I've been using Firefox and Vipre anti-virus for years without problems. A month or two ago after the last Vipre major update Firefox started hanging randomly when accessing websites. Most often it would produce a new empty window/tab and do nothing more while the little whirly thing would spin like it was busy. If I'd click on the same link again the website would pop up instantly. Thinking it was a new funky Vipre version that caused the problem I switched to the full service version of Bitdefender on a trial. Firefox, and IE, act the same way with it. The hangs appear to be completely random. Some sites load right away, some load really slow, like 10-20 seconds of white screen and then bam, they're there, and others sites bring up an empty window until I click again and then they load immediately. Anyone have any ideas about what's causing this or how to investigate/fix it? Thanks.
I have a friend who uses VIPER/VIPRE and he swears by it. I became a spoiled Kaspersky user back in '06. I'd used Symantec/Norton, then McAfee, then Symantec, then maybe (something called) E-Trust. Somebody had tipped me to KIS in '06, I read the reviews and the assessment by an Israeli computer security testing company.
Usually don't figure the Israelis and Russians would work together or even give each other a fair shake.
But I never looked back.
Every year, I find a $50 OEM-download license for KIS in a 5-PC version. That works out to about $10 per year per computer.
There had been a long history of AV software conflicting with other things, gumming up the CPU clocks, or being difficult to uninstall without special tools. KIS never did that to me.
BUT! And here's a thought begging for someone else to comment. The new Windows 10, which I'd installed as a dual-boot option on two (so far) of my Win 7 machines, comes with Defender and Win Firewall.
I'm wondering if these MS security programs are as reliable now as others.
I've yet to install my Kaspersky license for the Win 10 on one of those machines -- which -- should be an easy operation with no complications.
But what do folks think of the built-in AV and firewall solutions? Often in the past, I'd just buy an AV package and use Windows Firewall. How good is MS with AV protection? Somebody -- anybody -- know the answer or have something to say?