Anti-virus programs/suites

[Boyiee]

My NOD32 runs out in exactly one month, so its time to get something new. But what to get?

I usually buy a 3computer antivirus every year or two, depending on the license length, but I usually buy them when on sale or deals pop up. Like when Kaspersky pops on ebay for 15-20$ or nod32 on newegg for 25$. I think a post sono made a few years ago convinced me to just go with paid apps, something about "for the cost of 1 videogame a year you protect yourself better."

So I'm fine with continuing to buy the programs, but I don't know which to get.

I went from Kaspersky to NOD32, and I'm not sure which I liked better. I think NOD used up more resources which I disliked, and both UI's I wasn't the happiest with. For instance freshly installed using "gaming mode" with quite a bit of settings diabled, NOD32 is using ~70k memory.

I need at least a two computer license, cause I put one on either my laptop or sisters computer or both. I like deals of course, and I want whats the least invasive/least memory hogging yet keeps me protected. Thanks.

[SephYuyX]

MSE.

[Sonomaa]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832752006
30 bucks for a 3 pack of nod32, get some friends to go in with you, 10 bucks each for dedicated protection

[Boyiee]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832752006
30 bucks for a 3 pack of nod32, get some friends to go in with you, 10 bucks each for dedicated protection

That's what I usually buy, either that or a 3 license KAV for 20ish. I haven't been super happy with either, especially the data usage so I was looking for something better. If using a newer NOD is my best bet though I'll do that.

[Kerberoz]

MSE.

mhmm

[Yugl]

I think Kerb/Mafai/Seph travel dangerous waters and they seem to swear by MSE, but I haven't seen MSE place in free Anti-virus reviews (Mostly AVG, Comodo (For a Antivirus you don't need to install), and Avast). Is there any reason why you guys consider MSE better than the others? A specific setting or technical insight?

[Celeste]

I've always used Avast without issue. The best anti-virus is common sense though.

[Boyiee]

Just uninstalled NOD32 to give MSE a try. Should I run anything with it? I see some people mention malwarebytes. Also I use chrome adblock plus. Switch from Firefox like 6 months ago and can't go back.

[Cayos]

NoScript is always good, if you can stand having to allow javascipt when ever you visit a new site. I haven't been using any anti-virus for the last year , and I don't have a virus yet (confirmed yesterday by installing and running MSE). All I use is ad-blocker and no-script

[Niya]

Concerning pure scan/detection performance, the best results over the last years were always the scan engines of NOD32 and Avira.
MSE is a decent scanner, BUT it lacks the important feature of behavior-based scanning. If you're using MSE, install Threatfire too. Almost all other AV engines have behavior-components today (well, except the free Avira AV, but that one's annoying as hell anyway...)

When you want to get a paid AV, get the Scanner itself and not the Internet security bundles. The additional components are in most cases useless and not worth the extra money, since WinXP SP3 the windows firewall is good enough and you don't need another software firewall.

Firefox with Adblock Plus and Noscript is a quite good combo, but you have to get used to allowing Javascript/Flash and other active components for every website.

@Cayos: you may have been lucky, but running no AV is just as good as inviting virus programmers to infect your PC... Even with Brain 2.0 there is never a 100% protection, with drive-by-downloads and unpatched security flaws there's always a way to get into a system.
Well, except you run your whole computer with a linux live distribution that you boot from DVD each time and let it revert all changes/files back to standard on each shutdown. But who wants to work with such a system...?

[Ratatapa]

Gotta love 'legal' eset

[MaachaQ]

I used to run norton (ugh, such a behemoth), but have been great with MSE for the last few years. I also run either Firefox or Chrome, both with adblock and flashblock. I do have the unfortunate problem that the majority of Korean websites are optimized for IE (meaning they barely function in any other browser), but I never do any general browsing with IE. MSE should be fine unless you're visiting some pretty shady websites or downloading suspicious files, be even then having your adblock or flashblock running is going to stop the majority of nasties.

[Hellfury]

I use F-secure on my desktop, and avast+windows firewall on my laptop, I can only say it works well because I never had any issues, (absence of evidence =/= evidence of absence etc.), but it seems to work rather well. avast is free for private use as long as you're only after the AV part.

[orinthia]

One of the main reasons to use MSE is because of how easy and low maintenance it is. It does not nag, does not tell you when it updates, does not ask for money, does not have banners, etc. It stays completely out of your way until it finds something, which is perfect for people who can't computer as well. It does one thing and does it decently, not amazing, but good enough unless all you do is spend your time on shady sites. If that is the case, get a virtual machine, install a linux distro, and have at it on your million shady sites.

