Anti-virus advice

[Chidoro]

Looking for a good anti-virus program for a brand new PC, Windows 7. We want it locked down as well as possible so I am not hesitant to buy a program.

Thanks.

[miir]

Most of the commercial virus scan products I have tried tend to be either bloated pieces of crap or unreliable.

Try to get your hands on the Enterprise version of Mcafee or Norton.
If they run it at work, ask your IT guy for a copy.

[Canelek]

I use a licensed version of AVG and am quite pleased with it. I have been using it for 2 years now and have had nothing slip through despite sometimes downloading questionable items.

They also have a security/spyware product, but I stick with the free stuff for that.

As far as bloatware, AVG is definately not that.

[Aslanna]

Try to get your hands on the Enterprise version of Mcafee or Norton.
If they run it at work, ask your IT guy for a copy.

That's not ethical!

[miir]

Try to get your hands on the Enterprise version of Mcafee or Norton.
If they run it at work, ask your IT guy for a copy.

That's not ethical!

But it's economical!

[Sylvus]

Not sure how unethical it is, I know that our corporate license of those products includes home employee use. If you ever take things home to work on them or whatever, your company isn't going to want to run the risk of you getting an infection from your home computer. See if they do anything like that.

[Aslanna]

Depends on your company's policies, obviously!

[Fairweather Pure]

The free Microsoft anti-virus has worked great for me. I actually DLed it based on advice from this board. I have it on 2 destops and 2 laptops. Never had a single issue.

[Soreali]

I use AVG free + Microsoft anti-spyware or whatever it is together... work great and haven't had anything make it onto my machine.

[miir]

The free Microsoft anti-virus has worked great for me. I actually DLed it based on advice from this board. I have it on 2 destops and 2 laptops. Never had a single issue.

Microsoft Security Essentials?

I checked that out a while back.
I think I may still have it installed.

Not a bad little AV/Anti Spyware program from what I recall.

[Aabidano]

I use a licensed version of AVG and am quite pleased with it.

Same, quite happy with it.

Macafee and Norton are both seriously bloated, though they do work decently enough. Especially if you can get them licensed\free from work. We used to have that in the software contract, MS-everything too. It's all gone away sadly.

[miir]

Macafee and Norton are both seriously bloated, though they do work decently enough.

The consumer versions are bloated.
The enterprise versions are not.

[Canelek]

Actually, I find that the enterprise versions, while not nearly as bad as the home versions, are still bloated. But that is basically what we get to deal with in the corporate environment.

And yes, many companies will allow site-licensed AV software to be used at home by folks that remote-connect. That, or they force people to use a corporate-built laptop. Merrill Lynch and Bank of America are the former, IBM the latter. I guess I will get used to having a company laptop...

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

I've been running ESET NOD32 / Smart Security for a while on both vista and 7, very happy with it. No hits, small footprint, daily updates.

[Ashur]

MSE + SpyBot. For work I have a virtual desktop I connect to via a network device (SunRay 2FS) and a 21" monitor. The virtual desktop is sweet because I can connect to it from pretty much any web browser anywhere as long as it's got a fairly recent Java install.

[Xouqoa]

The free Microsoft anti-virus has worked great for me. I actually DLed it based on advice from this board. I have it on 2 destops and 2 laptops. Never had a single issue.

This. Microsoft Security Essentials has gotten some good press for good reason. It is an effective, non-obtrusive program, and it is free.

If you want a paid piece of software, I'd recommend ESET NOD 32. It is also pretty great... I used it for years.

[Canelek]

Same re: Security Essentials. I installed it on my laptop running Vista64 when I rebuilt last week. It has been fine, as far as I can tell. I supplement with Ad-Aware and SpyBot.

[valryte]

I recommend you take a look at this site.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/

On this site you will find independent comparatives of Anti-Virus software. All products listed in our comparatives are already a selection of some very good anti-virus products. In order to get included in our main tests, vendors must fulfill various conditions and minimum requirements.
The following products are tested in the current main comparatives:

avast! Free 5.0
AVG Anti-Virus 9.0
AVIRA AntiVir Premium 9
BitDefender Antivirus 2010
eScan Anti-Virus 10
ESET NOD32 Anti-Virus 4.0
F-Secure Anti-Virus 2010
G DATA AntiVirus 2010


Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010
Kingsoft Antivirus 2009+
McAfee VirusScan Plus 2010
Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0
Norman Antivirus & Anti-Spyware 7.30
Sophos Anti-Virus 9.0
Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2010
TrustPort Antivirus 2010
Look into the Comparatives section to find out additional tests and reviews.

If you plan to buy an Anti-Virus, please visit the vendor's site and evaluate their software by downloading a trial version, as there are also many other features (e.g. firewall, HIPS, behaviorblocker, etc.) and important things (e.g. price, graphical user interface, compatibility, etc.) for an Anti-Virus that you should evaluate by yourself. Even if quite important, the data provided in the test reports on this site are just some aspects that you should consider when buying Anti-Virus software.

[Zaelath]

While many years ago Norton was known to be a resource hog, it now has a very low system impact

I suspected this might be a less than impartial site, that quote confirms it for me

Even if it was super now, "many years ago" is an outright fabrication.

[Soreali]

While many years ago Norton was known to be a resource hog, it now has a very low system impact

I suspected this might be a less than impartial site, that quote confirms it for me

Even if it was super now, "many years ago" is an outright fabrication.

that made me lol... Norton is a complete resource hog.. Espicially since they went with the whole Norton 360 route..