What's the Best Anti-virus?

[A Guy]

The Bitdefender that scores well is the paid suite. I believe the free is very limited in options. A Guy

 

[zapp22]

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

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

just installed it on a non-essential system to give it a try. If any of you see a responsible article re: serious testing on BD, I'd like to read it so please post link.

 

[zapp22]

some of you who have also used avast recently may have seen what, to me, was one of the "last straws" - any/most/all website downloads triggered the shield, and the timer was such that one could not intervene quickly enough to keep the legit website from being blacklisted, resulting in remediation of AVAST to unlist.
at least in this case they admit the error are trying to do cleanup.
What this tells me is that the team's Software Dev Process has gone lax. That level of miscode should have never made it TO the Beta stage, must less out in the wild. Something is amiss in the org.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=143211.0

 

[UsernameIssues]

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

some of you who have also used avast recently may have seen what, to me, was one of the "last straws" - any/most/all website downloads triggered the shield, and the timer was such that one could not intervene quickly enough to keep the legit website from being blacklisted, resulting in remediation of AVAST to unlist.
at least in this case they admit the error are trying to do cleanup.
What this tells me is that the team's Software Dev Process has gone lax. That level of miscode should have never made it TO the Beta stage, must less out in the wild. Something is amiss in the org.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=143211.0

I started to make a post in response to A Guy's post to point out that AVAST, BitDefender free and Panda Cloud did not detect two infected files that have been in the wild since 20 Dec. More important than me finding a couple of files that get by these 3 tools is the fact that AVAST broke virustotal.com. Pressing the scan button does nothing in IE11 with 64bit tabs (EPM). You have to lower IE's security settings by turning EPM off to get the virustotal scan button to work. The AVAST plugins are listed as 32bit and 64bit. They should work with EPM turned on. That said, it is tough to write these plug-ins. I feel for the staff.

I aborted my post when virustotal went down - thus I could not post a link to the scans of the infected files. (I also needed to go to sleep - so I opted not use an alternate scanning service like Jotti.)

 

[A Guy]

I'm sure no choice is perfect, you can only choose what works best for you amongst the better performers preferably. The AV is just part of a layered defense as well, so what slips by one guardian is hopefully caught by another.

I remember when Bitdefender free came out, it sounded promising, but it's lack of options was glaring

Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition review | Ghacks

They did add some functionality

Bitdefender Antivirus Free Adds Quarantine Ability | HOTforSecurity

It is, or course, a "cloud" program. Would be good for the person who just wants it to do all the work. The lack of options would drive a geek bats likely But install it and the latest Secunia PSI on those trouble friends PCs you end up cleaning every month, and maybe they'd at least stay up to date and virus free.

A Guy

 

[andrew129260]

Panda is very lacking in options, there really is nothing to configure. Having said that though, its very light. And it never bothers me with popups that are not needed. Or ads. Its decent speed at scanning, and has caught several bad test files. It has not failed me yet. Then again, I never have ever had a virus that I am aware of. Not once. But in testing in a vm, its fun to see a AV at work.

Just like a guy stated, no choice is ever perfect, you must pick what is best for you.
For me right now, that is panda. I have tried every AV product out there that scores well on AV comparatives and av testing websites. Unfortunately, I don't like most of them. I used to love avast, but with the multiple ads, the constant nagging to upgrade, the bugs-and worst of all: The added "grimefighter" popping up ads asking to speed up your computer, avast is in the dumps. I feel ashamed to have ever recommended avast now. They are just grabbing money anymore.

@username issues

Is there any AV you tested with your own self tests that seem to be good? What do you use? I know about the company sep, but what do you actually use?
Curious on your thoughts.

 

[UsernameIssues]

...But install it and the latest Secunia PSI on those trouble friends PCs you end up cleaning every month, and maybe they'd at least stay up to date and virus free.

A Guy

The non-profits that I support get infected the most. Bitdefender's EULA seems to allow their free version to be installed it such settings. Although, this part of the EULA seems to have lost something in the translation:

THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE LICENSE FOR THE PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY WITH THIS PRODUCT. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE.[/QUOTE]

However, Bitdefender automatically sends suspicious files to its servers in Romainia. I'm not sure that I could get the organizations to go for that. We'll just stick with letting the NSA have all of our docs

 

