what is the de facto antivirus nowadays, paid or free

Hyrax said:
Nerds and their bloat. God forbid. You got 16 ****ing gigabytes of ram. A few MB is not going to hurt you. Geeze.....

I was surprised my corporation uses AVAST. Part of me thinks a big part of it that it would take too much time and money to validate another software...:bleh:
Click to expand...

I use Avast at work. My all SSD i7 rig takes about 2 full minutes for Avast to scan an NVIDIA driver update before it will run. My exception list is about a mile long because Avast thinks all kinds of common software are suspicious. Quicktime, for instance. Constantly breaks legitimate software due to false positives.

Only reason I put up with the headaches is because it was free through the Avast for Education program.
 
Hyrax said:
Nerds and their bloat. God forbid. You got 16 ****ing gigabytes of ram. A few MB is not going to hurt you. Geeze.....
Click to expand...
Bloat doesn't necessarily mean memory usage only but in general resource use (CPU, Disk, IO etc.)

Avast is really, really slow when it comes to scanning compared to several other AV programs and it didn't perform that well in tests either.
 
i dunno though.. Avast on Cnet has 4.5 stars out of 5 from its users reviews of about 25K people. and i trust user reviews more than magazine or website reviews.
 
for popups for avast free, turn on silent mode. i haven't received 1 popup at all since i had it installed few weeks ago.
 
Lazy8s said:
Kaspersky here.
Click to expand...

Switching to BitDefender now. Kaspersky Internet Security seems to exhibit some issues I'm not comfortable with.

-Refuses to auto update regardless of settings, instead hitting me with popups warning me it isn't updated. Fairly frequent.

- Windows action center continually throws warnings that my firewall and anti-malware are disabled, yet they are active. This could be a windows issue, but it never happened when using Norton 360. This is also fairly frequent.

2 different machines, one intel based, the other AMD based, same issues.I honestly can't be bothered to have to check whether my security is operating as it should every day.
 
Norton Security 2015 (5 dev) + Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Pro (lifetime license) + Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit Free.

Have a couple of Kaspersky licenses too, but am very pleased with Norton.

Evileh said:
nothing. lol. have been for years.
Click to expand...
Actually you do, since 8.1 includes basic (very basic) protection via the built-in Windows Defender. Means you're in last place, protection-wise, but at least you've got something running to protect those around you.
 
Switched back to NOD32, keep coming back to it. Avast, I wouldn't use it; we were using it at work for years and it failed to stop a pretty serious Conficker outbreak a few years ago. So I don't think highly of it.
 
Payne3d said:
would Bitdefender free be a good choice for non tech savvy people these days?
Click to expand...

dunno. i've tried to demo the pro version on two separate occasions, and was dumbfounded that it had the audacity to insist on uninstalling other security software before giving me the privilege of letting it do its thang. this previously included both malwarebytes (the free version) and spywareblaster... neither of which run resident. i've read that it now plays nicely with malwarebytes, but i know for a fact that it will still insist on uninstalling spywareblaster.

i really wanted to give it a try, because it has a very good reputation... but i'll be damned if any program gets to tell me what i can/cannot have installed on my machine. :nope:

having said that, it might actually be perfect for the unwashed masses who can't be trusted to keep their computer secure. i'd say give it a try if you have an immediate need for it.
 
Payne3d said:
would Bitdefender free be a good choice for non tech savvy people these days?
Click to expand...

I think so. It only has 2 settings: virus shield on/off and autoscan on/off. Also, the license doesn't expire after a year like Avast. Install AdBlock Plus in every browser with malware blocking enabled; that will stop a lot of crap.
 
Funny that some say Avast is bloated when it scores well on performance tests.

I've been using AVG, but just looking at my options.
 
nutcrackr said:
Funny that some say Avast is bloated when it scores well on performance tests.

I've been using AVG, but just looking at my options.
Click to expand...

i think bitdefender and kaspersky have been ranking the highest lately with regard to performance. avast is never far behind, though. you do have to go with a custom install to cut out some of the cruft/bloat, but that's true of any antivirus. been using it for several years now... i'll try other options from time to time, but i always end up coming back to avast for one reason or another. don't rightly understand the hate some people have for it, but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. everyone's entitled to their opinion.
 
nutcrackr said:
Funny that some say Avast is bloated when it scores well on performance tests.

I've been using AVG, but just looking at my options.
Click to expand...

Avast has become extremely obnoxious with the false positives. Lately, it's even been flagging common stuff (QuickTime) as possible malicious code. You can enable Silent mode, but then your computer will randomly stop opening programs and it will drive you nuts.

On the performance side, Avast does bog down when scanning large files. For example, Avast needs 2 full minutes to scan the Office 2007 SP3 update before it will open on an i7-4770 with 16GB and an SSD.
 
QuickTime should be flagged :bleh: Avast's main performance negative is scanning new files, but almost every other aspect is faster than other anti virus programs.

I'm trying Avira for a little while, it seems fairly lightweight so far.
 
nutcrackr said:
QuickTime should be flagged :bleh: Avast's main performance negative is scanning new files, but almost every other aspect is faster than other anti virus programs.

I'm trying Avira for a little while, it seems fairly lightweight so far.
Click to expand...

I got Avira free install now, its always been my goto choice for older single core or very slow dual core laptops. After getting some weird hijacking virus on my computer I decided its finally time to stop trusting MSSE

its certainly lightweight, don't like the nag screen reminding you of additional features you get

for some reason I just don't like bit defender, seemed too basic, and i just didn't trust it despite all the positive reviews
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top