Review of 11 Antivirus Software applications

[Schadenfroh]

Schadentech is no longer up, please see

http://www.av-comparatives.org/

 

[Tyrant222]

great, reading it up now.

always looking for antivirus opinions.

 

[WannaFly]

good stuff, Schadenfroh, I'd recommend putting on the page "Click on the name in the table for more information" It took me a bit to figure that out, as I assumed those links took you to the download page for those products. Also, what is "Boot Time?" The time the computer took to boot up? How was that recorded? And was each one installed and uninstalled or did you use a Virtual PC? Just some things I thought of reading it.

 

[rh71]

thx. good thing I decided to go back to NAV from AVG and their 69% detection rate.

 

[XBoxLPU]

Wow very nice work Schadenfroh

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: WannaFly
good stuff, Schadenfroh, I'd recommend putting on the page "Click on the name in the table for more information" It took me a bit to figure that out, as I assumed those links took you to the download page for those products. Also, what is "Boot Time?" The time the computer took to boot up? How was that recorded? And was each one installed and uninstalled or did you use a Virtual PC? Just some things I thought of reading it.

fixed, thanks

 

[Mem]

Another good site that gives detection rate results AV-Comparatives.

Online results. .


Schadenfroh what about throwing in Avast Pro(you can get 60 day free trial) I`m curious to see how well (or bad) it does against the free version and rest of the other AV software.



Avast Pro download link ,btw I`m thinking of trying F-Prot Antivirus(read good things about it).

 

[Sunner]

Good stuff, thanks.
Looks like I'll be trying out BitDefender.

 

[43st]

You're a saint for including memory usage.

(Don't forget to add this review to your sig also)

 

[phlashphire]

Nice work Schaderfroh. Been using Bitdefender for the last couple of months and has been pretty solid. Just started testing NOD32 looking pretty good as well.

 

[The Green Bean]

very nicely done

 

[MaxDSP]

been using AVG for quite a while now (mostly cause of it's $0.00 price tag), but thinking about switching over to one of the ones that scored in the >90%. Might have to go with either Kaspersky or McAfee seems like

 

[murphy55d]

I had no idea AVG was so horrible. I'm also going to try Kaspersky.

 

[Jeff7]

Thanks; looks like Antivir might do it for me. I don't really need the automated downloads.

AVG might have to be the staple that I equip the PC illiterate with though - it's free, so it can be downloaded and installed, and it is able to do some of the work by itself, like updating and scanning. Users will rarely go to the terrible trouble of clicking "Update" unless they are threatened with some form of absolutely hideous torture. Even a 69% success rate is better than a 0% success rate with no AV software at all.

 

[Mem]

Even a 69% success rate is better than a 0% success rate with no AV software at all.

Yep any AV is better then nothing,however you can also download a free anti-trojan/anti-worm software like "a² Free" from here ,this `ll help protect your PC even further since it`s a complementary program to any AV software,it`s specialized in finding and removing trojans,dialers, worms etc....

I use it as backup to my AV software.Remember AVG may have only got 69% in one particular test but with a² software(or any other anti-trojan software) you can bet the detection rate would of been higher .

Nowadays you need more then just anti-virus program and having a dedicated anti-trojan/worm scanner makes sense,especially when it`s free.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

nice review. its just what i expected.

avg is definantly the worst antivirus program. i had it for a while until i actually got a trojan and virus. avg didn't do squat. luckily i was able to install norton temporarily. if you're careful about what you download you won't get a virus.

but screw an antivirus. most of them are bloatware (only one that i like is the symantec corporate antivirus). i'm using prevx right now and its awesome. the home edition is free. it gives you control over what could potentially harm or annoy you. its similar to norton's auto-protect feature in norton anti-virus, but does a waay better job. handles viruses, trojans, scripts, malware, registry entries, browser hijackers, buffer overflows, etc. the three process running with prevx right now are only taking about 5 megs of ram.

 

[Blayze]

Ive been using AVG for awhile now, I think I will have to try AntiVir.

Nice review.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

I don't use any virus scan software and have never had a virus.

How about instead of showing people how to continue their horrible computing habits, you dedicate a thread or two to teaching people how to be smart about the interweb.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
I don't use any virus scan software and have never had a virus.

How about instead of showing people how to continue their horrible computing habits, you dedicate a thread or two to teaching people how to be smart about the interweb.

I already did

 

[GreatBarracuda]

Exactly what I expected! Panda, ripping apart the virii and the competition, the beast that he is! :evil:

 

[Mitzi]

Thanks for an excellent review. I've been using AVG and always been pretty happy with it - I didn't realise it did so poorly! I'll give A-squared and AntiVir out and see if there is anything lurking on my PC...gulp

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
I don't use any virus scan software and have never had a virus.

How about instead of showing people how to continue their horrible computing habits, you dedicate a thread or two to teaching people how to be smart about the interweb.

Being careful about what you do isn't a replacement for an antivirus program any more than RAID is a replacement for proper backups.

 

[Mucman]

:thumbsup:

Nice work! Hopefully your article will clean up a lot of redundant threads at message boards all around the Web!

 

[Schadenfroh]

RAM mistakes are now fixed

 

[Daaavo]

Thanks for the write up.......very good reading.


I just wish Spywareinfo would test a little more frequently. I've been a big proponent for NOD32, and recently they had a pretty big update to their software package. I'd like to see how it fairs now.