What's the Best Anti-virus?

Does anyone know if avira has disabled messages in their AV? Because I'm no longer getting "Virus definitions updated" pop-ups anymore. I have to check in the system tray if it has been updated. And it's supposed to update twice a day, and when I don't get pop-ups I don't know if it has even been updated! And my PC CPU and RAM used to increase when it updated, now it doesn't do that. I don't know if I should trust avira anymore... I tried reinstalling but still the same. Sigh.

I can get Symantec Endpoint Protection for free from work - so I've been using that on my desktop and two notebooks. I also had it installed on an Asus netbook but when I upgraded it to Vista (from XP) it didn't seem to like that. After several un/re-installs I loaded McAfee (also free from work) and it seems to work fine. I like the interface of SEP better but that's probably because I've been using Symantec/Norton since the mid 1990's.

I also use employer provided SEP :-(

Norton AntiVirus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Symantec and other major antivirus vendors have whitelisted the Magic Lantern trojan, rendering their antivirus products, including Norton AntiVirus, incapable of detecting it. Concerns around this whitelisting include uncertainties about Magic Lantern's full surveillance potential and whether hackers could subvert it and redeploy it for purposes outside of law enforcement.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_AntiVirus#cite_note-28

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i'm amazed mcafee is still considered a company. their founder is a certified homicidal sociopath.

all the technical people in the community really need to adopt new terminology for these things.
the AV vendors talk about "defense" as though their products address such. few do.
AV for the most part is remediation, not defense. when we banter about good and bad we don't distinguish.
the one thing AVAST did very well was "defense" in look-ahead link threat assessment. I don't see any other freebee product doing that effectively, though the Chrome browser team at least try to maintain blacklists that can accomplish a little of the same thing. Aside from these measures, are any of the others doing ANY defensive measures?

and if its remediation we're really talking about here, why bother? why load something like the pointless Symantec wad on your machine? what are you expecting it to do for you as it menaces in the background? 50/50 chance it itself is likely to do damage to your experience. as the old saying goes; one should not mistake incompetence for malice.
and if we address remediation, there are more precise tools to be used for that effort, though the effort is necessarily time consuming. anyone that is experienced at trying to undo the damage of a real infection learns the better path is usually to zero the drive securely and reload.

zapp22 said:

i'm amazed mcafee is still considered a company. their founder is a certified homicidal sociopath.
~~~

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I'm no fan of McAfee's product line, but the founder resigned from the company in 1994 and Intel has owned the company since 2011.

zapp22 said:

~~~
the one thing AVAST did very well was "defense" in look-ahead link threat assessment.
~~~

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What criteria did you use to determine that this was done well?

ICit2lol said:

Yep well it is just broken down into sections and section 2 is the real time scanners.
Having said that I think you are doing the best thing because as someone else mentioned and I did too that for the small cost you get more features. I particularly like the safe banking with Kaspersky and it is slightly cheaper than the Bitdfender which I set up for someone just last week and to be honest the GUI's are similar but I prefer the Kaspersky.
I find the new configuration set up for the new (2014) Kaspersky takes bit of getting used to but am quite happy with it now - if you get stuck and choose Kaspersky.

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ICit2lol you're experienced with Kaspersky and I'm new to it, so I have a question:

When I ran Kaspersky for the 1st time a few days ago, it scanned over 180,000 files.
But NOW if I run the FULL scan manually (not the quick scan), it only scans anywhere from 6 - 9000 files.
Is that normal for Kaspersky? Am I missing something here?
I know the "Quick Scan" runs about 6-7000 on my computer, but the Full Scan?

Dallas 7 said:

ICit2lol said:

Yep well it is just broken down into sections and section 2 is the real time scanners.
Having said that I think you are doing the best thing because as someone else mentioned and I did too that for the small cost you get more features. I particularly like the safe banking with Kaspersky and it is slightly cheaper than the Bitdfender which I set up for someone just last week and to be honest the GUI's are similar but I prefer the Kaspersky.
I find the new configuration set up for the new (2014) Kaspersky takes bit of getting used to but am quite happy with it now - if you get stuck and choose Kaspersky.

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ICit2lol you're experienced with Kaspersky and I'm new to it, so I have a question:

When I ran Kaspersky for the 1st time a few days ago, it scanned over 180,000 files.
But NOW if I run the FULL scan manually (not the quick scan), it only scans anywhere from 6 - 9000 files.
Is that normal for Kaspersky? Am I missing something here?
I know the "Quick Scan" runs about 6-7000 on my computer, but the Full Scan?

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Well lets put it like this it really does depend on how you set the heuristics scan levels in the GUI - like I said I always set mine to the highest level as I am pretty paranoid for want of a better way of putting it and I always find the first scan (full) goes through every single part of whatever you have loaded and does take longer to complete.
I shall endeavour to find out why the scan time is shorter as mine is just the same on my five machines.

It may be because of a feature Norton has wherein if a scanned file is found to be trusted or non malicious it will skip it on subsequent scans.

that's a worthy question. the qualitative part, I have no criteria other than this: if one takes the hint that the webshield gives, and avoids bullying ahead to the website, no harm done. in many cases, the 'shield identifies a Trojan or other miscreant indicated for the website and blocks a specific link embedded on the page. Can you name me any other conventional/competing "a/v" package that does this? I cannot. Chrome does that, using different techniques and my non-scientific observation is that it will encounter fewer "hits".
These features, to me, are the good ones. merely scanning on-demand or after-the-fact are remedial measures and there are a lot of tools for remediation if one finds it interesting.
I'm more interested in Defense.

all that goodness aside, Team AVAST have lost credibility by downgrading their user experience to the spamomatic category

UsernameIssues said:

zapp22 said:

i'm amazed mcafee is still considered a company. their founder is a certified homicidal sociopath.
~~~

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I'm no fan of McAfee's product line, but the founder resigned from the company in 1994 and Intel has owned the company since 2011.

zapp22 said:

~~~
the one thing AVAST did very well was "defense" in look-ahead link threat assessment.
~~~

Click to expand...

