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imported_therat

Junior Member
Jun 11, 2004
2
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yes they do take up resources but do some research and you will find that some use very little. I use pc-cillin 2003 and find it doesn't slow my system down at all during real-time scanning and its detection rate of viruses is excellent.

Not having a resident AV program these days is just asking for trouble IMO.
 
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Biggs

Diamond Member
Dec 18, 2000
3,010
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Panda is more powerful but o teh bloat! It eats at least 50MB! Is there a way to make it more resource friendly?
 
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MDesigner

Platinum Member
Apr 3, 2001
2,016
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UPDATE: Panda has an update for Titanium 2004. Get it from their web site. I haven't tried it out yet, but hopefully it will address some issues I posted about earlier in this thread.
 
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Socio

Golden Member
May 19, 2002
1,732
2
81
This is a great thread!


I have Norton Internet Security with NAV 2004 and have a problem that apparently lot of users are getting and that is this software no longer updates, it runs auto update, downloads the updates and tries to install the updates but it fails. I tried everything on Symantec's web site to solve this known problem including un-installing and re-installing, nothing fixes it. So what good is a Antivirus program or Firewall program that can't be updated. I have been using Norton for years but I got to tell you the 2004 version has caused me way to many problems in the six months I have used it.

So after reading this thread I am going to dump Norton and get the Panda Titanium AV software and Zone Alarm pro firewall. I would get bitdefender but I want/need a auto-protect feature.
 
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chansen

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,133
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Socio, try Panda, but it seriously messed up my Internet access. I had to reformat.

I'm doing trials of NOD32 and Avast (free version). I really like NOD32 for being light on resources. Avast free is annoying in that infected emails are not dealt with automatically. It always prompts you, and waits until you respond before continuing the download mail. Avast Pro removes this annoyance. Both update painlessly and are easy to use.

If you want the best protection possible, Kaspersky looks like the best bet, though the CPU and memory usage is high. It will slow down you system a touch.

That's my impression of the AV apps I've tried.
 
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crazycarl

Senior member
Jun 8, 2004
548
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wow this thread was long...
I guess I missed the boat so I caan't test it. right now I'm using Panda Platinum which i got for free because I have a .edu email address...
however I think they figured out I was not an IT professional and cancelled my account, as I haven't been able to get updates for the past few days.
so anyone who puts "STUDENT" down on Panda, beware, as in a few weeks, its likeley they will cancel your username and won't let you get anymore updates, this is what it appears has happened to me.
 
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tazdevl

Golden Member
Mar 1, 2000
1,651
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I've been on a vision quest the last couple of months to find a new AV. Tried, tested, bought & returned when it didn't perform, nearly every commercial AV out there.

You want the best, KAV 5.0 is it IMO... based on my testing, reading independent articles and the fact that they have decent, responsive support. Fully functional 30 day trial can be downloaded at www.kaspersky.com..

You buy a free AV, you get what you pay for and shouldn't bitch if you get infected.

Some info for y'all.

http://www.av-comparatives.org click on the comparative link on the left, view February/May results.

Rokop is well respected and you don't need to read German to be able to interpret the chart. Nice thing is that they indicate system impact for each app on the bottom of the chart.

http://www.rokop-security.de/main/article.php?sid=757

http://www.rokop-security.de/main/article.php?sid=693


If anyone is interested, someone passed on the following, pretty cool stuff. Light on resources with heuristics like NOD32 with detection rate and broader threat detection of KAV. 30 day trial, once you uninstall it, can't reinstall. http://www.mks.com.pl/english.html (mks_vir 2004). Should have a legit US website up next week, URL is mksantivirus.com or something similar.
 
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crazycarl

Senior member
Jun 8, 2004
548
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well I seem to have jumped the gun - my Panda updated itself today without complaining about the wrong username - must have been an error in their servers or something.
so I guess if you are a student you can get panda plat. for free!
 
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Socio

Golden Member
May 19, 2002
1,732
2
81
I have never heard of Kaspersky before until now but it looks like a lead dog here in the AV software genre, good thing I did not press the buy button on Panda yet.

I noticed the Kaspersky AV personal is at 5.0 but the Pro version is at 4.5 , Think I will e-mail them to find out when the pro version 5 will be released thats the one I want.
 
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tazdevl

Golden Member
Mar 1, 2000
1,651
0
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Originally posted by: Socio
I have never heard of Kaspersky before until now but it looks like a lead dog here in the AV software genre, good thing I did not press the buy button on Panda yet.

I noticed the Kaspersky AV personal is at 5.0 but the Pro version is at 4.5 , Think I will e-mail them to find out when the pro version 5 will be released thats the one I want.
Click to expand...

Kaspersky has been around for quite some time and has been a top AV product for a while.

September 2004 for Personal Pro 5.0.

How do you know it's what you want considering they haven't released any info on features?

You can do a couple things, buy Personal Pro 4.5, use the license key with 5.0 until Personal Pro 5.0 comes out, or buy Personal 5.0 and upgrade to Personal Pro 5.0. In all honesty, the chance of you getting a baddie with Personal versus Personal Pro isn't much at all.

