Icrontic selects: Antivirus Software

[tefleming]

What's the best Antivirus software? (POLL CLOSED)


LINKIES:
Overwhelming consensus:
Norton (http://www.symantec.com/nav/nav_9xnt/)

Honorable Mention (best free solution):
AVG (http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_avg_index.php)


Also Rans...

McAfee (http://us.mcafee.com/root/package.asp?pkgid=100&cid=9901)

PC-Cillin (http://www.trendmicro.com/en/products/desktop/overview.htm)

Panda AV (http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/)

F-Prot (http://www.f-prot.com/products/corporate_users/win/)

eTrust (http://www.my-etrust.com/products/Antivirus.cfm?CFID=1379922&CFTOKEN=97d29ea0b36b627d-E718E7F4-C5F7-2B22-60086E5A1FDCE631)

Avast (http://www.avast.com/)

Antivirus? I don't need no stinking Antivirus (http://www.stupid.com/)

[Armo]

Avg 100%

[csimon]

I said norton but I'll use anything that I own at the time.

[Kwitko]

eTrust and AVG. I hate Norton. I think it's the biggest piece of bloated crapware evar! I use AVG at home and eTrust at the office.

[Straight_Man]

Of THOSE, I would have to say Norton 2004 now that the rereg mess has been stomped on by Symantec. HOWEVER, F-Prot has kept my box from having things that Adaware, SpyBotS&D, Cwshredder, and HijackThis remove. I still scan once a week to ten days, but since I have put F-Prot on, scan results are mostly "nothing." Been a month plus, now-- exception was 2 tracking cookies and Alexa.

N-Prot autoscans nightly, and autoupdates nightly. I get on average, 2-3 updates of defs a week from US-Based servers via pure SFTP. Tech support has always been within 24 hours, but in my case it was, where's the newest version of the program-- repsonse time, one hour. I bought a ten-pack license. COST??? $5.00 per box per year. I heard from F-Prot about the Sober.F virus before it hit eWeek's headlines, by two days.

These folks co-operate with Kaspersky and F-Secure as far as sharing new-outbreak info with each other. Kaspersky LICENSES F-Prot's heuristics base. Me, I am not using Symantec's AV right now, and do not need it-- but I support it actively now that the rereg thing has been handled. BUT, after rebate, I saw Norton Antivirus 2004 at $29.99 plus shipping recently. F-Prot give me one heck of a lot more bang for the buck. I have captured its basic summary screen on XP box, and it will show up below. Right now it knows 113805 viruses, trojans, and worms.

It can unzip zip and cab files, dig into Java Jars, and untar tar, tar.gz, and bz2 files. I do not know if it can unRAR tings and scan without opening and activatiing malware. Average runtime for about 90,000 files and objects (it calls archived files objects) is less than 15 minutes while I am folding at 97% rate on my Barton\XP box. This is in all files scan mode, all directories, all drives. Simple, clean, very low impact as far as resources.

John D.

[Lincoln]

I got your back, mate. Poll updated.

[Camman]

I use AVG and BitDefender, another good free one, www.bitdefender.com

[Straight_Man]

I use AVG and BitDefender, another good free one, www.bitdefender.com

BitDefender is quite good-- in fact, their product is better on a Linux box than the F-Prot Linux version. I just like to encourage vendors to continue to work actively, where my box's security is concerned-- so am willing to pay reasonable amounts.

John D.

[GnomeWizardd]

Hey John where do you get F-prot? looks nice and simple. I been using avast antivirus but I've been looking for something with a smaller footprint

[Black Hawk]

Google ;)

http://www.f-prot.com/

[Straight_Man]

Hey John where do you get F-prot? looks nice and simple. I been using avast antivirus but I've been looking for something with a smaller footprint

Actually, the window is stretchable.

15 day, fixed defs trials are available at http://www.f-prot.com/

A couple things foplks should know about this:

Single computer license is $29.95 per year. 10-pack license is $50.00 USD per year. This ten-pack is not a pure site license, it is a pure ten computer license. Choice is Windows or Linux, not a mix.

It is distributed in US through http://www.raeinternet.com/ which also distributes lots of mail server AV-- F-Prot and BitDefender among them, and an AV\Security appliance also. You folks will mostly want the workstation version. What you get from RAEInternet is a customer number for F-Prot, and F-Prot typically has that up and active on their site within 36 hours max. Then you can get a licensed version with defs for same day you download from F-Prot.com and it will be preregistered.

