Virus Protection

[PK3]

Hello All-

Bought a new laptop and will need to add virus protection for it. Any recommendations? We do have Century Link for our IE provider in case that matters. Also, free would be preferrred but not mandatory.

Thanks in advance.

[mainbutter]

When it comes to protecting your computer via software, the first rule for me is

STAY AWAY FROM THE COMMON NAMES.

McAfee and Norton aren't worth bothering with.

Every year various people test the different virus protection software out there, and give them ratings. I don't know what has scored the best in recent years, but Nod32 and Kaspersky were consistently among the top contenders when I was in college. I had Nod32, and it protected me on a few occasions against bad stuff that it found. My favorite part about Nod32 was it didn't eat up much of my computing power while keeping me safe, not all virus protection software can say the same.

Google will be your friend in comparing virus protection software.

I currently don't run any virus protection software, keep my important files (exclusively pictures kept for sentimental reasons) backed up, and don't take part in too much risky internet surfing behavior. If I did stock day trading from my computer or kept vast financial information saved, I'd run something, but my computer lacks anything of true financial value that I'd lose out on if I had to reformat.

The primary reasons I would run antivirus software was if I was partaking in more risky browsing or being part of a large network of computers (like when I was at college).

[LMITOUT]

I have no problems with McAfee. Running it on two PC's.

[Scott K]

AVG free edition for me.

[RuKiddingMe]

In my corp environment I have Sophos running, it's a very good solution and relatively easy to manage.

On my personal computer, I fly with out a net, BUT I also know what to look for and what to do vs. not to do. As for my wife and other family memebers I install Avira - takes care of its self pretty well and no where near the resource hawg that Norton McAfee AVG Trend are.

[Jim43]

Avast is another great anti-virus.

[Moose]

+1 AVG free

[BobT]

AVG free. Been using it for years without any issues and no virus attacks (that I know of) yet. Used McAfee but found it is too much of a resource hog. It got so bad my mouse would quit working while it updated its .dat files.

[harvey lee]

AVG for free for me.

[PurpleFloyd]

I used AVG and Avast in the past. I have been using Microsoft Security Essentials for a few years now and it works as well as they did.

[Shack]

AVG has been very good to me over the years and I use the Pro version but you can not beat the free version for the price and is worth the install.

Avast is a good security tool as I do not recall it ever being compromised when I have been using it. The downside to Avast is that it locks down its own ports and these ports remain even after a third party uninstaller has been used. I should say this was something which happened with 2010-2011 versions and may have been corrected. They claimed it was necessary for secure updating but IMO its the cost of using the free version because they can come and go as they please even long after the software has been thoroughly uninstalled. I believe I had to reinstall the OS to actually take care of the issue. Since then I have not used their software.

KasperSky is gaining ground and has potential of becoming the home based free software of choice. It's more driven for commercial use but offer the home based security packages.

[delcecchi]

Any suggestions for a MAC? I have a friend who has one and just got a scare. I told her to download the free version of Sophos, but really don't have any specific knowledge.

Suggestions?

[merkman]

Hello All-

Bought a new laptop and will need to add virus protection for it. Any recommendations?

[masoct3]

Simple....Microsoft Security Essensials. You can find it on their HSOforum.

[Borch]

Any suggestions for a MAC? I have a friend who has one and just got a scare. I told her to download the free version of Sophos, but really don't have any specific knowledge.

Suggestions?

We used virus barrier for a few years and it caught plenty of stuff. Most of which was a risk to PCs and in a dual platform environment that was a concern. People wonder what's going on when they get sent virus infected documents from what should be a trusted source. The are a few bugs out there for macs but they are far fewer than the windows machines.

There are a few good free options out there and Sophos is one of them.

[FishLocker]

There is a site for freeware called filehippo and I have used Comodo as a secondary firewall malware antivirus from that site. Since this is on a new laptop you are in a perfect position to use it as it learns safe applications as you use them and will block or sandbox anything you donot want or is in question till you figure out if it something you want on your computer. It even alerted me once to a street warrior (guy driving down the street trying to get into unprotected networks and do dastardly things) and it asked me if I would like to allow this..of course the answer was no. Pretty nice program and not a heavy power hog. Lots of freeware at the filehippo site.

[upnorth]

I have used Avast and AVG free versions at home. At work we use and enterprise version of symantec. Have also used Mcafee in an enterprise environment. All are good and for the most part it all revolves around how fast the update the virus defs and how often you are getting the updates.