[UsernameIssues]

~~~
@username issues

Is there any AV you tested with your own self tests that seem to be good? What do you use? I know about the company sep, but what do you actually use?
Curious on your thoughts.

I only use SEP since I only use company supplied computers. I don't test the infected files that I find against SEP since the data logs are analyzed by my employer... so, I cannot comment on how well it detects stuff. I can say that SEP still has a few false positives that I can't get them to stop quarantining and we are not allowed to exclude files from SEP.

A simplistic way to look at the question "Is a tool good?" is:
Does it break stuff you need?
Do you get infected while "protected"?

Unfortunately, I must also pay attention to the EULA. Most home users don't have to read them too carefully. I'm still installing MSE for others for now. It does not break the stuff that they use.

To me, it is important to not break stuff. I encourage my uses to use virustotal before installing stuff, so I would not install AVAST until they stop breaking virustotal.

 

[andrew129260]

I agree.
Both good points. Just was curious what you used.

Its weird that avast would break virus total. I don't see how it could possibly do that. The web addon?

 

[Slartybart]

I recently came across this on-demand scanner - it's in Beta, but I tried it.
(not just because it has elephants )

herdProtect - Anti-Malware Multiscanning Platform in the Cloud

 

[matts6887]

Not sure what everyone else things; but I have been through a few different "varieties" of anti-virus software; including a aol supplied mcaffe anti virus which our family used for awhile, and ISP supplied anti virus from mcaffee(much more recent within the past couple years). and lastly; Ive had pretty good luck with the most recent install of avg anti-virus. I guess its a matter of preference as to who prefers what etc.; but when it comes down to it; there are some clear winners and some clear not-so-much winners as far as the anti virus category goes.

 

[Dallas 7]

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.

ICit2lol I think KIS is a good product, but for about a week it was a PITA.
It appears the KIS 2014 version was not properly vetted for problems in the Beta stage.
Had to spend some time searching Kaspersky's Forum to figure out what was going on.

Some web pages were loading extremely slow. Like molasses in January.
Also upon start up and reboot, KIS was loading so slow that it wouldn't start till about 2 minutes after everything else was already up and running, possibly leaving the computer unprotected, and it wasn't due to a setting.

I discovered on their forum that many others had experienced these same two problems.
One Mod stated when you install the product, it may take several days for the patches to become available to you, even if it's an older patch.
Thankfully he was right. A few days later a couple patches downloaded that corrected both issues.

Kaspersky is running fine now, but it seems to me they should've fixed those problems during the Beta stage instead of putting it out on the shelf as a finished product.

 

[Dallas 7]

ICit2lol I tried to PM you but it said you couldn't receive PMs?

 

[ICIT2LOL]

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.

ICit2lol I think KIS is a good product, but for about a week it was a PITA.
It appears the KIS 2014 version was not properly vetted for problems in the Beta stage.
Had to spend some time searching Kaspersky's Forum to figure out what was going on.

Some web pages were loading extremely slow. Like molasses in January.
Also upon start up and reboot, KIS was loading so slow that it wouldn't start till about 2 minutes after everything else was already up and running, possibly leaving the computer unprotected, and it wasn't due to a setting.

I discovered on their forum that many others had experienced these same two problems.
One Mod stated when you install the product, it may take several days for the patches to become available to you, even if it's an older patch.
Thankfully he was right. A few days later a couple patches downloaded that corrected both issues.

Kaspersky is running fine now, but it seems to me they should've fixed those problems during the Beta stage instead of putting it out on the shelf as a finished product.

Hmm I tried a reply to this from home but it hasn't got through so yes they do change their GUI a fair bit and as you say don't test thoroughly enough before release. I always wait for a month or so after the latest release before I upgrade from the previous one (you can still use the same activation code) so that most of the buggy stuff has been dealt with.
The scans mat always take forever at first unless you have upgraded like I do then the bases are carried over when you do that.

The PM I don't know what is wrong there - I have PM's you anyway.
John

 

[DavidE]

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 installed Avira free on Win XP to give it a test drive and found the same thing - no update notifications.
I found the default setting does not notify when updates are applied.
I checked "Files have been successfully updated" and that fixed this for me - I got an "update popup notification" when the PC woke up.
Here is how I set the configuration for these options:



Looking through the configuration/settings I also found it should auto check for updates every 6 hours and can't be changed to less than 6 hours.
I can manually check if/when I want to...

The only problem I've found so far is it can't scan more than 4 partitions at the same time - the scan crashes...

 

[andrew129260]

Yeah I have noticed that about avira as well. I believe the paid version updates every hour and has streaming updates.

It's not a bad AV, pretty decent actually once configured.

 

[DavidE]

Yea...
For me the real question is what is the best av to recommend to non-tech folks I help, and what is the best for me ...
I've used Avast for years and can deal with it, but I think it's gotten too complicated/bloated so I don't recommend it anymore.
So far I'm liking Avira...
For me the UI is easier to use than the latest Avast - Avira seems like a more logical design ...
I can find things easier and quicker ...

Bitdefender free is too "limited" for me, but maybe that's better for most users (Nothing to configure!) ?

 

[andrew129260]

Honestly in my opinion the best av for non tech folks is panda antivirus. Its fantastic at prevention and is always up to date. Its not ideal though if the person has dial up internet, but few people do anymore. Its a cloud AV. It's better at prevention then removing a really infected system though so keep that in mind.

It lacks options, but it makes up for it with great protection that is very lightweight. Its really easy to use to to scan your pc and stuff. Nothing confusing or difficult to learn.

I'm using panda right now and once avast gets stuff fixed I may go back....

 

[poorguy]

hey all, I agree Andrew 129260 I use panda on my laptop and have no complaints. thinking about changing my desktops to it also. I still use avast free 2014 and avg free 2014 and have no complaints with either except all of the extra unneeded crap ware that they have thrown in. but they are free. poorguy

 

[jstevens16]

Hi guys,
I'm new on these forum, my first post hehe, im currently using Microsoft SE, Malwarebytes AM Pro, FRST, and Adwcleaner, I'm planning in changing my AV, a friend recommended Webroot SA Internet Security Complete... is this any good...has anybody tried this one... this cost about $52...could I get my money's worth...would greatly appreciate any info or heads up..thanks in advance.