Definitive Best Antivirus 2008

[kinetix63 Veteran]

A fresh "Best Antivirus" poll for 2008. Please use this as a reference when researching antivirus utilities. As time goes on, the poll can be updated to add further options.

Happy voting!

[Skulltrail-old]

ESET needs more threat analysts and some new blood in the programming team too.

I have a three year license for NOD32 and I hate to think I wasted a lot of money on a product that fails to step up when it's required.

Got my fingers crossed that NOD32 V3.5 or V4 (whatever major release is next), really does something amazing.

I actually just tried the 30-day trial. Wasn't bad at all. Detection rates were pretty good; assuming the viruses I found on purpose were common.

I use Kaspersky Internet Security 2009; I have a 1-year license. It expires in 261 days. :cry:

IMO, Kaspersky is the ideal security software for anyone. They update almost hourly and the detection rate is higher than any other AV app.

[splicer707]

I actually just tried the 30-day trial. Wasn't bad at all. Detection rates were pretty good; assuming the viruses I found on purpose were common.

I use Kaspersky Internet Security 2009; I have a 1-year license. It expires in 261 days. :cry:

IMO, Kaspersky is the ideal security software for anyone. They update almost hourly and the detection rate is higher than any other AV app.

Kaspersky is real good (Y) I agree with you.

Funny thing is this must be about the second weekend in a row that ESET has actually released updates on the weekend. Maybe *gasp* they have some fresh staff that work weekends?

[xankazo]

Kaspersky is real good (Y) I agree with you.

Funny thing is this must be about the second weekend in a row that ESET has actually released updates on the weekend. Maybe *gasp* they have some fresh staff that work weekends?

I agree. NOD32 has lost their charm and become a just-above-average AV. however, in the last days it seems they have doubled their update rates. let's hope they get their 5hit together. my license will expire in 40 days and it's very probable that I'll go with Avira Antivir Premium. I really like NOD32 and hope some light will shine on the horizon before I make the change. heck, there's not even a new version announced or expected anytime soon.

[wellofsouls]

Kaspersky China has organized an online event where they give away 1-year activation codes to members of their online forum who have met certain conditions, so I registered an account there and got a free copy of KIS 2009 to replace the Norton 2007 on my work laptop. I have to say it's a GIGANTIC improvement over Norton 2007, both in terms of performance and usability. And even more so than Kaspersky 7.0 back then, which hogged my system down to a crawl so I had to uninstall it immediately.

So yea, Kaspersky 2009 is a really great improvement to the performance. Don't know about Norton 2009 though, heard it's also quite light on resource.

[wellofsouls]

IMO, Kaspersky is the ideal security software for anyone. They update almost hourly and the detection rate is higher than any other AV app.

personally I'm not sure if the hourly update is a good or bad thing. doing extra frequent update may mean they have less time to QA those updates, thus more prone to false positives? Kaspersky earned itself a nickname of "the king of false positives" back when it had 22 critical false positives in the first half of 2007, some of them removing critical Windows system files resulting in system crash on restart. Norton also earned itself some bad reputation last year when it removed two critical system files from the CHS version of Windows XP, thus rendering thousands of PCs inoperable. Ironically, since older versions of Norton have a slower update frequency, their users are saved from this mess.

[Cadium]

ESET seems to have really dropped the ball with NOD32 AV 3.0. It's the only anti-virus I've ever seen that has caused Windows Vista x64 SP1 to blue screen like flippin' crazy.

[Denholm]

NOD32 on my PC's.

Transparent on my PC's, can't even tell it's running until bad stuff tries to get a hold and NOD32 does what it promises.

Updates are more frequent I notice.

[Guest Glinster]

Finally made the switch to NOD32 v3, from 2.7.

[Orien]

NAV2009 is surprisingly good.

[darren89]

NAV2009 is surprisingly good.

yeah, tried it before. its fast.

i'm also using kaspersky 2009, which eats all my 2gb ram during full scan. what a shame :(

[DGMurdockIII]

moon secure antivirus is the best open source anti- virus out there for windows http://www.moonsecure.com/ it the only anti virus scanning program app i use

[JorgeIvan]

Avira Antivir :)

[Denholm]

yeah, tried it before. its fast.

i'm also using kaspersky 2009, which eats all my 2gb ram during full scan. what a shame :(

Kaspersky is working on a CF2 (Critical Fix 2) build and some of the replies seem to indicate that RAM usage is better?!

[Skulltrail-old]

Kaspersky (Y)

[Denholm]

Yeah. Long story but I got caught with some .vbs / autorun viruses and NOD32 did foo-all.

I tried Kaspersky for 30 days. Cleaned my PC and detected some more viruses on my flash drive.

Kaspersky just sold me two, two year licenses for KAV2009 (Y)

[bokajinn]

I use commodo AV and Firewall.

[roadgeek9]

AVG 8 here. :)

[Ambroos]

NOD32 has an excellent detection/footprint rate. If it's got to be free I usually go with Avast. Sad there's no real decent free AV...

[Lyric]

AVG 8.0 gets my vote, by far.

[Zickar]

I personally use AVG and use it on my PC but we use Symantec at work, I'm interested to see what you think of it specially that our PCs at work are always infected

[xpgeek]

Lately its Clamwin, don't really want an active scanner.

[Rahul]

Nod32 is very good , but Norton 2009 is getting better and better

[Denholm]

Nod32 is very good , but Norton 2009 is getting better and better

Eset needs to pull out something amazing soon. Nod32 v.3 is poor at removing Malware and has let me down countless number of times.

[AllMac]

I don't know all that preaching about NOD32. I tested the program for the last month and got 3 BSOD's because of it.

Yesterday I installed Avira AntiVir Premium. It found 1 viruses, 2 trojans and 4 malware applications. I guess I'll stick with it for the time being.

[ATGC]

I've been using AntiVir (freeware) for quite some time on this PC and its definitely the best AV software I've ever used. Although the constant update pop-up gets annoying sometimes but its the only downside.