What criteria did you use to determine that this was done well?

Click to expand...

Britton30 said:

It may be because of a feature Norton has wherein if a scanned file is found to be trusted or non malicious it will skip it on subsequent scans.

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Yes I think you are right mate I was sort of assuming that myself but thought I had better check.
For example I took that the OS in general would have been scanned at least but on refection got to thinking that as malware can infect anything at any time I would make sure to be sure.

Dallas 7 said:

ICit2lol said:

Yep well it is just broken down into sections and section 2 is the real time scanners.
Having said that I think you are doing the best thing because as someone else mentioned and I did too that for the small cost you get more features. I particularly like the safe banking with Kaspersky and it is slightly cheaper than the Bitdfender which I set up for someone just last week and to be honest the GUI's are similar but I prefer the Kaspersky.
I find the new configuration set up for the new (2014) Kaspersky takes bit of getting used to but am quite happy with it now - if you get stuck and choose Kaspersky.

Click to expand...

ICit2lol you're experienced with Kaspersky and I'm new to it, so I have a question:

When I ran Kaspersky for the 1st time a few days ago, it scanned over 180,000 files.
But NOW if I run the FULL scan manually (not the quick scan), it only scans anywhere from 6 - 9000 files.
Is that normal for Kaspersky? Am I missing something here?
I know the "Quick Scan" runs about 6-7000 on my computer, but the Full Scan?

Click to expand...

Dallas what version are you running? 2013 or 2014 because in 13 you can set the program to scan only new and changed files see pic. I cannot find the same settings in 2014 and am assuming they are done by default.
So the first scan takes a while the second one doesn't scan the same files unless they are new or have been changed since the last scan.

ICit2lol said:

Dallas 7 said:

ICit2lol you're experienced with Kaspersky and I'm new to it, so I have a question:

When I ran Kaspersky for the 1st time a few days ago, it scanned over 180,000 files.
But NOW if I run the FULL scan manually (not the quick scan), it only scans anywhere from 6 - 9000 files.
Is that normal for Kaspersky? Am I missing something here?
I know the "Quick Scan" runs about 6-7000 on my computer, but the Full Scan?

Click to expand...

Dallas what version are you running? 2013 or 2014 because in 13 you can set the program to scan only new and changed files see pic. I cannot find the same settings in 2014 and am assuming they are done by default.
So the first scan takes a while the second one doesn't scan the same files unless they are new or have been changed since the last scan.

Click to expand...

I believe it's 2014. It says: version 14.0.0.4651 (D)
After some experimentation I think you're correct about scanning "new and changed files" by default. Not positive, but it appears that way.
You're right, the 2014 GUI does not offer the actual checkbox option to "Scan Only New & Changed Files" like the 2013 GUI did.
However for what it's worth, I did discover how to manually order a true "Full" scan and not just a "New & Changed Files" scan.

Open Kaspersky, click Settings > Computer Scan > Scan Scope > select Full > click Add
Then single click C:\ and click OK and that's it.
You can also double click C:\ if you wish to itemize items from the C drive.
You can also "Remove" any items you've Added if you change your mind.

After that, I manually ordered a Full scan and it proceeded to fully scan the entire C drive. I tried it twice in a row and got a full scan twice.
If I elected to "Remove" that C:\ drive selection, I assume it would revert back to the automatic New & Changed method.

Bottom line is, you can run a true full scan of any drive you select, or itemize certain objects from within that drive.

Thanks ICit2lol for pointing me in the right direction.

Not a problem Dallas that is just what I set mine at when I installed it mate. For full scans I set mine for once a week and the quick scans when updates are loaded and then whenever you use sticks etc.

Don't think you will be disappointed with it mate I am not. Mind you keep the MBAM, SAS and ADWCleaner as on call scans because they will find stuff KISS misses from time to time.

Dallas I cannot get my email link to run properly but in reply to your query re KISS and MBAM running together - the only time I had any problems was with running MBAM in real time as an on call scanner mate it is fine.

Looking over the Avast forum site today, a lot of the posters are switching to Bitdefender.

I have no issues with Avast, it protects me, when I scan I hit the full scan button. Once I configured it, I could care less what the interface looks like. A Guy

A Guy said:

I have no issues with Avast, it protects me, when I scan I hit the full scan button. Once I configured it, I could care less what the interface looks like. A Guy

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I agree, the same with all of the paid suites. It even updates all by itself, I have Norton and it's all on autopilot.

COMPUTIAC said:

Looking over the Avast forum site today, a lot of the posters are switching to Bitdefender.

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Yep well I have tested the free Bitdefender and it is light and good except for a few naggy pop ups.

ICit2lol said:

COMPUTIAC said:

Looking over the Avast forum site today, a lot of the posters are switching to Bitdefender.

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Yep well I have tested the free Bitdefender and it is light and good except for a few naggy pop ups.

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Ya bitdefender and Kapersky are consistently at the top of the charts for awhile now in av test and av comparatives.

I wasn't aware that Bitdefender offered a free version, so thank you. I will look into that.

The only thing is I am concerned about:
Does the free version use the same virus engine as the paid one?
(That is the question. As only the paid one is tested.)

Still using Panda here, its working really well in my testing.

How does Panda compare to Avast ?