusual runtime compression)

DO NOT CHECK THOSE.


Otherwise, Avira will bug you all the time for everything you want to do or install. That's too paranoid. So leave those things UNCHECKED.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

I was an Avira beta user (no advts) until last week. I switched to Avast because Avira beta generated a lot of false positives, especially with Steam. I could not run Steam. My recommendation at this point would be Avast. As suggested above, a non-intrusive AV works best when paired with safe and sensible browsing practices.

+1 Love Avast

 

[Theocnoob]

C6, saw your post a few posts back about me posting back with my experience of programs I have tried so far. Honestly, so far I haven't tried anything. There are posts here, especially from you, warning about how the latest Avira can screw things up and is too heavy and disable this and that "or else". It's freaking me out... I think I might stick with MSE for the time being. Does that make me an @ hole for taking everybody's time up in this thread? Possibly. I'd rather look at it as me having made a very informed decision based on the information that was provided to me by various other posters here.
Ivy, your novels have been both informative and cryptic. I appreciate your posts, but as Earthdog says, you really need to try to keep it to 1 or 2 paragraphs, and not go off on diatribes about your views on the world, not wanting to sound like a "Monkey dipped in wontons", and other things like that you say. Just trying to help out. I'd read a lot more of your posts if you stuck to the subject at hand and kept it short.

ED and especially C6, you guys are invaluable and your service and helpfulness will not be forgotten.

 

[neo668]

I would just install MSE and SpywareTerminator and call it a day. Both are free and both have real-time protection. MSE can scan your computer once a week automatically. You can manually scan with SpywareTerminator whenever you like, but I would say once every 3 days at least. And practice save browsing. Torrenting should not affect you if you have these 2 installed.

 

[kommanderkodiak]

Paid Antivirus recommendation: ESET NOD32

http://www.eset.com/us/home/products/antivirus/

 

[ztdesigninc]

I was on AVG until 2 years ago when it became basically bloatware and used so much power, now on avast! cool but the notifications can be annoying and the softwares seems to always need updating!

 

[Velocity]

bitdefender and malwarebytes for me.

 

[Theocnoob]

I'd like to hear if Avira is still giving false positives with Steam before I install it. I use Steam a fair bit.

 

[caddi daddi]

anti virus? we don't need no stinking anti virus.
I use a little cheap, junk hp dc5700 with linux on it, pick any distro you might find, nothing else I own gets conneted to the net and i never have issues.

 

[c627627]

I'd like to hear if Avira is still giving false positives with Steam before I install it. I use Steam a fair bit.

The poster who reported that was using a Beta test version.
Using a beta version of an anti-virus program is not a good idea. That is the one piece of software you want to be 100% stable. It affects the operating system.


I am looking for actual experiences that people have where one antivirus program was actually responsible for something getting through and then they switched to something else because that something else had better definitions.

"I never had any issues" is what 100% of people say *before they get an issue* and find out the hard way that their antivirus program's definitions suck!


Something got through my Norton defenses, that was the only reason I switched to Avira.