I now have a need for a couple of licences for reputable anti-virus software for home use.
We currently have Norton I think, but happy to change to something else.
Any recommendations on what to get?
Anti-Virus software - recommendations?
roughana on 06/03/2015 - 15:06
Comments
+1 for this. MSE (win7) or Defender? (win8) is free and good enough for what most people need. You won't even notice it's running.
Also highly recommend malwarebytes in addition to MSE.
Nothing. Use common sense. Defender is built into 8.1 anyway.
What if a reputable site you use regularly gets compromised and starts serving you infected data. What if the DNS you use gets poisoned and your traffic gets redirected to another bad site. Common sense is the first line of defence but should never be the only line of defence. Also Windows Defender has been shown to be next to useless compared to most top tier AV's.
A layered approach is needed for the best protection. Using no AV is just a terrible idea especially if you're using a Microsoft or Apple based OS.
Avast is a good FREE one and Kaspersky is a good PAID one.
Check some test results here: http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparatives-reviews/
You might also want to install EMET:
Thanks for this. Of particular interest to me is the real world performance of the free solutions.
Microsoft scores very poorly (actually, the worst) in this report (389 compromised test cases). Avast is better (81).
Of the non-free alternatives Trend Micro performed the best with only 2 compromised test cases.
well this is Ozbargain so I would recommend Microsoft Security Essentials since it is free.
Edit: Woops, I didn't notice this has already been suggested.
anything free is worth mentioning twice :-) :-) (oops… 3 times now lol)
Bitdefender Total Security 2015
x32 bit installer
http://download.bitdefender.com/windows/desktop/t_security/2…x64 bit installer
http://download.bitdefender.com/windows/desktop/t_security/2…Use promotional license key HFTEQW2 for a 9 months license. I hope the key still works.
Just used it :) Key works fine!
Thanks for that. Just disabled defender yesterday because it was causing my startup to be laggy.
Hopefully bitdefender will be lighter on system resources.
MSE is now recognised as inadequate. Cloud security is available through Panda free, and it gets good results in comparative testing. BitDefender should be avoided as it will slow your system.
I have been trialling AV systems recently and one of my machines has Bit Defender free on it. Rather than slow it down it is now booting 10 seconds faster with the AV becoming active earlier in the boot. There are probably other methods to time it but I'm not bothered as long as I don't start "going backwards".
Please note that I am not commenting on how good or bad Bit Defender is, just a comment on how I found its speed. Note that I had AVG free on the machine previously. I am also trialling Avast free on another machine. It seems to be OK but it puts up a lot self advertising and "buy me" banners.
The AVAST add-ons are terrible as well. The majority of average (mom/dad) users who install avast usually go through an express installation and it ends up installing a whole heap of junk on the system which later causes problems like this one.
Lots of antivirus companies these days are pushing for a lot of these browser plugins and software updating tools, most of which completely unneccessary and adds bloat to the system. Why can't they keep it simple like they used to :(
One thing I forgot to say about Bit Defender is that seems to be minimal. There is almost nothing to configure and it sits quietly (too quiet?) and does it's job. Example: I downloaded a .EXE file the other day and then went to the folder. Not there. BD had prevented it downloading without a word. IE11 thought it had happened. Anyway, I couldn't find any info that BD had dealt with it. It had just disappeared. I had to rename the file to achieve a download.
Thanks for the responses.
Avira?
Does anyone still use Lavasoft Ad-Aware?? I know that was popular about 10 years back…
I have used last few years
Avast for Antivirus (as mentioned above dont install express option)
Spybot for Spyware/Malware and use the immunization feature for autoblocking known BSBoth Free, And have seemed to keep my pc healthy.
No one uses Spybot anymore?!
Uninstall Norton… you will need to go to their site and download a small program to do this fully :-(
Get Microsoft Security Essentials from the Microsoft site.. 100% functional and 100% FREE.
In addition get Malawarebytes Anti Malaware… odd name, but a top product. This will give you top protection for the main source of infections these days .. free version is available or you can pay for the premium version which is well worth it.
https://www.malwarebytes.org/