Please Help...Need To Know Best Anti-Virus Program

Hey All...my Norton anti-virus has been out of date for a couple months now and my computer is getting tons of symantes email proxy pop-ups...I have no clue what they are, but i need a new anti virus programwith a firewall or whatever...can anyone recommend one...i was just going to renew with Nortonbut i thought i would see if anyone here knew of a better program out...i appricate any help..

[edit on 12-17-2006 by worldwatcher]

nortan anti virus is a virus. it sucks its annoying and silly.
ClamWin should suit your needs.
i also recommend you just learn how to serf the net carefully. never download active X controllers unless you know where it is coming from. browse unknown sites with FireFox.

specially key gen sites hehehe.

anyways just be careful. and install nortan and get ClamWin going.
its openSource and its pretty good.

The two best at the moment are Trend Micro's PC-Cillin and Kaspersky's Anti Virus software.

I would highly recommend avast on-access scanner.

Along with avast anti virus. I've never had problems with it, and it's extremely good at catching and deleting instantly anything that isn't good for your computer. It will even tell you what sites are not to be trusted.

Click below to get to the site.
Avast Anti Virus

It does cost money but it is 20x better than norton in my own experience and it does cost less.

Edit: To say that there is a free version of Avast, and that is the one I use. (sorry)

[edit on 18-12-2006 by 1Crisis]

Re: Norton...

I have a system with about 14Gbyte of used disk space. Running a Norton scan on it takes nearly 3 hours. That seems excessive to me. But, from others who use it, is that in the ballpark?

I actually emailed Norton's support site about the long scan time. The tech tried to tell me that I had a virus in my Registry and that Norton sells a Registry cleaner for $69.

I won't be renewing with them.

You could also maybe try AVG Antivirus There's a free version and I've had no trouble with it.

As another poster said: surfing the net carefully definately helps a lot.



Norton=Bloatware

Yeah, ClamWin and AVG are good bets. I have AVG on my mom's computer, and I've never had a virus or worm lay claim to it, and it still runs as fast as the day she got it. And it's not as though she's computer savvy or anything.

The other thing is just to be more careful on the Internet. Use a browser like Mozilla Firefox, which has a proven track-record of security, unlike IE. It's not perfect, but they do a pretty damn good job. The other option is to use Opera. It's pretty secure as well (and fast), but Firefox works with a lot more websites than Opera.

Be careful of phishing. Don't trust email attachments unless you're very certain of its source, and that source is trustworthy.

All of that will go a long way to keeping junk off your computer.

I've been using AVG Anti-virus, and it seems to work well, as does AVG Anti-Spyware.

One thing I should point out however, any such software is only good if you have the latest "definitions". Once updating to the latest definitions, they both work very well.

As a side note, long ago before I was wise to all things digital, I had similar applications installed on my computer. Being the "smart" guy that I thought I was, I never bother reading the "README" files, or instructions.
I was amazed at the speed in which this application opened and ran. Always reporting that there were no problems found.


Then one day, I decided to push the "Update" button. After about an hours worth of defintion updates, I did another full scan of my computer. In all there were over 300 problems found. Luckily no major viruses, but a few keyloggers, dozens and dozens of tracking cookies, a possible trojan, and a few other forgotten details. (It's been a couple of years)

Moral of the story: Keep your security software updated!

Of course, smart browsing habits help, as well.

Originally posted by Mechanic 32
I've been using AVG Anti-virus, and it seems to work well, as does AVG Anti-Spyware.

One thing I should point out however, any such software is only good if you have the latest "definitions". Once updating to the latest definitions, they both work very well.

As a side note, long ago before I was wise to all things digital, I had similar applications installed on my computer. Being the "smart" guy that I thought I was, I never bother reading the "README" files, or instructions.
I was amazed at the speed in which this application opened and ran. Always reporting that there were no problems found.


Then one day, I decided to push the "Update" button. After about an hours worth of defintion updates, I did another full scan of my computer. In all there were over 300 problems found. Luckily no major viruses, but a few keyloggers, dozens and dozens of tracking cookies, a possible trojan, and a few other forgotten details. (It's been a couple of years)

Moral of the story: Keep your security software updated!

Of course, smart browsing habits help, as well.

Thankfully, AVG updates itself.

I just wanted to add that none of my computers, past and present, have ever had much in the way of infection from malware. If anything bad happened to them, it was either a problem with the hardware, or I knew there were going to be risks associate with the actions I took.

Originally posted by supercheetahThankfully, AVG updates itself.

