What antivirus program do you use?

[seemingly random]

...
Strangely, I've had the same feeling. Oh well, I'll switch back to Avast or Avira if MS goes south, lol.

This has me curious. How does one get a feeling about future product support? Something ms said?

 

[JulesMaximus]

Bit Defender user here. I've been pretty happy with it so I renewed my license for another year.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I also made the switch from Avira to MSE. No nag screen without any hacks and I also like that Windows Defender is disabled since MSE will do that job as well.

I thought microsoft agreed a few years ago to not produce an active virus checker.

They just can't include it with Windows

 

[Aenygma]

AVG Pro

Been using it for years. Own three licenses, have had no issues.

 

[gigahertz20]

I have nod32 installed, but constantly have to find new user names and passwords from chinese sites to keep it updating new definitions. I have installed MSE on several friends computers since they didn't have any antivirus software and it has worked fine. I'm probably going to ditch nod32 and going to install MSE.

Are there any reviews that have benchmarks that show what free antivirus solution is the best....as far as system resources used, how fast the scans are, and what it picks up?

 

[thescreensavers]

Avira

 

[Locut0s]

Thanks for all the responses. Chose Avira for my desktop and MS Essentials for my Netbook.

 

[secretanchitman]

none since i use osx, but on my windows machines, i used to use eset nod32 antivirus 2.7, then i switched to microsoft security essentials (free).

 

[slpaulson]

I use nod32. I don't have any experience with the new Microsoft product, but I think nod32 has been worth paying for thus far. The only thing I don't like about nod32 is that their customer support is pretty piss poor.

 

[F1N3ST]

I use nod32. I don't have any experience with the new Microsoft product, but I think nod32 has been worth paying for thus far. The only thing I don't like about nod32 is that their customer support is pretty piss poor.

Piss poor is one of my favorite terms to say.

No antivirus for me really, except crap that comes / updates with W7

 

[TubeTote]

Hey all just curious...I mentioned Zone Alarm Security Suite and saw no replies or comments regarding it. I have had no problems in the last 10 years with it, but the lack of anyone mentioning it made me think. Anybody have any thoughts about ZA? Maybe I should be looking at something else?

 

[Locut0s]

Hey all just curious...I mentioned Zone Alarm Security Suite and saw no replies or comments regarding it. I have had no problems in the last 10 years with it, but the lack of anyone mentioning it made me think. Anybody have any thoughts about ZA? Maybe I should be looking at something else?

I can't say anything about their virus scanner but I dislike their firewall. Too much of a resource hog and not enough configurability.

 

[meltdown75]

Avast, and i haven't been using it for years

 

[lxskllr]

...but I dislike their firewall. Too much of a resource hog and not enough configurability.

...and it often breaks when they update it. I use the built in firewall.

 

[SunSamurai]

Kaspersky.

 

[PottedMeat]

Avira - i think it went off one time i had to use a no cd exe for a game. but other than that i don't click on random links.

 

[kalrith]

I switched from AVG to Avira, because of some independent testing I saw that placed Avira as the top of the free list.

 

[MBrown]

Microsoft Security Essentials

 

[insect9]

Microsoft Security Essentials

 

[lobbyone]

Comodo IS + Malwarebytes

 

[rh71]

Avast

For the longest time I didn't realize I could turn off the audible notification... it would ding me and say it was updated nearly every day, sometimes at odd hours... that was so annoying... I was elated when I discovered you could turn that off. I don't really know how effective Avast is but since it's named right up there with Avira and other free apps, that's good enough for me. Avira has the popup that people say can also be disabled via some hack... but turning off sound on this app is easier.

 

[MotionMan]

OSX



MotionMan

 

[JM Aggie08]

MSE with a dash of MBAM keeps me clean.

 

[rockyct]

Hey all just curious...I mentioned Zone Alarm Security Suite and saw no replies or comments regarding it. I have had no problems in the last 10 years with it, but the lack of anyone mentioning it made me think. Anybody have any thoughts about ZA? Maybe I should be looking at something else?

I think at least at one point they used the Kaspersky AV engine which was highly regarded at the time. I'm not sure what they use or if Kaspersky is one of the better AVs now.

I look at it like this, I could be 99% protected with the highest quality AV suite but suffer a huge resource hit. Or, I could be careful on the sites I visit and the emails I open and be 90% protected with MSE and have it work almost invisibly. Plus, all of us SHOULD be keeping good backups of all our stuff. I have a Windows Home Server box that keeps multiple monthly, weekly, and daily backups without having me to do anything. If anything happens to my computer, I'll stick the recovery disk in and it will restore to a backup I select.

 

[KeithTalent]

I'm using Avira and have been for a while. Is it worth switching to MSE? Never even looked at it.

KT