Another interesting piece of protection if you're a little more paranoid: setup a host file. Go here: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm . Be aware that this redirects all domain names within the file to 127.0.0.1, which is always your comp and will wait for timeout. Setup Hostman as linked from that site to have slightly easier management of the file and a tiny server to give out OK to all requests. You may need to remove some domain names from the file to get certain sites to work correctly, or if just needing it temporarily, can rename the host file and refresh your browser to get to a blocked site. It blocks a shitload of bad sites and prevents them from ever sending your anything, but also a handful of legit ones. It's not a terribly amazing way to block sites, but it works OS wide and will redirect no matter what accesses the net (as long as not in a VM anyway). Can use this to screw with programs that try to phone home, like adobe stuff.

Comodo firewall is also great for the awfully paranoid. It can sandbox things with certain settings, isolating all new programs from the rest of the system, though some programs do tend to break like this heh. It's paranoid settings are quite paranoid, and can get annoying as hell to deal with lol, but they're there and can be turned off as well. I run this, but it's not so necessary if you don't spend much time on odd sites. It's main use is the paranoid settings really, otherwise you may as well not use something like this.

Firefox also has an interesting plugin called RequestPolicy. It works alongside things like adblock plus and noscript to prevent websites from requesting anything outside their domain. You'll get a little red box for linked content from another site, like as is common for people on this site to link an image from some odd other site instead of from bgbucket. I have to allow bg to grab whatever it is from another website. It's for the paranoid, it can get tiring as it's much more strict than noscript about this, but it really stops websites from trying to get resources from other websites (and those other websites from getting resources from other-other websites, and so on). This can break many sites quite fast, so you may need another browser altogether if the site is quite broken and hard to figure out what to allow.

Another small piece of software is DropMyRights. It's from microsoft, allows you to run programs not as super user but as a limited user. This has the effect of preventing the program from making changes to the system at a policy level, as normally everything is run at high privileges and can make any change they want. You just setup a shortcut to the program and have it call up your wanted software, like your browser. Again, mega paranoid, but it's there if necessary.

If you have to use IE9, you can install blocking stuff on it too. Fanboy, the maker of an adblock list for abp, also has some "tracking protecting lists" for IE9 which do work, though not amazing. It's at least something.

[bungiefan]

ESET seems to run a 2 years for the price of one deal every Cyber Monday, that's when I got my license.

DropMyRights is an XP-only program, to make programs run like they do in Vista and Win7, not as admin by default.

[Boyiee]

ESET seems to run a 2 years for the price of one deal every Cyber Monday, that's when I got my license.

DropMyRights is an XP-only program, to make programs run like they do in Vista and Win7, not as admin by default.

My ESET NOD32 AV4 was a real resource hog which was what I was trying to avoid. Is 5 better? I hated having to change so many settings cause I game on the computer.

[chiyio]

don't run as admin, and go to porn/random sites in a linux vm. If you really "need" av for some reason, I don't know why anybody would buy something when mse is out there.

[Buffy]

I know the general consensus is that AVG is shit, and I'm not going to advocate otherwise because I don't have anything to compare it to. However, adblock, noscript, safe browsing habits (no porn and primarily well known sites, no hentei, etc), and AVG have kept me safe since I got hacked in 2004. The only paid virus software I have experience with is symantic (which is quite good imo, but quite expensive and geared towards corporate clients anyway), which we stack with barracuda, websense, and a proxy server at work. And we still get computers infected which we then use malware bytes and super anti-spyware to remove crap. (If its more complicated then that I simply reformat the hard drive. Having nightly automated backups to a network server has advantages). If *I* were going to buy a virus software, I would start with AVG's paid version, since I've had success with their free version. However, I am aware that I am in the minority, and it is probably my browsing habits that keep me safer then anything else.

[Boyiee]

MSE is fine so far, not clunky at all.

I did like NOD32/Kaspersky but the versions I had were just too demanding. I hated seeing them so high on the list of processes. Unless the newer versions are much better I'll just stick with MSE.

I wasn't looking for safe browsing advice or habits to keep in mind. I've never had problems with viruses or anything. I just remember a post by sono years ago saying stop using shit like avg and spend $10 and I have been since. The low cost is more than worth it to me and I would happily continue paying it. Just wanted something along the protection levels of NOD32/KAV but that wasn't a hog. MSE seems to be that, unless like mentioned the newer versions are less demanding.

[Caiyuo]

Is that stand-alone or paired with Threatfire as per Niya's advice? It's actually kind of disturbing that AVs are a noticeable resource hog when assuming you have a pretty high-end PC if I'm remembering right. I thought it was just a problem with dated hardware given I'm usually shopping around for what's the most lightweight because my laptop is a fuckin' piece.