[Twinkie]

I have notice a lot of threads about which is the best anti virus software, so I decided to make a a poll for all people indecisive. I personally have done much research, and have found these three listed below to be the best. I have tried Avast, Nod32, Kaspersky, Norton and McAfee. For those who love Avast, be aware it generates tons of false positive and do not trust that anything labeled "Trojan-gen" is really a virus. However, in my opinion, the best for the money is BitDefender. Please vote on what you think is the best. For the integridy of this poll, please do not limit your answers to prices, rumors or limited experience. Please do not vote if you have not tried more than one AV. Consider the effectiveness of the scanner, how many features and the impact of system resources. A good AV must have a balance of each. I hope this will help those looking for a new AV. Thanks for voting!
1) Kaspersky - Was amazing in all aspects. (Requires some basic configuration)
2) BitDefender - Created some additional load on the PC, but with a good scanner.
3) Eset Nod32 - Was extreamly light on resources but not very good scanning engine.
(Great install and forget solution, has very good heuristics)

[mattura]

Yep, I'd mostly agree, although I don't know about BitDefender.

ps - it's Norton, not Nortorn

[firesteel]

Originally Posted by Twinkie

I personally have done much research, and have found these three listed below to be the best. . .

I feel your research has overlooked one of the finest (if not the finest) antivirus applications, Avira Antivir. Avira's product has wickedly good virus, trojan, and worm detection and removal, rootkit detection and removal, and few, if any false positives. It also has a fast on demand scan engine and provides background scanning as well. Daily definition updates too. Resource usage is resonable with no detectable loss of productivity on my midrange laptop.

I've tried and used SNorton AV, Symantec Corporate AV (which is very good, unlike the Norton piece of tripe targeted for home users), Kasperski (excellent!), AVG, Avast!, Nod32, MacAfee, and CA, on both personal and corporate machines. At work, I have to use what is provided (Symantec Corp), but for my personal pc's, it's Avira Antivir Premium on everything. Their product just gets better and better with each version.

I'd rank AV's something like this:

#1 Kasperski AV (good, but expensive)
#1.5 Avira Antivir Premium
#2 Avira Antivir
#3 Symantec Corporate AV (not likely you'll get to play with this one, unless you encounter it at work)

Everything else I just lump together as "also rans", mostly due to short comings I felt I couldn't live with in an AV.

[alexandgruntz]

I prefer avast. It doesn't get in the way, and is pretty much a "set-and-forget" application - no popups urging you to upgrade to the paid edition. It only tells you that the virus definition has been updated, and tells you if there is a virus.

[Twinkie]

Originally Posted by firesteel

I feel your research has overlooked one of the finest (if not the finest) antivirus applications, Avira Antivir. Avira's product has wickedly good virus, trojan, and worm detection and removal, rootkit detection and removal, and few, if any false positives. It also has a fast on demand scan engine and provides background scanning as well. Daily definition updates too. Resource usage is resonable with no detectable loss of productivity on my midrange laptop.

I've tried and used SNorton AV, Symantec Corporate AV (which is very good, unlike the Norton piece of tripe targeted for home users), Kasperski (excellent!), AVG, Avast!, Nod32, MacAfee, and CA, on both personal and corporate machines. At work, I have to use what is provided (Symantec Corp), but for my personal pc's, it's Avira Antivir Premium on everything. Their product just gets better and better with each version.

I'd rank AV's something like this:

#1 Kasperski AV (good, but expensive)
#1.5 Avira Antivir Premium
#2 Avira Antivir
#3 Symantec Corporate AV (not likely you'll get to play with this one, unless you encounter it at work)

Everything else I just lump together as "also rans", mostly due to short comings I felt I couldn't live with in an AV.

I have heard about Avira in random places to be great, but not by anyone who gave substantial information and it is not popular enough to put on the polls with such limited space. I have heard that it has great detection. But, I have not tried it my self.

Norton is low ranked in my opinion because of the slow performance and because it does not detect the latest threats. They have a very bad outbreak response time, and is pretty much obsolete. In the old days, Norton and McAfee used to have the best protection, but not anymore. Kaspersky has great outbreak response time (1-2) hours and good performance.

[Dazz]

And Avast draws level lol.

For me its avast every time, its free, it does everything a good A/V should and its not a resource hog like Norton

[Twinkie]

Originally Posted by Dazz

And Avast draws level lol.

For me its avast every time, its free, it does everything a good A/V should and its not a resource hog like Norton

Your vote should not be limited to price. Have you ever tried another AV, preferably a purchased one?

[nterror]

Kaspersky is great. If you are concerned about performance, NOD32 seems to be the way to go, but Kaspersky is a close second.

I've heard good things about Avira Antivir but never actually tried it.

Hated the free ones...

[deathdroid]

I would have to go with AVG its very good and efficient and the free version comes with a lot of stuff like Anti spy ware anti root kits etc.

[Twinkie]

For some reason, BitDefender is not very popular, but has as good protection as Kaspersky and probably better than Nod32?