Which antivirus

powell7

powell7

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chris
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Hi all I'm looking to buy some new antivirus for my laptop.
At the moment I'm using norton 360 and its killing my laptop.
Every time I turn the thing on it starts a full system scan and there's no way of turning auto San off :-(

Could anyone recommend me and new antivirus please ??

Thanks chris
 
Kaspersky Internet Security (y)
 
I need one that's going to let me use my laptop again

At the moment I'm having to turn it on 2 hours before I want to use it just to let it do what it wants to do :-(

I'm getting close to running the thing over its winding me up that much !
 
Kaspersky doesn't slow my laptop at all but Norton is a pig - try it, the trial is free :)
 
Hi Chris,
Have a look at what programs start up automatically when you turn it on....type in 'msconfig' in the search box (from start menu). From there click the 'Start Up' tab....uncheck the programs that you don't want to run on start up...restart the computer when prompted....you should find this makes the start up faster.

P.s...another thumbs up for Kaspersky....if you happen to have a Barclays bank account you can get it from them (Barclays) for free online.
 
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+1 for Microsoft Security Essentials. Free, Tiny resources footprint, Anti virus and Spyware combined, runs quietly in the background and does what it is supposed to with little fuss. One of Microsofts best pieces of software.
IMO Paid for antivirus software is over cooked bloatware that has a proven history of integrating into computers like a cancer and giving you little choice about what they integrate into or change and are notorious for slowing PCs to a crawl. Biggest offender ? Norton.

However if you are serious about that start up time to use, i would suggest you have a much bigger issue than your AV software Chris.
 
Another vote for Avast. Got it on all of my pc's and its been great.
 
Try Comodo - some aspects free and you can 'programme' it as such - great value for 3 year package c£30
 
i swear by ESET, been fantastic for me for years, none of that commercial bull clogging up things.
 
used Avast for a long time until I realised Microsoft Essentials does the same using less resource.
 
+1 for Microsoft Security Essentials

i'm an IT contractor and this is Microsofts best product for sure.

Also download Malware Bytes and run this ince a week just to check.

go into Add and remove programs in control panel and look at any other rubbish you can uninstall.
 
wildsam90 said:
Another (y) from me, currently on my third year of using it, not one issue yet ( touch wood )
Click to expand...

+1 from me as well. If you have a Barclays account you get a 3 licence version free. Otherwise look on Amazon for last year's version.
 
Microsoft Security Essentials. Realistically it's as effective as anything else on the market. It integrates with Windows better than anything else on the market and it's free.
 
Bitdefender for me which i think is owned by Kaspersky.
Its won several awards.
How do Norton make a living. I had it for 2 weeks before I had to bin it.
 
Another one for eset here

I rate their eset smart security 6 product but if you just want the AV on its own there is their NOD32 product

I think the leader of the pack changes over time, but the good products remin good whichever you go for and they are not usually the ones you see advertised so much

I spent a lot if time in the past looking for the least bloated solution that would have minimum impact on system performance when i had an old PC and eset has been fantastic, even after an upgrade and now on Win 7 home premium 64bit

I will never go back to mcafee, not just because of how it crippled my pc performance, but how hard it was to properly uninstall....you should certainly not have to download extra tools to clean up after a uninstall app doesn't actually remove everything...and it took ages to get off their mailing list. I didn't fare much better with norton...and don't get me started on bullguard....


Check these reports here http://www.av-comparatives.org/
 
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scott199 said:
i swear by ESET, been fantastic for me for years, none of that commercial bull clogging up things.
Click to expand...
:plus1:I have been using this for years its spot on.I would get rid of norton it slows everything down and if you fart it sniffs it:)
 
ESET user too although the firewall can be awkward to use.

MSE if you want free antivirus.
 
Norton 360 is not just Internet Security , it is also a automated back up program and it is the monitoring for this that takes the resources away.
Plain old Norton Internet Security is a very small footprint program. Yes in the past Norton was bloat ware but nowadays it is not.

In the 2012 program it only has 2 running processes with a 15MB impact on RAM.

So if you like Norton dump the 360 and get NIS 2013
 
I currently use Avast and have used AVG in the past. Both free. Never had a virus.
 
Another vote for Kaspersky Internet Security here, use it on all of my systems
 
NOD is great as a paid product, although why pay for your AV solutions when there are excellent free alternatives is beyond me.

MSE ftw

Mcafee and Norton are horrific pieces of bloatware.
 
Simply you get what you pay for, for example if you are happy getting virus updates every few weeks or when you remember to update then certain freebies will be fine but if you want a more robust updating, every day, every hour etc then the freebies simply will not do.
 
Strange not one person has voted for N360
I've used it on all my computers(desktop and laptop) for years and never had a problem.
It cover 3 PC's, maintains all my logins, does my backups, tunes the PC and I've never had an issue with any virus, spyware or malware as it catches them all

I don't understand the scanning bit killing your laptop. I have it on my laptop and it doesn't scan on every boot. It checks for liveupdate but that's all.

I've always liked it so much I bought the Android version for my tablet(y)
 
You get what you pay for!
For example most free AV's update every few weeks, or worse you have to remember to do it - paid for like Kaspersky will allow you to schedule updates every day, hour, 15 mins etc

Why is this important?

This is a list of known viruses and trojans so far discovered today and does not include variation updates on existing viruses and trojans:-
Generic VB.aaal!FA2C7256C23A
Generic VB.aaal!11BD7B2C5A82
Downloader-BT!CC4AF2E8CEF7
VBObfus.dq!5696E4B85AB0
ZeroAccess-FAVR!F968AE87E93F!F968AE87E93F
Generic Downloader.x!854BEC526183
Generic VB.aaal!4F26753DE82F
Downloader-BPA.d!00B8D5E67C5D
W32/Chir.b@MM!5F1F598C9696
Downloader-CSV!3BD20C33605B
W32/Autorun.worm.aacp!319439EDACA0
PWS-Zbot.gen.asp!CC848036DDAC
Generic.tfr!A453563A1700
W32/Sality.gen.z!DC0053A5463D
Generic VB.aaal!B34EDC1F6B64
W32/IRCbot.gen.bz!CD5D71BB46F3
PWS-Zbot.gen.di!CD10A60E6716
PWS-Zbot.gen.cy!366A06712F86
RDN/Generic.tfr!E376CE185DED
PWS-Zbot-FAKU!36B4BBABBDF9!36B4BBABBDF9
PWS-Zbot.gen.asc!CC93D9387421
RDN/Generic.dx!li!1212ED61E124
W32/Mabezat!C6DEBC28331A
PWS-Zbot.gen.cy!CE233A7C4B0A
PWS-Zbot.gen.cy!3D05ECFA66AE
Generic VB.kj!CA2B6B04801D
BackDoor-FJW!341A6E116EBF
W32/Ramnit.DR!CBDBB9198483
Generic PUP.x!487F27A325A1
PWS-Zbot.gen.cy!35870F61170D
Click to expand...
 
Good explanation!
 
I no longer use Windoze, but found AVG free was entirely adequate when I did (and it updated very regularly) - nowadays I have no paranoia about viruses whatsoever, I run Linux Mint.....
 
Hardly "twaddle" then if you can only show one example, I did say "most and my experience is with Kaspersky which is significantly above Avast in that specific test data.

However I see no need for yet another forum argument, each one must make their own decision based on the information available. In the past I have used a number of free programmes and found them wanting - I have had no such problems from Kaspersky and therefore record my experience for those who wish to hear it, for those who don't fine!
 
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