Definitive Best Antivirus 2007

[kinetix63 Veteran]

A fresh "Best Antivirus" poll for 2007. Please use this as a reference when researching antivirus utilities. As time goes on, the poll can be updated to add further options.

Due to limitations of IPB - this will be seen as 2 polls. Select the Antivirus program you wish to vote for, and choose N/A in the other poll.

Happy voting!

Poll choices are links to the software pages.

Edited January 17, 2007 by Joel

[Guest Jeremy of Many]

I used Norton 2003 and 2004 when they came out. They were resource hogs, and couldn't even get rid of the threats/viruses that it managed to detect.

I experienced this as well with the Eicar test viruses that I could delete by pressing "Del" on my keyboard.

Kaspersky. Defination updates even more times than NOD32 and is even more solid.

So you think if Kaspersky didn't update as often, it would miss out on a virus you'd infect yourself with? Please define "solid". Cheers.

[invalidbuffalo]

I use VirusBlast. Its catching a lot of things so it must be working!

...joking aside, I use NOD32.

[Guest Jeremy of Many]

I use VirusBlast. Its catching a lot of things so it must be working!

...joking aside, I use NOD32.

Detecting a virus and cleaning it or deleting it successfully are two completely different operations. ;)

[Sockie]

Why is CA-Antivirus 2007 not on the list? :(

[invalidbuffalo]

Detecting a virus and cleaning it or deleting it successfully are two completely different operations. ;)

...VirusBlast is a virus. :p

[Blaine]

Yey Norton has 3 votes out of 423!

lmao

[Guest Jeremy of Many]

Why is CA-Antivirus 2007 not on the list? :(

Because it's garbage. I've tried it. A very poor example of anti-virus.

[eLeM]

I personally use KasperSky but I heard NOD32 is a bitch to get around if your hex-editting.

[Max Veteran]

I thought NOD32 offered a free home version . I doubt most of you actually paid for it since it's so expensive. I think AVast is the best since it's not a resource hog and has so many protections and it's FREE!

Just for comparison NOD32 is ?23.00 per year, per PC. McAfee is ?39.99 per year, per PC....I Know Avast is free, but for a decent, paid antivirus system, NOD32 is great!

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

NOD32 uses a custom GUI that can take some getting used to, as L3thal pointed out. You can disable it and get a "barebones" GUI without any graphics, but doing so doesn't change the speed or memory usage of the program.

ESET does not offer a free version of NOD32, however, a thirty-day trial of the Windows version is available for download here. If you want to try the management tools or the mail server version, though, you would have to contact the sales department as trial versions of those are not readily available for download.

Kaspersky definitely releases updates more frequently than ESET does. Kaspersky releases updates hourly while ESET releases several a day. Over the past year I have seen from zero to seven updates a day released for NOD32.

I have never had a problem using a hex (sector, file or resource) editor with NOD32, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did flag on one. There are a couple of reasons I can think of for this, one being that a heuristic (rule) has determined that the editing is suspicious and has flagged the editor as possibly being malware and the other is that the editor is considered a "hacking tool" and being flagged as a potentially unsafe application to run on the computer. Both options can be toggled on and off so you can perform your editing. Just remember to turn them back on when you are finished.

Jeremy of Many hit the proverbial nail on the head, though, so to speak: Anti-virus software is not something you can just install and then blithely go engage in all sorts of high-risk behavior which increases the exposure to malicious code. Even the most brilliantly-written and frequently-updated anti-virus software is, at some point, going to come across some kind of malcode against which it offers no protection. While there are all sorts of various technologies designed to minimize that risk (behavior-blocking, heuristics, virtualization and so forth) they are not a substitute for learning and putting safe computer practices to use. A multi-layered approach of locking down systems to reduce exposure, running as an unprivileged user, limiting network access, performing (and verifying) backups, installing vendor patches, performing audits and reviewing log files and so forth is at least as important, if not more so, than using a good anti-virus program.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[L3thal Veteran]

Talking about nailing it in the head, goretsky sure nailed it (Y)

[bob3160]

running as an unprivileged user

One way of doing this is to use a technique called "DropMyRights"

You can find illustrated instructions on setting this up at:

http://69.247.79.81:4445/dropmyrights/Drop...structions.html

[Mr. Gibs]

F-secure 2007 or windows onecare live 1.5

[b0m8er]

Windows Live OneCare 1.5 is the best AV for me ;)

[bob3160]

Windows Live OneCare 1.5 is the best AV for me ;)

I had it but stopped using it because there isn't any way to check files being downloaded with a file manager.

No on demand scanning.

[macstorm]

Kaspersky man! :yes:

[lol911]

I spent last year going from Avast to Kaspersky to NOD32, so NOD32 for me :D

[xxdesmus]

I tried Kaspersky for a week and it irritated the crap out of me.

Back to Symantec Corp which I know is good. :yes:

[bob3160]

I tried Kaspersky for a week and it irritated the crap out of me.

Back to Symantec Corp which I know is good. :yes:

It's certainly very good at hogging up your computers resources... :whistle:

[xxdesmus]

It's certainly very good at hogging up your computers resources... :whistle:

lol, whatever you say my friend. SAV is no better and no worse than Kaspersky and NOD32. :rolleyes:

[bob3160]

lol, whatever you say my friend. SAV is no better and no worse than Kaspersky and NOD32. :rolleyes:

Very true xxdesmus, which is why I changed over to avast! more than 2 years ago. :)

We all have our own favorites. As long as what we're using is protecting our system, we usually

stick with it.

[SecretMidnight]

I've actually never heard of nod32. I might try it out.

I've used AVG for years, it works.

[severach]

Symantec Antivirus corporate is quite efficient and effective for normal use. This is in stark contrast to Symantec Antivirus consumer edition which has evolved into an abomination. The Corp product isn't the one generating all the complaints.

Kaspersky is irritating crap. I have it installed on my machines that clear virii from customer systems. I immediately deactivate the automatic file protection which is too broken to be useful.

@Jeremy of Many

>some examples of approximate/rounded-off numbers

When you're counting the memory usage I hope you're observing the change in "PF Usage" rather than trying to add up the individual lines in Task Manager.

[L3thal Veteran]

I've actually never heard of nod32. I might try it out.

I've used AVG for years, it works.

Nobody ever hears of NOD32 but once you try it out, you won't go back.

[relevant]

This is my first post and I just wanted to give you guys a link which might be important:

http://www.virus.gr/english/fullxml/default.asp?id=82

NOD32 is definitely one of the best software though, besides being down at #10. However, I've recently shifted to Kaspersky and it's a little better but there is not a quantum leap of difference.

Btw, great forum!