Burn your download to CD, keep it, this is pure internet distribution unless you use the toll free in US number and call RAEInternet in which case as soon as the charge goes through they will immediately email it to Frisk Software in Reykjavik Iceland. I had my registered pack in three hours from time of talking to Michael Danziger to download-- had customer number, and site knew that number was valid and who I was. ON A SATURDAY! I'd run the trial for about 4 days before that, and had thrown a bunch of AV test files at it, from several sources. It happily deleted them all for me. I have it set to:

Disinfect while notifying, and then delete if cannot disinfect.

I protect right now, 5 Windows instances. Legally. One other trick and this is legal if you are licensed-- remember the folder the AV gets stuck in. If your box is infected and windows cannot load, boot from XP CD and get into the recovery console. Go to the folder that has F-Prot in it. Run this command:
fpcmd /? and it will show you the command switches to run it in NT-DOS mode, from a CD-to-recovery console boot. It comes with a builtin DOS scanner that knows where the latest defs are. I can and have run the DOS mode version from a CD itself, in Safe Mode in a Command Prompt, in Windows 98 SE-- worked fine.

Oh, 99.9% of viruses do NOT know how to disable it. It uses a scheduler submodule to know when to run itself, and when to update, you can choose time and interval. US servers get defs about 2:00 PM Eastern time is any, and the updater will check and grab if needed or tell you are up to date. F-Prot will email you when new defs are available. They will tell you about major outbreaks, in plain text email. you can get as many versions of program as they issue in year, and they have updated the program itself 4 times so far in two months.

Fair disclosure, sorry to take so long for some folks' tired reading eyes. Anyone who gets it, I can help you figure out how to configure it-- with illustations like the attachment, as PSP8 lets me grab and convert client areas, screen dragged rectangles, and lets me delay-time the capture so I can customize the capture. Defaults, with latest version, are fine for normal AV use, and are stronger and more aggressive than NAV uses-- by default.

John D.

[ginipig]

Avast! ?

[primesuspect]

I consider Symantec Corporate to be the best. I would consider SAV Corporate to be a totally different product from their general consumer edition (Norton AntiVirus)..

The server edition is very flexible, and the client agent is small and light. Much lighter than the bloated NAV thing that they sell on store shelves.

We have been using SAV CE for a couple of years now, on several dozen client computers, and have had minimal virus issues.

[tefleming]

I consider Symantec Corporate to be the best.

I agree, I haven't used anything else in years!

//EDIT: feel free to split NAV/SAV into two categories, though it might mess up the vote count

[pseudonym]

I run McAfee right now. I despise that beached whale that is NAV, but I'd definitely like to try out SAV.

[Shorty]

Avast! ?
Im adding it to the list as it's top class anti-virus and free and better than AVG (in my opinion) :)

[bothered]

Everthing Norton I have ever installed has caused me more problems than it fixed, won't go near it now.
I have pc-cillin because it was free with my online banking, then I bought a newer version. It works a treat for me.

[dragonV8]

Using NAV here. Had eTrust before till we had a drama. Not saying NAV is faultless. I'm sure they all have there problems.

[GHoosdum]

I use SAV Corporate (7.61 and 8.1) on my own PCs, and AVG (because it's free) on systems I build for other folks. Anybody care to enlighten me on the Avast vs. AVG debate here? I might switch if Avast really is better...

[GnomeWizardd]

avast is the shiznit sice its free. Since f-prot isnt free ill stick with avast ( yes i am a cheap sob )

[EyesOnly]

Running nav without problems. :)

[Enverex]

None. I don't download anything that ever requires scanning. The only time I ever use one is to check other peoples files or machines, in which case I use Avast! because frankly all the others piss me off. You can't even exit the damn things, you have to stop the services and manually terminate the program, which doesn't make them any better than the virii themselves (sepecially thinking of Norton in this case). AVG is just useless as it doesn't give you any control over anything unless you register it. You can't even turn the other damn features off without registering it, so I think it is a waste of time. Another reason I now refuse to go with companies like Norton is the fast I have to PAY to "resubscribe" to virus updates after a year. Wow, a whole year, you're so generous.

So basically, Avast! or bust.

[primesuspect]

I happily pay for virus updates. People have to write them. Why should they be free?

[Enverex]

I expect £50 to last more than a year, it used to... It isn't like the software was free to install in the first place.

