Subscription-Based Virus Protection

[Lucavi]

Anyone actually pay for theirs and have comments on it? My brother got bit defender last year and hasn't had a bug or anything else since. They've got a 3-PC, one year subscription deal for $50, which is much cheaper than it was the year before.

Anyone have an experience with paid software, or does everyone simply torrent it?

[Caiyuo]

Are you more concerned with the experience of payment and how well or smoothly the company operates with payments or just looking for a dependable paid antivirus?

If that latter, I can't really say enough good things about ESET NOD32, but I'm not really sure how large of a gap it holds over Microsoft's Security Essentials which is free and pretty notable. Can't comment on anything related to payments, though!

[Lucavi]

Really just good, quality stuff beyond Adaware, Malware bytes, ect. I'm looking more for real-time protection that locates and blocks things as they arrive, instead of hitting your PC up, then having you clean them later.

I'm at a point in life where I actually make money now, so I don't mind shelling out a few bucks for a few less hassles in the day. I get tired of having to clean shit after the fact, and know that Bit defender, while heavy-handed at times, doesn't let a single thing through.

[Tyche]

ESET Nod32 gets my thumbs up

[Lucavi]

I'll try the trials of both - they sound very similar, but of course, its all about the details.

Now to find the dirtiest porn site to test them...

[#686578]

Really just good, quality stuff beyond Adaware, Malware bytes, ect. I'm looking more for real-time protection that locates and blocks things as they arrive, instead of hitting your PC up, then having you clean them later.

I'm at a point in life where I actually make money now, so I don't mind shelling out a few bucks for a few less hassles in the day. I get tired of having to clean shit after the fact, and know that Bit defender, while heavy-handed at times, doesn't let a single thing through.

Avast does this and is free. If you really determined on paying for something you can get for free, just pay for Avast's paid version.

My brother got bit defender last year and hasn't had a bug or anything else since.

That's not really a worthwhile analysis of a program, considering I haven't had a virus... ever

[Caiyuo]

To Numbers' point, generally antivirus is either a free option of Avira, Avast!, AVG or Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) with the alternate option of pirating ESET if you're feeling particularly naughty. As for effectiveness, I've never had a significant infection or problem before, but you can't really compare internet-awareness and safe practices like noscript and adblock and make a judgment call on prevention effectiveness all that well.

So far I've used everything I've listed except AVG with great results; currently using ESET for my personal laptop and installing MSE on everything else I support that I don't personally own or have access to frequently because it's incredibly fucking simple and effective.

I will say to ESET's credit that in the last 4 months I've had nothing turn up in any scans, between both itself and MalwareBytes AND it has the best scanning speed I've found so far. "Full" (as opposed to quick) scans take about half an hour for me, as opposed to 2 hour affairs with Avast. /pantwheeze

[Amastacia]

Safe browsing habits make a huge difference, but I don't mind spending $40/yr on Nod32. Worth it for the speed and thoroughness.

[Killgannon]

http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

the paid version is pretty good, it will lock your shit down like a virgin catholic school girl on prom night if you let it, very nice for clueless users

also immunet.com , which is relatively new, and cloud based... it will also play nicely with other a/vs so that you can hvae 2 levels of protection if you want it

[Melena]

I've been using Trend Micro's PC-Cillian for the past few years with no issues.

[Lucavi]

Thanks for the responses. I'm mulling over a few options, but yeah, I'm going to eventually start torrenting again, and that's another area where I want to be able to scan whatever the fuck is going to potentially be on that shit before it hits my HD.

[nitsuj]

I use ESET. very low system resources and I haven't had a virus yet...

I recommend it (and I pay for mine)

[Rellikard]

Kaspersky, ESET and Norton are probably top paid subscription anti-virus programs atm. Before the 2010 version, Norton definitely was a lot worse and much more of a resource hog but it's definitely been revamped with its 2010 version. KAV/KIS and ESET use less resources but Norton supposedly has a 1-2% higher detection rate.

PS: NEVER GET NORTON 360.

[lilfoo]

Kaspersky, over and over again. Don't buy it from anywhere but ebay from resellers though. I spent ~$9 for 1 Year 3 PC for Kaspersky for 3 years running now. Best money i have spent for software after alcohol 120%.

