Anti-virus Software?

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Soliex
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Anti-virus Software?

Post by Soliex »

Recently reformatted my computer due to a annoying virus that I was not able to remove. Typically a reformat does not bother me. But this time id like to be a little more secure.

Can anyone suggest a decent anti-virus program that wont severely interfere with my gaming and online downloading?
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by skier »

I have AVG Free and would never have anything else(except mabie AVG Pro :mrgreen: )

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/download-fr ... s/us/frt/0
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by Soliex »

Thanks, im going to go ahead and get that. Much appreciated. :)
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by skier »

it may not have live scanning, but that just slows down your computer if you ask me, besides, i only even have it open when i decide its time to scan or update
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by DaIceMan »

skierkid450 wrote:it may not have live scanning, but that just slows down your computer if you ask me, besides, i only even have it open when i decide its time to scan or update
AVG anti virus does have live scanning, as does the anti spyware for the first 30 days. AV continues to scan daily (at 8am by default), but after the trial expires on the AS, it doesn't do live scans anymore.
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by skier »

you mean AVG suite/PRO trial versions have live? or does the free version, its been about 6 months since i installed AVG Free
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by DaIceMan »

skierkid450 wrote:you mean AVG suite/PRO trial versions have live? or does the free version, its been about 6 months since i installed AVG Free
AVG Free Anti Virus has live scanning. I've used it over 100 times in the last couple years. It automatically updates (6am, I believe is default) and scans (8am default). Updates and scanning are done as long as the computer is turned on. The update window opens, does it's thing, and then closes after 30 seconds. Scanning doesn't show any indicator, other than the checkerboard in the systray with the "play" arrow on it. The only time you would get a notice is if it detects a virus during the scan, and I think that window closes on it's own after a while as well.
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by skier »

i dont like auto update and auto scan either way then, because... well, i dont need it, and dont need it sucking up ANY resources(not that it uses a whole lot, it is AVG not Norton after all)
Last edited by skier on Sat Dec 29, 2007 3:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by camaroguy1998 »

skierkid450 wrote:i disable auto update and auto scan either way then, because... well, i dont need it, and dont need it sucking up ANY resources(not that it uses a whole lot, it is AVG not Norton after all)
Just adjust the schedule to a time when you know you wont be working on your computer! I have mine set to update at 4am and run a scan at 5am.
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by skier »

well i dont leave my pc on all night(bunch of blue LEDs and all the fans..not very tolerable :roll: ) i just turn it on when i need it, or want an extra heater :)
Last edited by skier on Sat Dec 29, 2007 3:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by ibleet »

I've never had a problem using AVG Free...

Back when I used Norton, it let a password stealer trojan in and it was a few weeks before I found out the hard way. :(
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by Softix »

I am using AVG anti virus and it doesnt affect any of my gaming and computer downloads. I used AVG security and it doesnt lag up my pc and it was able to remove trojan viruses in my pc.
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by djdna »

I use Nod32, seems to be good for me for past 3 years I have been using it.
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by tnynyn »

AVG, Antirvir, NOD32

I use those three at work and NOD32 at home. They are all good AV, light, simple, and doesn't slow the system. I have NOD32 at home and game with it all the time...Crysis, COD4, TF2, etc...no problems with it whatsoever. If you dont want to pay, AVG or Antivir is nice.
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by ZhengHe »

Here is a comparison I did of some of the major free antivirus software. It is a little old and not perfect, but perhaps you will find it helpful: http://hi-techreviews.com/vbulletin/sho ... comparison
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

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ZhengHe wrote:Here is a comparison I did of some of the major free antivirus software. It is a little old and not perfect, but perhaps you will find it helpful: http://hi-techreviews.com/vbulletin/sho ... comparison
hmm, that site wants me to sign up to view that thread... :-k

It's more effort than I can be bothered with right now. :rolleyes:

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Re: Anti-virus Software?

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DMB2000uk wrote:
ZhengHe wrote:Here is a comparison I did of some of the major free antivirus software. It is a little old and not perfect, but perhaps you will find it helpful: http://hi-techreviews.com/vbulletin/sho ... comparison
hmm, that site wants me to sign up to view that thread... :-k

It's more effort than I can be bothered with right now. :rolleyes:

Dan
No need to do that. It's my thread so I can do whatever I want with it, including posting it up right here as a response. Here you go:
This is a very fragmented Free Antivirus Review I wrote up a couple weeks back. For the moment I intend to included both my own virus detection test along with a full overview of all relevant characteristics in each program. Just take a look and feel free to leave any comments you wish.

Parameters:
In the interest of those readers and the forum administrators who would likely rather not read through an evaluation involving every single result from all 5 tests I will only be including the top 4 free and top 4 pay-for antivirus programs. Feel free to click on the link to any specific test if you'd like more information from it. Keep in mind these this is only considering antivirus programs as opposed to online scans. Where AVG and Avast free edition are not available I will use pro as a comparison in the section. Newest tests were used where available.

Mega Antivirus Test: to start out with this antivirus test used 10,000+ virises, worms, ect... to test a full list of fully updated antivirus programs. The entire test was test was performed on the same platform; with the same setting several times by different people and I for one view it as highly accurate. Do keep in mind that this was performed a year ago though.

