As my colleague Colin often says . . . to paraphrase him . . . “There’s no such thing as the ‘best’ antivirus”. Many people often write a question in forums: “What’s the best antivirus?” It’s like wine . . . it’s a matter of taste . . . what you’re comfortable with, and what “plays and works well” with the other stuff on your system. Nevertheless, all of them may exhibit some problems. Antivirus programs are notoriously cranky.
The most common bash on McAfee and Norton is that they are resource hogs.
AVG, Avast, and Avira’s Antivirus are three that have gained a reputation for not taking up many resources, and they all have good detection capabilities. Though the latest version of AVG has taken a hit as a resource hog.
As far as virus detection itself, they are all pretty good . . . retail or free, and the ratings that the trade magazines give them are all within a few percentage points. I don’t think any one is a whole lot better than the other (of course, there are a few slackers out there, but if you stay with the brand names and exercise good security best practices, you’ll be pretty safe).
Bottom line: As I said, it’s mostly a matter of personal preference and what you AND YOUR SYSTEM (Norton is notorious for not playing well with systems) are most comfortable with. No doubt, though, you’ll find plenty of people that will bash individual products. (And I think I just bashed Norton there!)
And if you visit Manufacturer forums, just keep in mind that most people come to those forums to complain about problems they’ve had, so your information from them is going to be skewed. Very few people visit a forum just to say “Atta’ boy”.
And what ever you decide to pick, it’s a good idea to run an online scan now and then, because what your local protection misses (and they all miss some things), an online scan may detect.
Online Scan Roundup:
- Panda ActiveScan 2.0
- Kaspersky
- Symantec Security check
- Trend Micro Housecall
- McAfee
- BitDefender
- F-Secure
- NOD32
- VirScan – This is just for selected files, NOT the whole machine.
- Virustotal – This is just for selected files, NOT the whole machine.
BTW, my own personal favorite is Avira’s Antivirus free version, but I would be quick to say that though I am comfortable with the GUI and it works and plays well with the other stuff on my machine, IT MAY NOT BE THE BEST FOR YOU.
I am trying out Kaspersky right now. Whatever program can clear the latest spyware I got will be the one I go with in the end. Thanks for the list… I know where to go next if I need to try a different one.
~ Kristi
Kristi,
I use Avast and I truly am a fan as it doesn’t use that much resources.
Since I test a lot of AV’s I’ve got a few remarks.
It looks to me that this review was written about older versions. For instance: norton internet security 2009 only uses 8 Mb memory and has frequent updates (at least every 10 minutes), also the compatibility problems are a lot less compared to the 2008 version. Big improvement here (finally).
Panda 2009 has become a real resource hog compared to the 2008 version.
AVG 8, resource hog. I still need to test the 8.5 version that was released a few weeks ago.
I can go on like this but you get the point. AV’s change all the time. That’s why it’s important to always test the latest version. The AV that’s the best (or really good) one year can be your worst nightmare the next.
For the rest, good points in your article, everybody has his own personal taste.
Quick tip, when you got a non virus infection (malware, trojan, …), use malwarebytes (http://www.malwarebytes.org/). They have a free product that’s great in removing malware.
Robby,
Thanks for the comment and as we stated, it’s about taste, and systems that allow us to choose what we think is best for our fit.
Hey Robby,
I agree with you . . . the latest iteration of Norton seems to be less resource intensive than ALL the last, and Panda perhaps vice-versa.
But the article is intended to be “timeless”, and here’s why:
For years, Norton established a reputation of being a resource hog. Consequently, it’s going to take Norton more than a year to divorce themselves from that reputation. This truism may work in Panda’s favor though. Unfair perhaps, but that’s the reality.
Now your caution to test every year is well put, but I don’t think most noobs do that. And a caution I’d have for noobs on that is that testing doesn’t imply you have more than one at a time on your machine . . . you know how cranky these programs get if they detect a competitor running on a machine. Someone experienced like yourself would know that, but a noob might be likely to try several at once.
And the testing a noob might do might only be directed to on-demand detection rates, and not on-access or heuristic detection rates, thus their testing as such may not correspond to their use habits.
I tried to make my article “timeless” and focused on a noob audience. Very difficult, if not impossible, to straddle both noobs and experienced users. If you write to an experienced audience, much of what you say will go over the heads of noobs. If you write to a noob audience, much of what you say will be too simplistic for experienced users.
OT here, but I think unfortunately the Windows OS is becoming more focused on noobs . . . though that is the biggest market, so I guess this makes some marketing sense.
I am using Avast as it is the free version. Not the best but then the best always seems to cost the most. LOL
Marie,
I use Avast as well, and really like it and not only because it’s free. It really has protected my computers 24×7.
Take a look at http://www.clamwin.com/ Clamwin in light and they are constantly updating it. The scanner handles the mail and you can schedule scans. It is not the best at removing the virus, but does a good job at finding them. Clamwin is free, fast and light.
Or you could just run linux and not worry to much aboutu silly things like viruses.
Brad
Hi BJ,
thanks for the explanation, puts the article in a different perpective. Again some good points you made. A home user should indeed be carefull when testing AV programs, 2 (or even more) at the same time is bound to give problems.
And yeah, Norton has a yearlong reputation of being a resource hog (and they deserved that reputation). I hope they finally have seen the light and continue on the path taken.
For the free AV’s out there, avast is one of the better ones, so Marie, don’t worry :-)
I always say it’s better to have at least some protection than none whatsoever.
Hi BJ,
Spot on, it has to be an application that runs smoothly with others applications and the end user must be comfortable using it.
Many users do insist that McAfee, Norton and AVG are quite simply the very best, but as long as it works for them then that’s fine as each PC is configured differently.
Many use AVG because of its popularity, but whatever AV they use it must be complemented by good antimalware and safe surfing methods.
I run 3 different machines with different AV’s for different purposes but it also allows me to see how they interact with other security applications.
Hey Robby,
Thanks for the reply.
Hey Colin,
I think one of the reasons Norton and McAfee can claim so much market share is because they come preinstalled in a “trial” on most new machines. Consequently, most noobs know nothing else. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.