I like Kaspersky over the others because of its low process usage, less invasive, and the fact it updates constantly (24/7 updates not once a day ect). Only problems i have had with it so far have been for false positives on my home made trainers and fighting to not get them auto deleted (minor annoyance).

Kaspersky, ESET and NOD32 are the best out imo right now. I would stay away from norton b/c of how invasive it is.

[Rockstaru]

Kaspersky, ESET and NOD32 are the best out imo right now. I would stay away from norton b/c of how invasive it is.

ESET and NOD32 are the same...or rather, ESET is the company that makes NOD32.

I run NOD32 myself (bought a two year subscription in December, and my school decided to switch from Trend Micro Officescan to NOD32 next year). No complaints, and the scans are very quick.

[#686578]

I will say to ESET's credit that in the last 4 months I've had nothing turn up in any scans, between both itself and MalwareBytes AND it has the best scanning speed I've found so far. "Full" (as opposed to quick) scans take about half an hour for me, as opposed to 2 hour affairs with Avast. /pantwheeze

I will say to Avast's credit that for the past six years I've had nothing turn up in any scans

I occasionally am forced to deal with McAfee, Symantec, etc etc so I am not unfamiliar with other antiviruses. To be perfectly honest, not taking two hours for a full in depth scan would make me worried (Unless you have like a 30GB harddrive or something? I scan like 200-750GB at a time)

Thanks for the responses. I'm mulling over a few options, but yeah, I'm going to eventually start torrenting again, and that's another area where I want to be able to scan whatever the fuck is going to potentially be on that shit before it hits my HD.

Real time scanning wont help you detect a virus in a partially downloaded file. (For torrenting)

[Caiyuo]

I will say to Avast's credit that for the past six years I've had nothing turn up in any scans

I occasionally am forced to deal with McAfee, Symantec, etc etc so I am not unfamiliar with other antiviruses. To be perfectly honest, not taking two hours for a full in depth scan would make me worried (Unless you have like a 30GB harddrive or something? I scan like 200-750GB at a time)

I only singled out my history with ESET because it's what I'm recommending and while I've never had infections that were able to cause damage between ESET, Avast and Avira, I've had detections during scans for the latter 2 over the years, but the contrast isn't really fair for me to make since smarter safety awareness and more preventative tools are available.

As far as scan time, I'm not to the point of questioning efficacy in contrast to scan length, but Avast routinely took hours with a 60GB 5400RPM laptop hard drive while ESET takes as mentioned about half an hour with a newer 90GB 5400, with the only other differences being a change of Windows XP to Windows 7 (/w visual effects and all). That's just been my experience and since those are popularly advertised features (mostly word of mouth) of ESET I simply stay satisfied and go with what suits me best.

[bungiefan]

"If Norton made condoms everyone would be pregnant"

I first heard that around 05, its still true.

Roommate's retort is:

If Norton made condoms, nobody would have sex because they'd be having too much trouble taking the thing off to use a better one, and Norton's condom would be put on them at birth. A professional surgeon would be needed to remove it, it would take two hours, and it might kill the patient to remove it because it's attached to every vital organ, not just the one it is supposed to cover (Norton is worried you might get someone pregnant with your nose). Cost of removal would be more than the installation.

Real time scanning wont help you detect a virus in a partially downloaded file. (For torrenting)

ESET NOD32 has detected malware in incompleted files I've gotten off a few torrents. A few keygens I've gotten off Demonoid have flagged it with only half the file downloaded, and not even the first half. It also seems to be able to open a lot of archived and compressed file formats for my games that I haven't known were such, as watching it scan things, I've seen it looking at files inside of another, and it wasn't a RAR or ZIP. It does take a while to scan my 3 TB of drive space, but not as long as AVG or Norton ever did. It looks like they did their homework on getting it to detect partial torrent files and obscure compression formats, even with changed extensions.

[Aro]

Does Free Avast have annoying pop-ups like Avira?

[Caiyuo]

Does Free Avast have annoying pop-ups like Avira?

Nope, Avira is the only one to my knowledge with that "problem". It's actually something you can stop, though if you just want an AV without that. Short google of like "avira popup" should turn up something.