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Best AntiVirus & AnitSpam/Popup Software (Vista 64)?

S

Shaitan00

Member
I've just installed Vista Ultimate 64bit for the first time and need a good compatible Anti-Virus and AntiSpam/Popup/Spyware application.

In the past I always used AVG but recently upgraded to version 8.* and absolutly hate it - it runs slow (takes over 11 hours to scan my hard-drive when it used to take 1-2 hours using version 7.*). I did some reading and found it wasn't even the best one out there and potentially not even compatible with Vista64.
As for AntiSpam/Popup/Spyware, I've always used Lavasoft Ad-ware/Ad-watch but have no clue if a) it is compatible with Vista 64 and b) still the best to use.

So I was hoping to get some advice from real users, a lot of Google'ing provided 100 of pages all listed different programs as "the best" - I know it is hard to actually list but there has to be 1-3 top contenders for what I am looking for - so far the ones I see most recently listed are:
- AVAST (free)
- KASPERSKY (pay)
- NOD32 (pay)

Of course these are just things I noticed - I am completly open to trying whatever everyone suggests as the best one.
Important for me is that it doesn't take much ressources/memory (meaning - polar opposite to Norton)...

I tend to rather FREE (therefore AVAST) but if enough people lean towards a paying version I don't mind.
And this is only ANTI-VIRUS (right?), what about a replacement for Lavasoft? Or should I simply keep using it (install newer version).

Any advice / help would be much appreciated...
Thanks,
 
Overall I prefer and would recommend Kaspersky. But there are a few small configuration tricks to keep it running flawlessly.
Firstly totally disable Windows Defender (can conflict with Kaspersky Antivirus) and exclude 'Search Indexer' from scanning.
Also the community forum of Kaspersky is great. Lots of helpful people there.

Secondly I would choose NOD32 V3. It's an excellent product. However.. It isn't as good as Kaspersky on detections and cleaning infections.

On Norton. Norton is working on the new AV release (shortly) and it's very slim and fast (in Beta ATM). I am not a Norton fanboy, but they have done great work with the current product in beta.

Not a fan of avast! seemed to slow down some processes a lot more than I was comfortable with and I don't much like the radio type UI. But, that's probably just me.
 
avast. No reason to pay for an anti-virus/anti-malware when you can have something as good as avast for free.

It also has anti-malware, which is what you probably meant by anti-spam since you kept referring to Ad-aware. When you have 3rd party anti-malware protection, disable Windows Defender real-time scanner by going to Control Panel > Windows Defender > Tools > Options > disable automatic scanning and real-time protection. Alternatively you can also disable defender alltogether when you won't even use it for manual scans by unticking "use windows defender". Remember to save your changes.

avast will also have a firewall in the future as they are working on it right now. I'm sure they will give the option to use only the other for those who don't like complete security suites.
 
And AVAST plays nice with VISTA 64-bit? No compatibility problems?

As it has been mentioned a few times...
How is BitDefender?
I am wary of it, not sure if it works (Microsoft doing anti-* products? have a hard enough time with Operating Systems).



So AVAST is all-in-one for free, no more need to install both AVG and Lavasoft (for free). Very tempting if it is worth it and does an equivalent job to the likes of NOD32 and Kaspersky I guess....
 
I've used nothing but avast on my Vista x64. No problems whatosever. You need to register avast Home Edition, registration is free but has to be renewed every 14 months.

BitDefender isn't Microsoft product. I think you're confusing it with Windows Defender, which comes with Vista anyway but should be disabled if you use 3rd party anti-malware software.
 
Originally posted by: Elstupido
Antivir, runs well on Vista 64, light on system resources, and is free
Click to expand...

I tried it.

It has a pop-up that opens a window that you have to close manually.
There is a hack to remove it. But, who wants to hack an anti-virus?
It does not scan emails either.

I don't like it.
 
Originally posted by: Navid
Originally posted by: Elstupido
Antivir, runs well on Vista 64, light on system resources, and is free
Click to expand...

I tried it.

It has a pop-up that opens a window that you have to close manually.
There is a hack to remove it. But, who wants to hack an anti-virus?
It does not scan emails either.

I don't like it.
Click to expand...

I don't mind the popup, it lets you know that it's updated. As far as email scanning, it'll catch anything on execution, so pre-scanning is really superfluous.
 
Originally posted by: Navid
Originally posted by: Elstupido
Antivir, runs well on Vista 64, light on system resources, and is free
Click to expand...

I tried it.

It has a pop-up that opens a window that you have to close manually.
There is a hack to remove it. But, who wants to hack an anti-virus?
It does not scan emails either.

I don't like it.
Click to expand...
The hack is very simple and does no harm. Updates still come and go just fine
 
I've run Vista64 RTM and SP1 off and on for a couple of years.
I've run AVAST home edition for that entire time.
I can say that it seems to work with no problems under the OS.
I've never actually caught a virus with it, but I assume that is because I haven't actually encountered any on that machine.

I also run COMODO personal firewall + anti spyware free edition 3.x which has a 64 bit specific download. I've never had any serious problems with it other than annoyances at the way they've programmed some of the aspects of it.
The worst part I've seen once or twice is that its auto-version-update fails so I've had to uninstall it manually and then install the newest version. It doesn't happen too often.
I tend to run it in the mode where it gives me pretty full alert frequency whenever anything even slightly questionable or security relevant happens. In this configuration, expect to get bothered by alerts A LOT, which can be annoying and occasionally cause problems when you're doing something like playing a full screen game and can't even see that there's an alert window waiting for your approval on your windows desktop, hence things stop working. It is a choice to run it in such a restrictive mode, though, and I'm sure that if you just white-list all the applications on your PC and tell it to only notify you about really unusual things then it'd be much better. It can be annoying since sometimes it'll keep flagging things like AVAST's auto-updates or PunkBuster's auto-updates as "new and untrusted / unknown" software which is actually true since it is newly appearing on your PC and you didn't specifically download / install it. It can just be annoying to keep changing the status of those things to "trusted" though. It also ends up with long lists of new/untrusted software for temporary installer files that various programs extract, as well as volume shadow copies of programs. The former can be taken care of with the purge button easily enough, the latter is something they really should fix.

You can often get a free-after-rebate Kaspersky AV program that'll be good for a year. That's not a bad deal if you like it and don't mind renewing or switching or whatever after the year.

 
PS I will add that my relative's XP SP1 laptop got infected with "XP AntiVirus 2008", FWNToolbar, NIDA, ACSProxy, and a few other kinds of
spyware / malware / trojans recently. Avast Home caught and fixed a few of them, but several others were not caught / fixed, and
other programs like SuperAntiSpyware, MalwareBytes AntiMalware, Avira Personal AntiVirus were able to catch / fix at least some things that Avast did not. I suppose it is to be expected that nothing is perfect, but I'd certainly have preferred if Avast had caught / fixed more of the problems.

 
Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
PS I will add that my relative's XP SP1 laptop got infected with "XP AntiVirus 2008", FWNToolbar, NIDA, ACSProxy, and a few other kinds of
spyware / malware / trojans recently. Avast Home caught and fixed a few of them, but several others were not caught / fixed, and
other programs like SuperAntiSpyware, MalwareBytes AntiMalware, Avira Personal AntiVirus were able to catch / fix at least some things that Avast did not. I suppose it is to be expected that nothing is perfect, but I'd certainly have preferred if Avast had caught / fixed more of the problems.
Click to expand...

Heck...XP AntiVirus is slipping past a few systems that Ive worked on that have had McAfee on them.
 
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