What is the best Security Suite these days?

[Berryracer]

I have seen many different opinions when I ran a Google search, some of them are old, some are ancient (since 2007) so I thought I would get some opinions now that we are almost in 2012

I currently hold a paid license of Eset Smart Security valid until March 2013 and I was wondering if I was missing on anything....is the firewall it has good enough or would you recommend for example, downgrading to NOD32 Antivirus and using a different firewall?

Additionally, to answer my main question? which is the best Internet Seucirty suite these days that is secure, doesn't have many False Positives, and won't slow my Laptop down to a crawl.

Thanks

 

[MadScientist]

AV-Comparatives summary report, 12/2010: http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/summary/summary2010.pdf

AV-Test reports 7/8/10/11/2011: http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/test-reports/

Edit 1/13/12: Here's a few more AV test reports.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372364,00.asp I don't like PC Mag's testing methodology, not thorough enough.

http://www.westcoastlabs.com/

http://www.virusbtn.com/index

From all the test reports it would appear that AVG, by a slim margin, is the best of the freebies, but I agree with Gillbot that MSE, while not the best, is the best AV program for less technical users. I have been installing it on all computers I work on that do not have an AV program.

 

[Berryracer]

thanks a lot!

Strange that Avira got all ADV+ and Eset got ADV only in some tests

 

[KeithP]

FYI, Staples has Kaspersky Internet Security (1 computer) for free after rebate. The deal is available online as a download.

http://www.staples.com/Kaspersky-Int...product_398331

-KeithP

 

[jadinolf]

I am not qualified to say which is best but I have 5 avast! Internet Security licenses and am very pleased with this product.

 

[dawks]

Clearly Microsoft Security Essentials is the best.. Why is it not even an option in the poll?

 

[jadinolf]

Clearly Microsoft Security Essentials is the best.. Why is it not even an option in the poll?

Thanks, Bill.

(I assume you are Bill Gates).

 

[Gillbot]

I use MSE, while it may not be the "best", I think it's a really good option since it's seamless for less technical users.

 

[NetGuySC]

There is one security suite that I believe will vastly outperform all of the above listed security suites..

The Mechbgon Security Suite.. http://www.mechbgon.com/build/security2.html

 

[lothar]

Common sense.

Sent from my GT-I9100

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Common sense.

Sent from my GT-I9100

this

 

[Binky]

Common sense.

Sent from my GT-I9100

If it's not accessible to everyone, I don't think you should vote for it. Clearly, common sense is NOT widespread, and it's certainly not for sale or download.

I vote MSE.

 

[paul878]

MSE!

It is good and enough and most importantly it does NOT slow down your system like the others on your list.

 

[d3fu5i0n]

MSE. I find it doesn't slow down computers too much.

However, common sense is the best - you're left with the maximum power of your system for tasks and/or situations, such as rendering or gaming.
The thing is, few people use it when browsing the internet - forgetting that there's just as much risk from getting virally infected online as there is a risk of an incident taking place late at night in a dark and large city.

I just use common sense + Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware [free version], as it is a "run when you want" application and isn't running in real-time.

I do use WOT (Web Of Trust) as a browser addon though. It's sometimes helpful when dotting around websites that I haven't visited before.

 

[lord_emperor]

As long as they're not known system hogs like Norton or McAffe, they're all pretty much even.

I have Avast! free installed and it's only using ~26MB of RAM and 0.01% CPU.

I also run Ablock, Noscript and Flashblock in my Firefox as well as PeerBlock.

 

[TheTrueScythe]

I use Avast Free because i cant afford to supe up my PC every way i can.

 

[go_gordon]

I've been just fine with MSE. It's a lot faster than the McAfee it replaced. Be sure to also use AdBlock or Privoxy, that seems to prevent the majority of drive-by malware.

 

[GoStumpy]

Why the heck isn't MSE on the poll???

 

[WT]

Why the heck isn't MSE on the poll???

If you are voting for MSE as the 'best', you really haven't tried the better paid suites. Its nice for its simplicity, but I would argue that an average user (especially one with a file sharing teen in the household) needs something better than MSE.

 

[GoStumpy]

It's detected any bad file-sharing thing that I've downloaded. If a user is doing something that MSE isn't 'good enough' for, re-thinking the action/activity would be higher priority than a paid antivirus...

 

[velvetpants]

Common sense.
I use avast a safety net in case it fails (which rarely happens).

If you don't have any shred of common sense, then it doesn't matter how much you spend on a security suite, you're gonna get malware anyway.
Many of the virus ridden PCs I encounter have some massive, resource hogging, security suite like TM, fprot, norton and such installed.

The thing is that clueless users buy expensive AV products to feel secure, then they
actually believe they are secure and just go around downloading "free ram" and "free russian camgirls, download codec to watch" cause "I paid $100 for this anti-virus, no malware can defeat me"... then they get fucked by malware.

 

[nitrous9200]

In my experience, many of the paid security suites (on customers' computers) don't block those stupid fake antivirus programs run and root themselves into the system, often times disabling the legitimate AV product. Keeping the OS/browser/plugins up to date should be more than enough to block most internet threats and something like MSE will work just fine for scanning downloaded files, local/network files and external drives.

Plus, most of the features in those paid suites are pointless...antispam, network mapping and all of the other garbage they like to throw in. Browsing in a Linux VM would be a surefire way to protect yourself from online threats, better than any AV suite, or even running an adblocker/flash blocker and noscript in Firefox would be sufficient.

 

[velvetpants]

Browsing in a Linux VM would be a surefire way to protect yourself from online threats,

And it uses up less cpu cycles than Trend Micro

 

[pcgeek11]

MSE and common sense.

 

[blackangst1]

As long as they're not known system hogs like Norton or McAffe, they're all pretty much even.

I have Avast! free installed and it's only using ~26MB of RAM and 0.01% CPU.

I also run Ablock, Noscript and Flashblock in my Firefox as well as PeerBlock.

Norton is NOT a system hog. Thats soooooo.....2007.