Actually, since I have a slow dialup connection, the first thing I do with any application, including Windows, is turn off any kind of "automatic updates".

I would rather it happen when I want it to, as to not interfere with my browsing.

I really dislike having one of my programs trying to "help" me, by hijacking my internet connection while I'm browsing; there by making the connection to the page I am trying to go to, time out. I used to hate it when that happened. lol

But I have learned to have a routine. At least once a week, I do the Update session. So now I am pretty much up to date, and it doesn't interfere with my browsing.

edit = clarity




[edit on 12/18/2006 by Mechanic 32]

Originally posted by Mechanic 32

Originally posted by supercheetahThankfully, AVG updates itself.

Actually, since I have a slow dialup connection, the first thing I do with any application, including Windows, is turn off any kind of "automatic updates".

I would rather it happen when I want it to, as to not interfere with my browsing.

I really dislike having one of my programs trying to "help" me, by hijacking my internet connection while I'm browsing; there by making the connection to the page I am trying to go to, time out.

I used to hate it when that happened. lol

But I have learned to have a routine. At least once a week, I do the Update session.

So now I am pretty much up to date, and it doesn't interfere with my browsing.

edit = clarity

[edit on 12/18/2006 by Mechanic 32]

Dial-up? What's that? J/k!

Originally posted by supercheetahDial-up? What's that?

Hey, it's free. Comes with my cellphone package deal. Until I have a more viable alternative, that is what I use.

Here are some useful programs for ya.

SuperAntiSpyware ( www.superantispyware.com... )
Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition ( www.download.com... )
AVG Anti Virus ( www.grisoft.com... )
AntiVir Personal Edition Classic ( www.free-av.com... )
Panda Software ( www.pandasoftware.com... )

When it comes to anti-virus programs, it's usually, if not always, best to avoid the big expensive software versions.

In my experience, AVG and avast!antivirus work well together and are an extremely effective combo. Plus, they're free! I wouldn't touch Norton if someone paid me. Same goes for McAfee, which isn't any better than Norton in my opinion.

I've used norton for years but now a days it just sucks. I got a nasty trojan about a month ago that I fought with for a while, it kept replicating it's self in different folders. I got AVG and that got rid of it for the most part. The only problem I had was ever few days AVG would pop up and said I had a virus, but I kept using it and doing scans. The nice thing I noticed about AVG was that it catches any virus that pops up and gets rid of it. So every time this trojan I had would copy it's self, AVG would catch it. However, AVG wasn't able to get to the root of this trojan. After cleaning most of this trojan up, the virus warnings stoped poping up. But about a week later I was getting warnings again, this time the trojan had gotten into my c:/system volume folder and AVG could not stomp it out, it would catch it every time it'd pop up and saved my computer from further damage, so my stepdad (computer guru with over 20 years experiance) put a program on my computer called "TrojanHunter Guard", sure enough, no more warnings, the trojan is gone.
Good luck with your computer, they can be a pain in the arse at times.

The best anti-virus software is common sense, I've never needed to use a virus scanner for years because I simply don't get viruses. Most of it these days is scare tactics by the anti-virus company's to get you to pay for there software every year when really as long as your not downloading anything dodgey your not going to get viruses.

That said I do occasionally check my computer with AVG(free) every now and again and it of course finds nothing.

I'm a big fan of AVG myself.

Too bad it looks like they're going to start charging for their services in 2007.

AVG is the best Anti-Virus I have ever had.

I had Norton for a few years but found out that it really was a heap of trash. I decided to try Zone Alarm, ran a scan and it picked up 2 Trojans that Norton never ever picked up or alerted me about.

I used Zone Alarm for a while without any problems at all, but it was a bit of a resource hogger. I've now got AVG (free version) and it works a treat.

Originally posted by Edn
The best anti-virus software is common sense, I've never needed to use a virus scanner for years because I simply don't get viruses. Most of it these days is scare tactics by the anti-virus company's to get you to pay for there software every year when really as long as your not downloading anything dodgey your not going to get viruses.

That said I do occasionally check my computer with AVG(free) every now and again and it of course finds nothing.

My finding is the same. I rarely if ever use an antivirus software. I just use a firewall, and an adware or malware scanner. If you don't visit 'bad' sites and don't use suspect software, then there's no need, imo.

yo norton antivirus dosnt catches viruses,even if he catches them he cant delete them....virus makers are probably paying norton to suck
best antivirus is kaspersky,but hes gettin heavy with the version 6
if u arent in some dangerous internet u can try the free AVG
although i hate free stuff,my net is not that dangerous so why take so much ram with kasperky?