What is the best anti-virus package out there?

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I'm running Vista (yeah - I know... ) on an Alienware AURORA M9700 (an overpriced POS - IMHO - much regret... ).
Currently, I have Bit-Defender (http://www.bitdefender.com/ as my anti-virus, and System Mechanic by Iolo (http://www.iolo.com/) as my system optimiser/utility.

I think the Bit-Defender has hosed my system. Before I installed it my laptop booted up quickly and it could do the hybernation thing. After I installed it, booting was slooooow and I had to turn off the sleep and hybernation modes. Blerg. So maybe my system is not so bad and its the AV - dunno. Oh! - and I have never NEVER been able to get the Bit-Defender to run a full system scan without getting a blue screen of death half way through the process.

I added the System Mechanic, and it helped some. I know that there are alot of combo packages that bundle an anti-virus with a system optimiser/utility.

Does anyone have a recomendation? My licenses are about to come to an end for both Bit-Defender and System Mechanic and I think I want to go with something different.

A friend of mine, who works for Norton, revomended AVG (http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition).

AVG Internet Security, try it for 30 days free.

http://free.avg.com/

it's the best

Merle

I've tried to have Merle over to scrub my bits now and then, but nothin' doin' it seems. So I cannot recommend anything.

Symantec Endpoint Protection, if your talking about pay-for Internet Security.

So I take it that Symantec Endpoint is good for a gaming machine? PArt of the reason I bought the POS Bit-Defender was that it had "Game-Mode"... I now doubt its utility.

Linux.


OK, I'll be serious now. Avast! works fine as a freebie antivirus, though you should also have Spybot Search and Destroy.

Symantec is horrible, and extremely overpriced. It's probably worse than any malware it prevents in terms of slowing down your computer.

Its light and doesn't interrept gaming. A lot of the Pro Gamers use it because of that and Symantec Endpoint has enterprise level security.Symantec is a favorite among corporate techies, fortune 500 com anies, power-users anfd gamers.

At my school even come of the most reckless teachers couldn't mess up their computer with this software.

I use it on a 1.5 Ghz P4 with 768MB memory with no problems. I usually play older games like Doom 3 and Half-Life on that computer and get very good frame-rate.

Maybe the consumer Norton but not the Enterprise Level stuff the Government, School Systems and Fortune 500 comanies use.

I hate it when people down Symantec products just because their older 2002-2005 versions of norton had kinks. Do they even know Symantec has other AV products besides Norton.

Merle

I believe Kapersky is a good anti-virus.

You've got to be kidding me. I had Symantec Endpoint Protection (not Norton, the full Symantec) on a dual-core 2.2GHZ Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM and it ran like complete garbage. Dumping Symantec produced an immediate, noticeable performance boost, and I remember reading that the freebie antiviruses often have better detection rates than Symantec anyways.

Let me guess you where running it on your MacBook. You know Vista and BootCamp are good for nothing!! Try it on a PC with a single-cored processor with only 512MB Memory.

I installed Symantec on my moms laptop and she says her laptop is faster and more resourceful than when she had AVG and Avast!! Unless you have a really good Firewall all the freebies are a POS!! I recovered her laptop and put AVG on it!! It had a virus within a month!! Did another recovery with Symantec being the security and its really helped. Her laptop is only a 2.6Ghz P4 with 512MB Memory!! Its over 5 Years Old already and the thing boots up in 23 Seconds with Symantec!! ! If you actually used a PC without VMWare or any virtulation hardware you will see!! ! Oh did I mention that if your using Vista the computer is going to be slow to begin with!! !

Freebie security usually sucks and doesn't do much!! ! Got my A+ Certification and had a Tech Job for 2 Years!!

Yep. I remember seeing some tests where Macs on Bootcamp ran Windows with better performance than similarly spec'ed Dells. They were old though, may have been for XP. I also had the Mac version of Symantec for a time. 4GB of memory and Symantec was slower than the machine had been with 1GB of RAM and no Symantec. Noticeably slower.


I am using a PC. Macs use the same Intel chips as everyone else. They buy DDR2 RAM from the same third-party suppliers. I have a typical Fujitsu hard drive. Broadcom wifi chipset, similar to what's used in many Dells. OK, so I have cheap integrated graphics- Intel GMA X3100. Other than that, most of my hardware is typical higher-end stuff. There is nothing really unique about the hardware components. And it's not in virtualization, Bootcamp is nothing more than an easy way to set up a dual-boot system so that the partitioning plays nice. Windows itself will run exactly as a native installation, because that's what it is.


That's true. Do you have any experience with Server 2008? I've been considering using it as a desktop system to replace Vista, since I've heard it's lighter. Or would it be better to go back to either XP or Server 2003? I'm not sure what (if any) new features were really added going from XP to Vista.


Actually, the best security in the world is freebie– look up OpenBSD. Perhaps for Windows it works out differently, I'll defer to you since I am out of my element when talking about Windows. But in my own experience, Symantec dramatically slows down a system.

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I am using a PC. Macs use the same Intel chips as everyone else. They buy DDR2 RAM from the same third-party suppliers. I have a typical Fujitsu hard drive. Broadcom wifi chipset, similar to what's used in many Dells. OK, so I have cheap integrated graphics- Intel GMA X3100. Other than that, most of my hardware is typical higher-end stuff. There is nothing really unique about the hardware components. And it's not in virtualization, Bootcamp is nothing more than an easy way to set up a dual-boot system so that the partitioning plays nice. Windows itself will run exactly as a native installation, because that's what it is.
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I thought you said you use VMware for your Windows XP an only allocate 512MB of memory into it. I know Linux/ BSD is more secure but not everyone ises that and most people just won't for the next 5 years or until linix is better advertised. Accepted by the Computer-Repair Specialists and Fortune-500 companies and easier on the people who only use their computer 30 minutes a day and don't have time to put up with computer issues. Also OEM's will gave to start including Linux on desktop PC's. I do have to say though the Netbook market is a great start for Linux.

For a while I used Virtualbox for XP, and for practical purposes I gave it 1GB just because I have the RAM to spare, even though it runs fine with less. I never put Symantec on that one at all, Symantec has only gone on full native installs for me. For the most part, in virtualbox I wasn't doing enough web browsing to justify any anti-malware. It's gone now though, since there's only two Windows programs (Office 2007 and BabasChess) that I have any interest in, and they aren't enough to justify virtualizing a whole OS.

To be frank: the best antivirus software out there is hardening your setup.

First, install a firewall. Do that before you are connected to the internet, you can use the MS Firewall from SP2, it is pretty much crap, but it allow you to go online to download a proper firewall. Do NOT do anything with your system before you have done this.

Now, start hardening your system, some examples:

Turn off unnecessary services and rename registry editing tools. Start programs like Browsers, Email clients and Server software; web, ftp, chat/messenger - whatever using DropMyRights to decrease the likelyhood of a compromise.

There should be plenty of hardening guides on the net, just google em.

And now you are ready to install an antivirus. Get it from a reliable source (A physical store or a webshop with a good reputation).

You can still be compromised if you download something from the net which you do not check the validity of and just start, or if you download something you do not know what it is. Also, try to stay away from suspicious websites - even with a hardened system.

Just be careful of what you do and things should be fine. It is mostly when people become confident and wander into unknown "IT-territories" that they catcy something nasty from the net.

Good luck.