What is the best Anti-Virus software?

[Modelworks]

MSE is a good program for AV, not too intrusive and doesn't use a lot of cpu resources but does use some memory, it averages 150MB ram usage on most pc.

The best advice for people is to run anything you download in a VM or sandboxie first. Then you can see what it changes and what it contains . AV is only good if someone has submitted that virus before. If it is new then AV will usually miss it until it is updated.

 

[ShawnD1]

McAfee is garbage - their 'corporate' package isn't worth the price of the cardboard box containing the software.

So true. The computers at my unversity use McAfee and they're horrible. I get this stupid USB virus every time I plug my drive into a computer at school. This problem has been going on for half a year and they still haven't figured out how to get rid of it, and it's never detected by McAfee.

When I take the stick home and use it on my home computer, Avira tells me there's a virus and deletes it. Avira is a million times better than McAfee, and it's free.

 

[Chadder007]

While I find it hard to trust an AV made by Microsoft, I've been hearing good things about MSE. Personally, I've been on Avira for the last few years. Very good detection rates, low memory and CPU footprint.

Ive had a few users come back with infections that MSE hasn't caught after getting it installed for them.
Granted it was the users fault for clicking on the "your infected!!!" pop ups.

 

[Rottie]

antivirus thread is getting eyesore everyday...Avira is for me enuff said.

 

[tcsenter]

I'm liking Norton AV 2010 and SuperAntiSpyware Professional ($10 if you use the "one day special" link offered after updating the security defs).

Norton 2010 has a great feature in the Performance section called "Optimize" (it doesn't stand-out so you'll have to look for it on the System Insight panel). This will basically force "idle tasks" to run-once at higher priority, such as building a database of trusted files, performing a quick or full system scan, and the like. Instead of running them a low priority in the background, which might take several hours, you can get those tasks out of the way in about an hour.

 

[MadScientist]

Pay for: Norton AV 2010

Free: Avira (with popup hack) or Microsoft Security Essentials

 

[santz]

Kaspersky Internet Security, made by the Russians it is.

 

[TAandy]

While I find it hard to trust an AV made by Microsoft, I've been hearing good things about MSE. Personally, I've been on Avira for the last few years. Very good detection rates, low memory and CPU footprint.

personally, i got rid of MSE.
don't know what was going on, but it ramped cpu usage up to 100% and i couldn't do a damn thing while it was doing it!!
went with avira, liked it!
but then my mate in work gave me one of his unused licences for kaspersky.
really like this

 

[Miramonti]

According to av-comparatives.org, Avira (free) has the best detection rate but a ton of false positives. Otherwise the best are G-Data and Kaspersky.

 

[ImDonly1]

I use Microsoft Security Essentials. Can't beat free, and it is rated with ESET's NOD32 and Kaspersky at the top.

I used to use NOD32.