I recently purchased a new laptop and they ever so kindly bundled it with Norton 2010 or some such. Great you think, i just spent R13k on a laptop, they give me a free copy of norton. Nope. Its a 1 month trial. So i decide that i am going to uninstall it and install something else and low and behold my machine is running almost 10-15% faster now that i dont have norton installed. This got me thinking:

What ever happened to the virus scanners of old. There was no fancy gui involved, no email alerts, no advanced dna hair molecule scanning, it was just a plain virus scanner that looked for viruses and it worked. I never got a virus when I ran the old nortons (that you loaded from a 1.4" disk).

Anyway, back onto subject: What virus scanners does everyone use? I need something that isnt bloated, free and quick.

Thanks

I use something called Avast! Home Edition. It's free and it works quite well.

I have heard Avast is good. I use the Personal (free) edition of AVG. I have no issues with it at all. It does slow the machine down a little when running a full scan (which one doesn't), but I schedule scans to run between 4 and 5am. If I happen to be on my machine at that time, I just stop it and let it run the next day.

AVG is good as well. Mainly because its free

I use NOD32, bought a license for it and it was worth every penny. Its incredibly quick - hardly noticed a slowdown at ALL and you can really take control of what it scans. E.g. only have it scan mails, downloaded files and cd's/floppies, not stuff already on your pc like you suggest.

Edit: before that I had tried Clam for windows, and AVG, both of which I felt worked very slowly.

Interesting. I have never had slowness issues with AVG apart from when running a Full Scan. You can also I think, must double check, tell it what to scan these days. Will look when I get home and confirm.

Currently using bit-defender Pro 9... but with the slow laptop HDD (5400rpm drive) the laptop runs slightly sluggish seeing as it scans every single file you access/open/use/etc

with my pc I found it to be the best solution to my neverending trojan/spyware/virus/bad script problems!!!

I've also tried AVG it's also very good... as for norton, trend micro and mcafee they have become overpriced, bloatware and useless scanner/protector for anyone's pc... half the virus/trojan that my pc had never got picked up with these useless products!

Avast > *

I'm with FX on NOD32

Explanation for the geek
Not only does it have an extremely tiny footprint, it also has advanced heuristic algorithm checking that allows it to monitor ALL running programs on your pc, should any of them mimic the common algorithms of a virus, it stops it and sends it automatically for inspection.

explanation for the not so geek
All virus follow certain rules, ie. they try to replicate, or try to lodge themselves into system files etc, if you have a program running that is an undocumented virus but still does these actions, NOD32 montors that program and prevents it from causing damage and automatically submits it for inspection (these settings can be modified).

explanation for the gamer
If you have a virus thats unknown, NOD32 pwns that bitch like a n00b

explanation for the homeboy
NOD32 is the shizat ya'll dig?

Yes essentially NOD32 is rated one of (if not the) fastest scanners, and it and Kaspersky are in the lead with heuristic detection.

ClamWin is naaice! hi 5!

I use AVG on my home PC. Free updates for life - doesn't hog resources - nuked every virus that ever landed on my PC.

Im keen to try NOD32 though!

I dont use any virus scanner. Like Creation says, those that comes bundled with a new PC are a pain to have.

I just stay away from high risk zones on the Internet, delete emails from people I dont know.

The last time I had a bad virus infection was like 6 years ago( I think a virus release by a Russian guy ).
This corrupted the boot sector of the harddisk, nothing would save it except doing a low level format.

I have been virus free since.

NOD32 is a definite win. I've got it running so low it hardly scans anything and when it does its pretty quick. I'm also against the "practice" of having a virus scanner, but running one that you can control (e.g. only scan newly created files) allows you the best of both worlds as such.

I've never really been infected badly, but it certainly would be a concern for me if I started mailing out viruses to business contacts ...

Yes but is heuristic detection effective? Seeing as theres more than one way a virus works.
IMO heuristic detection is just waisted CPU cycles. Just make sure you have the latest definition files from your vendor and things will be okay.

How do you know that, if you are not running an AV? You could be infected, but just not be aware of it, and could be distributing it... Just hope you don't get unlucky like a certain Gitano.

Yup.

Didn't have a virus scanner for ever. Got hacked pretty badly, format resulted. But before I formatted, I downloaded AVG, ran a scan and found 6 different viruses, with many replications of each. As well as over 64 infections by spyware.

Don't think you are infallible, you are wrong.

Good point.

A few years back, I thought the same! I didn't have any protection and even though I only had 56K dial-up then, I would get infected by all sorts of malware and viruses (or is it virii?). I found myself formatting and reloading XP 4-5 times a year.

These days, going on the internet without some form of protection (anti virus software, firewall, anti-spyware) is like having unprotected sex with a R50 hooker - you just never know what you're gonna get!!!!

question does NOD32 also do spyware detection/protection?

I use AVG (free edition) in my office and Norton at home, but when both softwares goes down during a virus attack I run free online scanning process from sites like infectedornot.com, bitdefender, etc.

I check manually for virusses.
What?
Yes, I am that uber.

I use Norton. It blocks almost every virus except when it expires. You have to pay to renew it. This can be a real pain if you use it for along time

Hi,

Yes, heuristic is very important, the reason is because not all virus variants may be known to the scanner. Many viruses are simply spin offs of other viruses, much like modifications for games, however they all act in similar ways.



Yes it does.



I agree!

My favourites that I always use are AntiVir and ClamWin. NOD32 is also pretty decent, but a little overrated IMHO.

Best wishes

RavenServers

Does NOD cater for firewall?

Hi,

I only ever used NOD32 for its virus scanning abilities. The package I had did not have a firewall. The only firewall I would recommend for Windows is ZoneAlarm with WebFiltering enabled - it's the biz for Windows firewall security.

Best wishes

RavenServers

zonealarm is getting attack a tad too much lately... I've tried it for the last year and my system becomes more unstable with zonealarm installed...

right now I find AVG to be the best all in one package

I think the new version cater firewall.