[Straight_Man]

People do not realize how much work and study goes into getting specimen viruses so that they do not infect the collection computers, then literally unarchiving them in ways that do not RUN them, then disassmbling the code, then studying them, then finding a unique set of the code in hex that defines that virus or IDs it as part of one virus family, then making that ID string as tiny as possible without getting other things that are not viruses falsely ID'd, then distributing them over expensive bandwidth once you figure in the MANY folks that all need defs. some of this is done by software, but the RESULTS have to be checked and rechecked beofre tings get sent out that are not right for some unforseen reason.

Problem with the degree of knowledge needed for just the checking is that the qualifications include:

VERY good skills including recognition of compression types, and how to decrypt things that are both compressed or archived AND encrypted.

Very good machine language skils. The defs can be hex that is MD5'd or shadow encryopted, to save space in def files and therefore bandwidth used by the many folks who all need these things on their boxes ASAP.

Very good skills at securing computers themselves, to accept definitions or specimens of suspected viruses, worms, or trojans.

This means a team, not just one or two people, especially with the number and frequency of new combos of exisiting viruses and uniquely new variants as viruses morph. Lead software engineers are needed to ahve good team. A very good lead engineer can demand the same rates as lawyers with 10-15 years experience in an area that is in demand-- say 100 to 200 dollars US per hour. Symantec has some of the best, F-Prot has a small group of very good folks, Network Assciates has a good team, and Kaspersky and F-Secure have very good teams also. These AV companies intercommunicate info about viruses to a degree, as no one company can track ALL the new viruses worldwide. They use tracable email that is encrypted to do so. It is digitally signed, and the signature is tracable back to real sender. Some companies do the same with the customer notify emails. F-Prot sends SHA hashed and PGP 1.2 signed emails to me, I know the sig and my Linux box also does.

I will leave program and heuristics corellaries for other threads, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Think of AV software as software that has to be as reliable as medical software for your patients, the computers.

The AV companies can only justify this set of VERY large expenses by having MANY customers who each give money to the AV company they want subscriptions from. Little tiny companies, unless they are staffed by folks who are hyper-good, cannot survive and offer 2-3 times a week defs whihc are distributed securely and automatically. Free software is a snapshot made at time of creation of that download package. Some trial AV lets you get subscriptions.

Thanks for being fellow subscribers, you folks who pay for AV. You are letting those companies survive.

John D.

[Straight_Man]

I am going to stick this here for you people who use NAV and pay for subscriptions for it. Lots of you,. proportionately, are running NAV, of those who have voted. Voters tend to watch the voting thread, that is really why this is here.

NAV has a way to bulk-update defs built into it to close to current day (at worst), if you have a good subscription that has not expired. Symantec offers for download a package called the Intelllgent Updater. When they update the defs for Enterprise NAV or Symantec software, or within usually 24 hours of that, they put a new snapshot of Intelligent Updater on thier site. The archive has both the program and the full def set, in compressed form, and will both self-extract and update defs after checking your AV subscription validity. NAV cannot be running when you run this updater, in fact if it is the updater will will tell you to close NAV first. This is good, as NAV protects it defs also.

You get to download and run this updater, or accept weekly updates if you have consumer grade NAV or Norton SystemWork Pro or Norton Internet Security. Not too many folks do download this package at any one time. If you get a strong feeling from this area that new malware things are hitting suddenly, might be a very good idea to then get and run the Intelligent Updater. This is especially true with NAV 2004 customers, as Symantec is implementing the blending of trojan and other malware detection into traditional AV.

John D.

[shwaip]

I use McAfee because school provides it.

[primesuspect]

Enverex: If they released the software and then never updated it, a one time charge is fair. However, there are many labor hours and many people involved with constantly staying on top of the game.

[tefleming]

I use McAfee because school provides it.

So does mine, but thankfully, my mom's employer has site-licensing of SAV.

Just curious, are you running ePO?

[Animal]

Norton Anti Virus 2002 is the best piece of software i ever bought.......... life long updates for free it seems....

[EyesOnly]

I dont mind paying for updates i mean how much haven't you payed for your computer or other software that wouldn't work if there where viruses in it. It's an investment just as hardware is.

[CyrixInstead]

Had NAV on my system, no probs at all. With the Firewall too I'm happy.

