whats the best internet security/virus checker i can buy?

[psykik]

Having been a user of Norton Internet Security for over 10 years, im now fed up!

Live update is always going online to check for updates and takes up 100% of cpu to do it, far too often for me to put up with it anymore.

I want a NEW internet security/virus checker system!!

Whats the best of the best alternative out there in terms of picking up viruses live and providing the best internet security?

Do you have a top 3? whats your no1?

Happy to pay for it too.

 

[Schadenfroh]

If you are coming from a Symantec product and want to try something new, be sure to fully remove it before installing a new antivirus product.

Kaspersky Internet Security (3 user license) | FREE after MiR

• Install the free trial while you wait, all you have to do is enter the license key in when it arrives to activate your subscription, no reinstall
• one of the highest (if not the highest) detection rates in the industry, see the antivirus detection rate thread for comparisions
• hourly updates
• very low ram usage
• Internet Security is modular, install only features that you want
• Some users experience a slowdown when browsing on certain systems, read more about it and solutions here, I highly suggest that you install the trial to see if you are in the minority who experience this problem

 

[Billb2]

Kaspersky
Avira
Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall

 

[Lemon law]

Two things to understand.

Any active or passive antivirus program relies on signature based detection. Since new viruses and trojans are being invented everyday, not only are signatures at least a step behind, new signature updates are needed frequently just to keep up with the threats. In terms of AV companies and update strategies, they can give you big updates less frequently or many more smaller updates more frequently. Norton is very typical of the former strategy and Kaspersky uses the latter strategy. There is flat out no way to avoid updates and still stay secure.

The OP asks what is the best security strategy which is not only always a hotly debated subject, its also a moving target because the bad guys are sadly getting smarter and more devious. Schradenfroh probably gave today's best available conventional wisdom one stop shopping answer by advocating the Kaspersky suite. Other's may have other criteria and may be willing to expend more effort to mix and match a set of freeware products that may well add up to better overall security. At the end of the day, we all makes our choices and takes our chances. But no security arsenal is fool proof and the greatest security hole is always the idiot who sits behind the keyboard. At the end of the day, the user has to understand the dangers on the internet and adjust their behavior to avoid dangers in much the same way we steer our cars to stay on the road.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: psykik
Having been a user of Norton Internet Security for over 10 years, im now fed up!

Live update is always going online to check for updates and takes up 100% of cpu to do it, far too often for me to put up with it anymore.

I want a NEW internet security/virus checker system!!

Whats the best of the best alternative out there in terms of picking up viruses live and providing the best internet security?

Do you have a top 3? whats your no1?

Happy to pay for it too.

If LU is taking 100% of your CPU time you have some underlying issue or problem on the system, that is not normal at all.

 

[Erock]

If LU is taking 100% of your CPU time you have some underlying issue or problem on the system, that is not normal at all.

I had that problem as well with norton. I had to turn off live update when I was using my machine and would turn it back on if I was away from my comp. I personally think its rediculus that it would use at least 85% of my cpu just to connect to the internet to dl and update. You'd think it should be taking up bandwidth, not cpu? Whatever I got rid of it and have been very happy ever since.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Erock

If LU is taking 100% of your CPU time you have some underlying issue or problem on the system, that is not normal at all.

I had that problem as well with norton. I had to turn off live update when I was using my machine and would turn it back on if I was away from my comp. I personally think its rediculus that it would use at least 85% of my cpu just to connect to the internet to dl and update. You'd think it should be taking up bandwidth, not cpu? Whatever I got rid of it and have been very happy ever since.

I'm wondering if this is a user education problem or an actual problem. If your saying your cpu went to 85% percent for some period of time and your machine felt sluggish, there is an issue to fix. If you just noticed the CPU being used, this is normal (for any application). LU does its work at a lower priority than other applications, however if other applications arent using the CPU the scheduler will give the extra time to it. This is a normal function of the scheduler and doesn't indicate a problem.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: Erock

If LU is taking 100% of your CPU time you have some underlying issue or problem on the system, that is not normal at all.

I had that problem as well with norton. I had to turn off live update when I was using my machine and would turn it back on if I was away from my comp. I personally think its rediculus that it would use at least 85% of my cpu just to connect to the internet to dl and update. You'd think it should be taking up bandwidth, not cpu? Whatever I got rid of it and have been very happy ever since.

I'm wondering if this is a user education problem or an actual problem. If your saying your cpu went to 85% percent for some period of time and your machine felt sluggish, there is an issue to fix. If you just noticed the CPU being used, this is normal (for any application). LU does its work at a lower priority than other applications, however if other applications arent using the CPU the scheduler will give the extra time to it. This is a normal function of the scheduler and doesn't indicate a problem.

Symantec always seems to cause my System Idle Process to run around 98%.

It also using almost 60MB on my machine! Holy cow! Why store all those defs in memory when it could thrash my disk instead. Oh the freaking efficiency of 'caching' the definitions in memory. They should stop that.

I am worried that my 2.4GHz P4 will catch fire.

/sarcasm

OP, your installation has issues or you even potentially have a piece of malware like that crap from 180solutions (Aurora). Use a 3rd party tool to scan again, and do a uninstall/reinstall. I think it was Aurora that my daughter installed and it would cause AV to flounder as it unplugged stuff and mucked up updates.

I leave my machine on. It has been awhile since I messed with the configuration, but I have updates set on most of my software that gives a choice for 1-3am.