Best virus protection

[ripstick]

Just wondering what people think is the best.

[Dbl]

All free,

1. Avira

2. Avast

3. AVG

[BobT]

I've been using AVG (the free version) for the past few years and have been very pleased. No infections that I am aware of. I did get one false alarm once. I was able to reinstall it without a problem. The newer upgrade fixed the cause.

I previously used McAfee and it worked well too. The only complaint that I had, which prompted me to try AVG, was that it was a resource hog. Part of the problem was my PC but I could tell a huge difference when I installed AVG.

[Surface Tension]

I use Avira and AVG but I use Zone Alarm for a firewall.

IMO you get a virus it will be faster and your better off in the long run to start over.

Have you stuff backed up as it should be a on a partition at least.

Format and reinstall Windows. Your PC will run faster and all that junk you installed but ended up not using is long gone.

I've built and worked on a lot of puters and have come to this conclusion when dealing with PC owners. People think a PC is some kind of friend. To format for them is like putting a dog down. Let it go, its just software your not using and a format makes it all better.

[Matt C]

I totally agree Frank. I use AVG, and I reformat annually.

[CJH]

I had McAfee and dumped it because it was a major hog. I have Norton now, and it is waaaaaay faster. We have the suite so it has all of the PC performance utilities in it as well. Which is good for me since I am not an expert!

I do run Malwarebytes once a week as a double check.

[BobT]

When you reformat and reinstall all your software using your original installation CD's, don't you have to now reinstall all the updates, upgrades, etc. that were installed since you last reformatted?

[upnorth]

Yes Bob you need to redo all the updates.

At home I AVG on 2 PCs and Norton one, both work well. At work we have Mcaffe, don't like Mcaffee, a lot of problems. I agree that running a malware app every now and then is a good approach. AV doesn't catch everything.

[crothmeier]

i had norton previously and that ate up way to much resource, i now have AVG and it runs every night at 3:00am and i never know its there. been using it for years with no problems.

[BobT]

Yes Bob you need to redo all the updates.

That must be a lot of work. I think I'll just stick with my current maintenance plan.

[Jim Almquist]

Bob with the kids laptop it took over 5 hours to get the updates downloaded and installed. I have a disk for XP that has Service Pack 2 and that saves a lot of time getting up to SP3.

I have used free AVG for years and have had no problems.

[JollyT]

I hate Mcaffee, Norton and Kaspersky. They are all way too resource hungry and intrusive. I have AVG and Malwarebytes installed, plus Windows Defender which is now called something else. I may also be running various network sniffing tools.

[harvey lee]

I have used many and the best protection I have found hands down is Bit Defender.

I'm very happy with it and it doea not seem to slow me down at all.

[upnorth]

The real resource pigs our the anti spyware/malware watchdogs. I work in IT and when we started rolling out anti spyware/malware clients on some of the older PCs with less than a Gig of ram they became literally useless.

We can thank the hacker community for all this b s.

[BobT]

Imagine what they could do if they channeled their efforts toward positive goals.

[upnorth]

There are IT security companies that do recruit these guys to find security holes. Kind of a "it takes a thief" thing.

[harvey lee]

I can see that the anti virus companies could spread new problems. Then they will tell you that you need their upgrade.

What a great way to increase profits.

Kind of like a gas station throwing nails on the street. More tire repair I guess.

Thats our new world we live in. Whats in it for me.

[knoppers]

I have charter high speed, and they offer free charter security suite, but I always thought this made my puter run very slow, I almost wish I had dial up again, it was that bad.

well I just got a new puter with windows 7, and charter doe's not have it for that, so I put in a 90 day trail of norton, and can say this runs sooo much better, very fast. when my 90 days is up, charter will have it working for windows 7, but I may pay for the norton.

[ripstick]

Well I guess it looks like its going to be dump ,reload ,partition and avg.While I am at it more ram. Oh yeah little help from frank maybe.

[Chef]

Give Trend Micro PC Cillin a look. We've been using it for about 4 yrs. and it's very highly rated.

[Central Bassman]

A Mac...

[Whoaru99]

I have charter high speed, and they offer free charter security suite, but I always thought this made my puter run very slow, I almost wish I had dial up again, it was that bad.

well I just got a new puter with windows 7, and charter doe's not have it for that, so I put in a 90 day trail of norton, and can say this runs sooo much better, very fast. when my 90 days is up, charter will have it working for windows 7, but I may pay for the norton.

Well...you can't compare how Charter ran on some (likely) ancient computer vs how it will run on a new one.

I run the Charter Security Suite and it seems to work just fine on my computer that is a few years old.

[MuleShack]

ESET (Nod32) Security Suite is suppose to be in the top 2 for protection and speed of loading not using too much PC resources. (Cnet Review)

The AV is easy to work with as far as setting up levels etc. The security suite is a little more indepth if you want to go manual on it but once you set it up it runs with out any interuptions to your work.

I have the AV on my PC and the Suite on my laptop.

They are comparable in price with the rest.