~Cyrix

[ryko]

I have NAV 2002 on my main rig that i have purchased 2 av subscriptions for.....i really wish the fee allowed you a new updated copy of the NAV software instead of just the definitions....but i can't complain too much for $9.99.

On all my other machines i run AVG. Registration is annoying, but free----so it's not that bad. I would switch to Avast! if someone could convince me why it's better than AVG...........

[Enverex]

I have NAV 2002 on my main rig that i have purchased 2 av subscriptions for.....i really wish the fee allowed you a new updated copy of the NAV software instead of just the definitions....but i can't complain too much for $9.99.

On all my other machines i run AVG. Registration is annoying, but free----so it's not that bad. I would switch to Avast! if someone could convince me why it's better than AVG...........

Avast has options, AVG doesn't.

[ryko]

like......

[Enverex]

like......

Everything. AVG gives you no control over anything. Download it and see, I'm not going to go into details as it would be pointless.

[ginipig]

AVAST! has been awarded the Virus Bulletins VB100 Award meaning that it recognized 100% of in-the-wild virus, Trojans, and worms and passed every test successfully. This was done by an independent, not-for-profit, testing company.

Not only does AVAST! update automatically but does so whenever a new virus database is made available. I''ve had it update 3 times in one day: Evidence that this company is very serious about protection and in making its program the best. Additionally, unlike some AV programs, AVAST! works silently without causing system conflicts or interfering with the operation of other programs. This is important to me and it should be to anyone else. An Anti-Virus program with long tentacles that pervades every segment of your Operating System for no good reason is one I would choose to avoid.

Also, have you noticed how slow (even uncooperative) the Updates for both Free&Commercial Versions of AVG are? AVG has been marketed (bulletins, word of mouth) so well that their servers are constantly struggling to keep up with the demands of the public. This isn't neccessarily a bad thing, but in my opinion, having an antivirus program that can't access timely updates == having no protection at all.

[Enverex]

Hi John

Do u know the customer number to download the registered version of latest F-Prot Antivirus


regards

Anish Anirudhan

Er, isn't that Piracy?

[Black Hawk]

Er, isn't that Piracy?
That is correct.

[Straight_Man]

That is correct.


I am not sure what enverex was referring to, but if he was referring to using the Intelligent updater, he does not know some things about it.

First, Symantec deliberately provides this set for this purpose and for recovering a NAv install.

Second, the updater they give out now is Intelligent in this way:

it will not update a NAV that has not been registered. When NAV is registered, each NAV gets its own subscription number from the Symantec server it talks to in order to register. The Intelligent part of the updater checks for a valid subscription number. THEN it updates. The defs they used to offer as a set three years ago did NOT check for a subscription number, and too many folks downloaded them and got free defs without registering NAV.

I started using Norton SystemWorks in the year 1999. I purchased it, and have purchased most years since then up through the year 2003. I have qty 10 legal CDs of NSW Pro 2003 and all can be registered. In the last 8 months I have purchased 25 such CDs-- bulk. If a box gets cleaned with NSW or NAV, the box's owner buys one unless they already own one. NO, NOT piracy.

To use this updater for recovery, you do this:

Uninstall NAV, and Symantec docs THREE ways to do this now and offers a remover that will make it easy that you have to get from Symantec. Reinstall NAv, and reregister it. Go to Symantec's site, get the Intelligent Updater. Let it do the defs update to current. THEN Liveupdate TWICE before you scan for viruses. This gets the program updates, which are NOT in the Intelligent LiveUpdater set. NOW you can scan. Without having to download three sets of incremental def downloads.

BTW, if I scan with F-Prot and kill viruses, the owner gets legal license to use it also. Condition of scan which I enforce. NO, NOT piracy.

John D.

[Lincoln]

John, two posts inquiring about a registration code were deleted from the thread by Mr. Kwitko. They appeared directly above Enervex's post. You can see the quote from one of the deleted posts in Enervex's post. Sorry for the confusion.

[Straight_Man]

John, two posts inquiring about a registration code were deleted from the thread by Mr. Kwitko. They appeared directly above Enervex's post. You can see the quote from one of the deleted posts in Enervex's post. Sorry for the confusion.

No, have chosen not to see anything Enverex says directly. Only thing that I saw was him being quoted, apparently after the other two got removed. I have had users ask me about treg codes, but I give them Symantec Customer Relation's 800 number. People have managed to partly erase NAV and get it yelling about a reg code, when in fact they also had a legit copy. Customer Relations will verify user info, then pass to tech support, tech support will email a fixer to user which fixes reg code issues for that copy of NAV only.