Top 4 Paid Antivirus Programs According to Test:
-rated are viruses found. Higher is better

1. Trend Micro PC-cillin 2005 - 10,084
2. McAfee VirusScan 10¹ - 10,026
3. Symantec Norton 2005 - 10,028
4. Kaspersky 4.5 - 9,996

*keep in mind that on this test Kaspersky online outperformed everything rated by a comfortable margin.


Top 4 Free Antivirus Programs According to Test:
-rated are viruses found. Higher is better

1. AntiVir Personal Edition Classic 6¹ - 10,086
2. Clamwin 0.86.2 - 9,917
3. Avast.Professional.Edition.v4.6.623 - 9,757
4. Grisoft AVG Pro.V7.0.143 - 9,507

Antivirus Programs Test: 147184 were used in this test along with a standard platform. All antivirus programs were upgraded to their most recent extent and tested both fully and heuristically. I found this test to appear highly accurate, especially after reading the more detailed documentation. Test was done with year.

Top 4 Paid Antivirus Programs According to Test:
-rated are viruses found. Higher is better

1. Kaspersky version 6.0.0.303 - 99.62%
2. Active Virus Shield by AOL version 6.0.0.299 - 99.62%
3. F-Secure 2006 version 6.12.90 - 96.86%
4. BitDefender Professional version 9 - 96.63%

Top 4 Free Antivirus Programs According to Test:
-rated are viruses found. Higher is better

1. BitDefender freeware version 8.0.202 - 95.57%
2. AntiVir Classic version 7.01.01.02 - 94.26%
3. Avast freeware version 4.7.871 - 87.46%
4. AVG freeware version 7.1.405 - 82.82%

*On this specific test F-Prot beta which is technically a freeware application would have come in third at 87.88% had it been considered, but since it was a test program as opposed to full freeware it was intentionally not included.


Antivirus Software Test: 9000 infected files. Each antivirus program was set to its tops setting. I’ve rated this test as moderately accurate, chiefly because of the lack of any other control descriptions. It was also performed over almost a week as opposed to all at the same time. This test was performed in 2004.

Top 4 Paid Antivirus Programs According to Test:
-rated are viruses found. Higher is better

1. McAfee Viruscan Enterprise 8 – 93.29%
2. Kaspersky Anti-virus Personal - 93.13%
3. Extendia AVK Pro 11 – 93.09%
4. F-Secure 2004 – 92.87%

Top 4 Free Antivirus Programs According to Test:
-rated are viruses found. Higher is better

1. Antivir Personal Edition – 92.96%
2. Bitdefender Free 7 – 92.55%
3. Clamwin – 90.11%
4. Avast Home Edition – 90.05%

Antivirus Comparative: this specific test is actually illegal to post the direct results for, but just to sum them up there were no free antivirus programs tested, so that comparison is useless, but as for the paid versions Antivir still outperformed AVG and Avast. As for the actual test, it did not go into much depth, but based of some of the forum queries it would safe to say that this test was done under a fairly rigirous control scenario. I view this test as moderate to highly accurate, but incomplete.

Top Antivirus Software: Although PC World claims impartial and rigorous testing procedures any information to that effect is severely lacking. There’s also the fact that they are a corporate site with advertisers who are the same companies they wind up reviewing. They also didn’t list any statistics as to how many viruses each program caught. You have to question their impartiality. Thus, I found this test to be moderate to low as far as accuracy and it was a rather incomplete picture.

Top 4 Paid Antivirus Programs According to Test:
-rated are viruses found. Higher is better

1. Bitdefender 9 - 92
2. McAfee VirusScan - 87
3. Kaspersky - 85
4. F-Secure - 83

Top 4 Free Antivirus Programs According to Test:
-rated are viruses found. Higher is better

1. Antivir Classic Edition - 78
2. Avast Home Edition - 77
3. AVG Free Edition - 73
4. N/A


Conclusions:

Taking into account that this conclusion is based off the findings of only 5 tests (that includes numerous past versions of the same test) and the fact that these tests only take into account how well the software performs as opposed to how easy it is to use and various other factors a few common trends come into focus. First in terms of freeware antivirus software Antivir, and Clamwin when it appeared consistently outperformed the aforementioned Avast and AVG freeware programs. Second, as far as paid antivirus software, which took something of a sidenote, since otherwise there would be more tests to compare, the distribution was much more sporadic, though Kaspersky landed itself in the top 4 on several occasions. Third, as far as overall performance the the top paid antivirus programs consistently outperformed free alternatives, though often not by much at all.
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by DMB2000uk »

Thanks muchly ^_^

How long ago did you actually do all of these tests?

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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by ZhengHe »

DMB2000uk wrote:Thanks muchly ^_^

How long ago did you actually do all of these tests?

Dan
I did this slightly more then a year ago and it's really just an aggregation of some excellent tests I found on the subject. In order to do my own tests I would have to get ahold of a fairly large and diverse virus file of 10,000+ different variants or so. That would not be hard, but I never got around to it.
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Re: Anti-virus Software?

Post by Major_A »

This is pretty cut and dry.
http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/
I personally use NOD32 with the NOD32 fix. Before that I just used Avast!'s free edition.
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