personally using mcafee. now owned by intel, they have made the necessary changes and back round issues that plagued the program before. much, MUCH better and faster now. getting costly now though.

 

I love Eset!

 

Check out PaleMoon if you like FF. I use FF as well on most systems.

I have my aunt's machine now so I am going to look into ESET. Heard good things outside here as well, and took the initiative to do some research and reading on my own - it seems to be the clear winner.

 

I told the OP what I use. It is a good one. I also let him know how to get it for cheap.

your post was worthless

 

Some of the suggestions are great BUT...

If you want a top notch AV, you need to look at how fast that company reponds to new threats. As a example McCafee takes 48-72 hours to update their files when a new threat hits, where as the industry leader, Symantic/norton only has a 8 hour turn around time.

Don't cheep out on AV, spend the money go with a GOOD top notch one. I personaly only run Symantic enterprise on all my equipment including my server. Yes it runs me $400 a year but well worth it.

 

I would highly recommend spending $400 on your anti virus....NAWT! I'm sorry man, but that is just plain retarded IMO!

 

McAffee/Norton = RESOURCE HOGS

I'm using Microsoft Security Essentials and haven't had a problem. It uses minimal resources and has been fairly well reviewed. I also haven't gotten a virus on a personal machine in a looooooooooooooooong time. My brother on the other hand has brought his and my parents computers to their knees (all **** related). He's a dumbass though so it's to be expected. I'm going to seriously lock down his PC once I reinstall Windows.

-Brian

 

exactly, this is why eset simply cannot possibly compete with norton/mcafee. they dont have the resources to keep up with evolving threats, all of these eset recs are just a bunch of hype, they simply cannot compete in the real world. Professionals wouldnt trust that company to protect their assets but somehow the consumer is better off?

I have nothing personally against the eset, but its hard to see ppl blindly follow the crowd when the overwhelming evidence is against their beliefs.

virus protection applications are just engines that process data incoming/outgoing to detect threats, they are all similar in that respect and all do about the same job at it as long as they dont bogg down the system while performing this task. The difference is in their threat detection definitions, signatures, and adaptive learning capabilities. No small company can compete in that space b/c they dont have r&d staffs to keep up with threats; in fact smaller companies almost always just license the definitions from the big guys and are always a step behind. thats how the industry operates currently, and anyone who offers you promises of a rock solid protection from some small shop is blowing smoke or just want to reassure themselves about their own purchasing decision.


also, the whole norton/mcafee resource hogging thing was an issue that plagued the industry a coupe of years ago and affected everyone, this hasnt been an issue for almost 3 years. i doubt you'd be disappointed if you tried current versions of the major AV protection suites.

 

The primary question that is being dismissed here is what you use the computer for. If you are an advanced user and the system does go under heavy loads of work or you just have a lot of valuable and important information on there, then yes by all means spend the bank. Thats the only way to do it right.

As for just regular users, the primary programs listed above should suite you just fine: Eset NOD32, Kaspersky.. norton, mcafee. Dont always depend on a AV program to protect you from everything though, because the user is usually the cause of receiving a virus (by downloading suspicious files that they are oblivious to, or by visiting sketchy websites.)


Now as far as this norton vs nod32 argument goes............ I havent used norton or mcafee in about 3 yrs because I was fed up with the program and how it handled. Once I switched to Nod 32, I never had a virus attack since. Thats all that matters, a AV that works for you.

I remember a bit ago, that symantec (or some other major AV company) was downloading unwanted patches on your computer that did some surveillance and breached user privacy. Dont take my word on it, I really paid no attention to it since I wasnt using their programs any longer. The more powerful and bigger the company is, the more possible power they have over your system.


Anyways I use Nod32 and it works fine for me, Use whatever you want.

 

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but I got a question regarding emails. 2 people I know, have recently started sending me emails that are just links and links only (they've never done that before). They look suspicious. I opened up the emails, but didn't click on the link. Am I compromised or something? I keep getting these emails every couple of days now from them. Just happened about a week or 2 ago.

 

As for the original topic, I use Norton and I really like it. Previous versions (2 years or earlier) they were resource hogs. But now the current versions have a performance usage bar which tells u how much resources it's using. Norton on average, uses only 1-2%. Plus they have a rapid pulse update feature which automatically updates your virus definitions every couple of minutes. It's not intrusive, and u can specify whether u want the rapid pulse updates or not.

 

I think your friend's email accounts have been hacked or spoofed. It's happened to my wife's account as well as a few other friends. I would advise whoever is sending you these emails to change their password at the very least, and I'd advise them via a telephone call.

-Brian