NAV 2004 original release had reg issues, and sometimes looping ones, again that is patchable. I did not see posts, but there ARE legit reasons to ask how to fix a missing reg code number with NAV-- I know 30 such over five years time for specific errors. I'll just hope they were indeed not mispoken\misunderstood requests for help that could have been given help legitimately AND WILLINGLY directly by Symantec-- and solved real and legit-help-needed problems with registration from legit copies of Symantec products.

[bothered]

I've just got and ran Avast on the basis that Shorty likes it, That man knows his stuff. Anyway, It found a virus on installing and wanted to restart the PC and do a scan so I let it. Its found loads, The PC already has PC-Cillin which it seems has missed all these. Looks like a great prog, I got the professional 60 day trial, I think I will be buying this.

[GHoosdum]

I started using Avast as well on all the PCs I build that I don't own (I get Symantec corp ed. for free from work for my own PCs). Anyway, Avast has been working great. Better than AVG for options and seems pretty comprehensive in virus catching. AVG, on several occasions, failed to catch a virus until after it had been included in a system restore point, and it would flag the virus found in the restore point but not the normal file.

[bothered]

Avast caught lots of infected files where PC-cillin had found one. I got the 60 day trial of the proffessional version, very happy with it so far. What's the differance between the pro and home versions?

[Dexter]

I've just got and ran Avast on the basis that Shorty likes it, That man knows his stuff. Anyway, It found a virus on installing and wanted to restart the PC and do a scan so I let it. Its found loads, The PC already has PC-Cillin which it seems has missed all these. Looks like a great prog, I got the professional 60 day trial, I think I will be buying this.


Just a comment for you bothered:

when you install a new Antivirus program and start scanning, it will inevitabley locate the "quarantine" folder of the old / existing anti-virus software. Anything in that folder is going to get flagged by the new anti-virus as being a virus...which it is, except your old anti-virus program already knew that and had it under control.

I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case for you here, but when you do install a new anti-virus program and it does it's first scan, keep an eye on the location of any items it finds. If they are in an exisintg quarantine folder, the virus count is not really a vaild indicator that this new program is any better than the old one.

Dexter...

[selim]

I think everybody thinks in a different way. I run Norton 2004 on my PC, in fact I have just bought it today(it can be called upgrate) I think it,s allright.

[bothered]

Dexter
That's what happened. On install, Avast popped up a virus warning and wanted to scan on boot, so I let it. (PC-cillin popped a warning up at the same time?) On boot Avast found 4 or 5 virus' in lots of infected files, most, as you say, in PC-cillins quarantined file but not all. PC-cillin found one. The PC-cillin in the kids PC is an old one that seems to have trouble updating which is why I put Avast in. My PC have PC-cillin 3000 which updates almost everyday and is very good. Thanks for the info though. :thumbsup:

[tecminn]

Avast vs. AVG

I have tried both pieces of software and I gave up on using Avast because it seemed to cause my computer to run very sluggishly. (AMD 3+ ghz - 1024 mb ram).

I am wondering tho if I gave it a fair shot. Reason - I did not uninstall AVG - just told it to unload.

Could having AVG on the machine have caused Avast to have a bit of a problem?

Carol

[Black Hawk]

I've tried Avast, AVG, NOD32 and NAV. Except that NAV uses more resources, I really didn't notice a diffrence between them. What's left to try I guess is McAfee and maybe Kaspersky, which are the ones I hear the most.

[SimGuy]

Figured this may be of interest to those who are trying to decide on an AntiVirus package:

http://home.comcast.net/~quako33/antivirus_roundup.htm

However for the highest level of protection, Kaspersky can't be beat (over 98.5% detection rate by 2 independent labs - SpyWareInfo.com & av-comparatives.org).

Personally, I use NOD32 on my desktop systems, Kaspersky on my server systems & Symantec AV on my Firewall appliance (SGS 5420).

[gibbonsl]

Kaspersky prof pro is what I am currently running

it found a trojen that AVG did not find

the first vir. that i have had in 4 years

also scans network drives(that is how I scan the download/folding desktop:)

[Dexter]

This thread is now closed for discussion, as it has served its purpose. For any new questions or new discussion about anti-virus products, please feel free to start a new thread in this section of the forum.

Dexter...