What's the Best Anti-virus?

ICIT2LOL · 23 Apr 2015

The Howling Wolves said:

The BEST AV is the 6" gap between ones ears.
Use it or lose it!
JMHO as usual.

Have said this for years mate and yet the debate goes on I run Kaspersky as most will know and even given it's high ratings it still misses stuff and even though one might be vigilant everyday there is new stuff put out that unless one has ESP or has a mind reading capacity it is impossible to say any one AV suite is the best because pure logic tells me at least - like war if one finds that any certain deterrent to a weapon is devised then you can bank on someone countering that deterrent with a new way of delivering / using it. So in a sense this debate is bordering on to some extent being just an exercise in band aid solutions.

Having said that I will say there are certain AV's I would not use in a fit and in my mind are a total waste of time and effort.

I think if anyone follows A Guy's threads will find that he finds new threats of different complexities just about every day. We are stuck with this problem as long as electrons flow down wires

zapp22 · 26 Apr 2015

Ears or not, you're subsceptible.

"Shamir believes that ransomware is an area where the security community failed "in a miserable way," because there are no good products to protect against it. And this is just the beginning, he thinks."

With ransomware on the rise, cryptographers take it personally | InfoWorld
[Dated April 24, 2015..]

one of my best friends is in a very sensitive position in gov't IT and we have this conversation regularly.
As said ad nauseum, the very term "Anti-Virus" marks one as a dinosaur. those days are gone, and the package du jour with them
The current crop of ransomware/crytopware/hostageware has no truly effective defense that is implementable by the 95% of connected users, be they PC, Apple-ware, mobiles, tablets, and soon-to-be appliances. Recent strains of ransomware in the wild are very well-done and in the vast majority of cases, there is no hope of one recovering one's system intact except to pay the extortion fees.

For the few that are really willing to work HARD at defense and/or short-interval recovery, there are a handful of measures that can offer hope, but who will actually stick with the rigor? few.

No one is immunized or immunizable at the moment - not the DOD, not high-security high-risk sites, not terror-target-list sites, certainly not you or I.

jonnyhillow · 26 Apr 2015

Don't know how this merged into ransomware conversation , most know there is not much you can do if you get infected with that .

The overwhelming majority of computer users need an effective AV program , they are much more susceptible to malware of all sorts without it.

Of course it doesn't mean your 100% protected but your a lot more protected than you would be without it. Most helpers on Seven forums run some type of AV but they are considerably smarter than the average PC user which is the biggest reason why they don't get in trouble nearly as much as other others.

They do know , however, that having a good AV is first and foremost in the fight against malware.

ThrashZone · 26 Apr 2015

I personally do not count on my antivirus to stop malware :)
I expect it to block viruses...
I count on mbam to do the malware blocking :)

Layback Bear · 26 Apr 2015

Mike I think the clue is in the name. You nailed it.

Anti viruis
Anti malware

Malwarebytes works for me also.

A Guy · 27 Apr 2015

To be honest, if AV programs are only trying to detect viruses, then they are doing things wrong. Most AV also detect other threats, with how much success is the question. I have Avast active, Avira for on demand. Malwarebytes Premium, and Superantispyware Pro active. Malwarebytes Anti Exploit, EMET, Zemana Antilogger. Emsisoft free for on demand. HOSTs file, etc. It takes a village, lol. A Guy

andrew129260 · 27 Apr 2015

Jeez a guy your PC must be slow as ****. Lol. I wonder how much ram there all using...

A Guy · 27 Apr 2015

Nope, look at my specs, "only" 4 gigs of (admittedly fast) ram. Usually at least 35% free (it's there to be used). I can scan with multiple scanners, and make backups, etc. and no slowness. I understand all that security may not work for everyone, but it is what I have amassed over time, lol. To be honest, most of those programs do not use much ram when not running a scan. Only Avast is in the top 10 processes. I have never had an infection. I have had both Avast, and MBAM warn of web pages, but never infected. A Guy

jonnyhillow · 27 Apr 2015

A Guy , you use Mbam Pro in real time and Super Anti Spyware in real time? All the others are on demand , i like Emsisoft and Eset Online Scanner as on demand scanners . I have Kaspersky and Mbam Pro as my only two real time programs and surf using Sandboxie .

I also know my AV does a lot more than just deal with virusus , it warns of Phishing attempts, possible bad links etc... I refer to all undesirable things as malware , it's a very broad reaching term.

ThrashZone · 27 Apr 2015

SAS is really a spyware utility but does detect other stuff

A.Guy is a special circumstance not all will be able to know how to control all of the utilities from conflicts.....

I personally only have 3
mse
mbam pro/ premium
SAS Pro
Each of them are excluded from each other and never scan at the same time,
2 are set to manually scan
SAS is the only scheduled scanner I have,
I only scan with mse when it wants/ needs too = the icon will turn orange usually after a large update.

I periodically scan with mbam when I feel it necessary
Cheers.