FYI update for 5.0 will be coming out next week.

Other nice thing is that they offer an extended database update option for Personal/Personal Pro in the configure update tab. It's in the drop-down at the top of the update page. Offers signatures for riskware, pornware, dialers, lot of extra stuff.


Panda, gave up on them because performance-wise they're good, not great, common/well known bugs that remained unpatched for 30 days and support sucked. Totally unresponsive and when they did respond, their excuse was that there were viruses out there. BS excuse is my book.
 
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Socio

Golden Member
May 19, 2002
1,732
2
81
How do you know it's what you want considering they haven't released any info on features?
Click to expand...


I compared the Pro 4.5 features with the Personal 5.0 and I assume at least some of the new feature in Personal 5.0 will be in Pro 5.0 like the "update every three hours"

I am going to buy the Pro 4.5 version today and just run 4.5 till Pro 5.0 comes out, 4.5 should provide more than adequate protection until then plus get to use the extra Pro features.
 
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TygGer

Senior member
Feb 20, 2003
393
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76
I've read through the posts, but didn't get a definite answer...

What is the general consensus on which is the "best" AV program?
 
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mOrphine

Senior member
Apr 30, 2000
638
0
0
i guess the options are panda, kaspersky or bitdefender... it's not that hard to figure that out from reading the thread.
 
Regs

Regs

Lifer
Aug 9, 2002
16,665
21
81
Etrust anti virus is also very good. Didnt detect them during download but as soon as it finished, delete delete.
 
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TygGer

Senior member
Feb 20, 2003
393
0
76
Originally posted by: mOrphine
i guess the options are panda, kaspersky or bitdefender... it's not that hard to figure that out from reading the thread.
Click to expand...

Well, if you read my post... I asked if everyone came to a consensus on which prog is the "best", not what are the options.
 
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chemwiz

Senior member
Mar 8, 2000
848
1
81
I just cleaned up a computer for a friend, their kids had completely trashed it with spyware and viruses. She had a lot of her work data on there (not backed up, of course) so she was pretty frantic about recovering it. Dell tech support said the only fix would be the restore CD's (there's a known fix now, the main problem was "parser message value creation failed at line 422").
Anyways, here's the story:

She had McAfee installed, it detected nothing.

I pulled the drive and scanned it with Norton 2004 (it wasn't installed as a boot drive), NAV found and cleaned 6 different viruses.

I reinstalled the drive in her computer, then did an online scan at the Panda website, this found 8 more which I had to clean up manually.

Finally, I uninstalled the McAfee, put on my copy of AVP 4.5 Pro, and it cleaned out 11 more.

This isn't a completely valid comparison, since the programs were being used under a variety of conditions, but I'm VERY happy with AVP, I've had it catch viruses that Norton never seems to catch, so I've put AVP on all 3 computers now and haven't had any trouble at all.
 
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mOrphine

Senior member
Apr 30, 2000
638
0
0
is it really that hard to read the thread and decide for yourselves instead of asking for the "best" or a consensus? i think it's pretty obvious there is no consensus because there is no one perfect antivirus.

if you look at the names that pop up, the names that get recommended based on their performances, i think the choices to choose from are quite evident.
 
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chansen

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,133
0
71
Why be so difficult? There is no consensus. There is no "best". Get off your butt, install some trial versions and see for yourself.

My personal take?

As I stated above, Kaspersky for all-around detection of the most viruses, trojans, worms, etc. Downside? High system resource usage.

For low resource usage and faster scans? NOD32. Downside? Not really a trojan detector. Either trust your own judgement not to run trojans, or get dedicated trojan detection as well, which would be even safer than Kaspersky (but there goes you low system resource usage).

For integrated firewall and ease-of-use, I still like Trend Internet Security 2004. All-around, not a bad choice.

Avoid? Panda (messed up my system). Use Norton and McAfee at own risk (I abandoned them years ago for their behaviour on my systems).

Free? Avast Personal (annoying infected email deleting procedure) or AVG Free (questionable detection engine). Both are average at best. You get what you pay for.
 
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Confusednewbie1552

Golden Member
Jun 24, 2004
1,047
0
0
Originally posted by: chansen
Why be so difficult? There is no consensus. There is no "best". Get off your butt, install some trial versions and see for yourself.

My personal take?

As I stated above, Kaspersky for all-around detection of the most viruses, trojans, worms, etc. Downside? High system resource usage.

For low resource usage and faster scans? NOD32. Downside? Not really a trojan detector. Either trust your own judgement not to run trojans, or get dedicated trojan detection as well, which would be even safer than Kaspersky (but there goes you low system resource usage).

For integrated firewall and ease-of-use, I still like Trend Internet Security 2004. All-around, not a bad choice.

Avoid? Panda (messed up my system). Use Norton and McAfee at own risk (I abandoned them years ago for their behaviour on my systems).

Free? Avast Personal (annoying infected email deleting procedure) or AVG Free (questionable detection engine). Both are average at best. You get what you pay for.
Click to expand...

So how much system resource usage would the kaspersky one use? And can you turn it off? And is the slowdown that noticeable?
And where can i get a dedicated trojan detector?
 
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