Rant: What good are virus scanners?

I installed McAfee on my home system yesterday. It installed a service which practically crippled my machine. It was scanning every file read, write, network access, email, etc. I had to go through about 10 menus to finally disable it to the point where it will only scan the disk when I ask it.

Who would want all that junk? It turned a 1.4Ghz machine into a 486 as far as performance went. I would rather risk getting a virus than run all that scanning stuff.

 

[Doggiedog]

What good is Norton 2002 when it missed a subseven Trojan horse virus on my PC?

 

[dakata24]

norton antivirus seems to work well for me on my duron800.. even with full scanning of all files, doesnt seem to slow my system down abit

i also run Grisoft AVG antivirus for added protection.. they used to be free, but stopped doing that..

and i run tds-3 for trojan protection.

 

[pyonir]

<< What good is Norton 2002 when it missed a subseven Trojan horse virus on my PC? >>



missed one on mine too. who knows, i have never had my norton find a virus at all. never. in my 15+ years of using computers i have never had norton find one on any machine i have used. but for others it seems to work and help. to each his/her own i guess.

 

[NonTechGuy]

im using tau monitor trial version, it doesn't slow my puter at all but im not sure if it actually works, does anybody know?

 

[Nitemare]

I've got norton internet security and antivirus 2002 on my tbird 900 mhz...and can't tell the difference if it is on or not as far as speed is concerned.

 

[Beau]

When are ya'll gonna learn that the Panda is superior?

 

[Keego]

After working for Symantec, I know the internal problems with NAV and I can tell you that it is a very good program. I've yet to have a problem with it.

 

[Logix]

I leave NAV 2001 with Auto-Protect enabled, and have it check only program files and documents. I don't notice any slowdown at all. I have a T-Bird 1.4.

Of course, the software is only as good as the updates.

 

[iamwiz82]

Mcafee ASAP is awesome, and you never notice it is running. Plus, it gives you some cool stats which you access on the web.

 

[killface]

I've never been a fan of running AV software. It's false security in alot of cases. I'm just careful of what I do and open. I only run it when I'm away and my roommates are using my computer. They've already given me Netbus and Life stages (dorks)

 

[MustPost]

I think ive found one virus ever, but I still use NAV.

 

[theknight571]

I've tried several, but still like and use NAV. (Currently using Corporate Edition 7.51)

One of them that I tried had a feature that would check your emails. During the install I thought that this would be a good idea, but after reboot, I thought it was a bad idea. It turned my PC into nothing more than a paperweight.

Once I disabled that feature, my performance returned.

I've heard good things about Panda, but that wasn't one of the one's I was able to test.

- TK

 

[Rickr]

Here is one vote for Trend PC-Cillin 2000 for these reasons:

- doesn't seem to affect performance
- automatically looks for updates whenever you log onto the internet.
- scans e-mails
- has found and quarentined three viruses in the last two months.
- low cost.


My only problem with the program is that it leaves the mail port open while the e-mail scan is on.