I've recently switched to NIS 2012. I never had a problem with it, unlike most of my AV experiences. I recommend this product. :)
My experience with.
Avast - Many problems, conflicts, and misses a lot.
MSE - Doesn't detect a lot of viruses.
Trend Micro - Doesn't detect certain malwares, spyware.
AVG - Usually causes problems and misses a lot
Avira - Unstable, misses a lot.
^ It may look biased and obsolete, it's just my experience.
When running AVG I didn't run into a lot of problems and on a few occasions even when I had that problem disabled from starting up with Windows it actually came to life out of nowhere to flag a trojan some site was trying to get on!
But just like too many other older program was found to be lacking in detection "hidden" items when running a full system sweep! One program would catch this type of bug while you needed some other program along with it to catch another type! Back and forth, back and forth.... blah blah blah with trying out several program until finally with one now seeing a 100% success rate along with discuvery not seen with any other!
When you get into a program seeing that type of success rate stay with it rather then needing a dozen to do the same work! If you are not able to buy a full retail program being on a tight budget at least add on some other items like Web of Trust and even the Crawler Security Toolbar which has en effective alert system to flag bad sites. AVG has that as well as Clam but requires you to install that program to see the option included.
Nothing is ever totally 100%. But you'll know when you have one of the top programs when it finds what others miss!
True, nothing is 100% guaranteed and common sense is another layer of protection. I personally use MSE and MBAM-free with scans on demand. No probs whatsoever. You don't need to spend a hard earned dollar for an AV, but this is my opinion :)
Well when running strictly freebies past tense here I always had to have two or three other programs installed as well to find things the av installed at the time would miss! I simply got sick of the need for several when only one or two max would do the job even more effectively!
I never go by reviews on any however but by in use daily to see what will do the best. There's an old saying of "you get what you pay for" when making the right choice as far as system protections too.
Free is always better then nothing at all! There isn't doubt about that at all. And certainly common sense can be just as large a factor as to which program(s) you eventually go with.
I'll throw out a little challenge here.
If you're in Tech support work of any kind, you've heard variants of this axiom: "never underestimate the creativity of stupid people".
if there is a way for a user to trash his/her system, they will find it.
in that regard, I Have yet to find a tool that will effectively scan, lockdown, monitor, or otherwise prevent Infections-Via-Toolbars, ESPECIALLY for the worst browser out there: Internet Exploder. If any of you know of such, post something.
Also its really helpful in this discussion for the experienced among us [i point three fingers at ME] to be careful to distinguish PREVENTATIVE tools/commentary vs. REMEDIATION. Its one thing to say your choice of prevention works well 'cause you never see a problem, but its quite a different animal to work on a client's diseased rig after the gate has been propped open and all sorts of gremlins have taken up residence.
And, repeating myself, the top 2 paths, these days, via which malware gets in are:
1. Toolbars
2. Clicks... clicking on those deceptive links.
the 2., AVAST is very good at warning about, as is Chrome - flagging web pages BEFORE the user gets on them, re: the existence of hot links to malicious wares, but nothing is perfect in this regard, in part because there is a hazy line between patently MALICIOUS code and mere Intrusive Marketeering & Redirectors.
I got stung once while trying Avast out! AVG Free on the hand at least came to life one day while actually disabled in the msconfig when a trojan got stuffed on me back in the XP days!
With the exception of only a few toolbars I certainly agree that many addon bars leave me wide open for a variety of things! In reality there are the "pros and cons" regardless of what programs you run. The two systems one desktop the other a laptop were infected by the user not "paying attention" to the snare of fake spyware programs. I-Worms in disguise!
I really love Norton Internet Security 360. My computer came with it 3 years ago, and I just keep renewing it every year. Never had any viruses. Some say it may be a memory hog. I never had any experience with a less memory hogging anti virus...but this works fantastic!
Norton used to always have a bad rep for being "bloated"! That was always the main complaint.
In the last few years however more focus by software companies like Symantec and GFI has been at increasing web security in order to curve the volume of newer malwares as a way to improve on their own products.
Having had VIPRE av on now since May 2010 I can say that one runs so quietly in the background and does seem to live up to the company's claims of not chewing up resources! At no time has it ever interfered with any resource intensive program even when running more then virtual machine. In fact while in a vm without any protections installed VIPRE extended it's own web filtering there as well as seen with the 7 host OS!
Well I imagine the full Norton 360 program may be more bloated then just the Internet Security. Maybe?
Avast for me. just brilliant .
Quote