Best FREE or PAID Anti-Virus?

benod · 03-01-2006, 03:36 PM

Give your opinion here. I know Norton and McAfee are the most popular but I've hear that they do have their flaws. I've always used free, downloaded anti-virus software myself - I'm currently using AVG Free which is pretty good and easy to use.

**Lyte** · 03-01-2006, 04:11 PM

Hey benod,

You're right... all anti-virus softwares have pluses and minuses. The one thing that has changed with McAfee (from a few years ago) is the abundence of annoying pop up alerts. I prefer certain pieces of software to be invisible and behind the scenes... e.g. pop up blocker... anti virus and spyware.

AVG is supposed to be very good and comes highly recommended on a variety of sites. My temp subscription to McAfee is running out and I'll be switching over to AVG.

Lyte

dr911 · 03-01-2006, 07:38 PM

Hey All,

I use Avast Antivirus . It's free.......doesn't use much resourses on your PC. Been using it for years. I had Norton and McAfee .......worthless !!! they both eat a lot of resourses on your PC.

link:http://www.avast.com/

howdy · 03-06-2006, 06:58 AM

I used to go with norton antivirus because of its name, but I soon realise it uses up too much of the cpu resources, and the scanning seems to take forever to complete. Giving up on it, I changed to NOD32 and I would say its superb in terms of the time it takes to do virus scanning and best of all, it takes up a small load of the cpu processes. I would encourage all of you to give it a go.

firestorm · 03-07-2006, 10:09 AM

There was an article in PCWorld a couple months back on virus protection. I can't remember who was #1, but norton's came in second. Will try to find it when I get the chance.

GoPC · 03-15-2006, 05:57 PM

In my experience and that of ALOT of PC reviews, magazines, shows, etc... is the NOD-32 Anti-Virus Software. I have it on ALL my machines now. I used a local company here a while back to do some on-site backup and repair for my office machines and they noted that I was using Norton and asked me if I were satisifed with it.

Now, twice, I've been let down by Norton but overall, I have to say that I was not UNhappy with NAV. However, they told me about NOD-32 and I began to research it. WOW!

After alot of reading, I decided to give it a shot and I have never been happier with a product.

I wholey endorse it.

I'm sure there are plenty of places to buy it but I got mine from www.pcrnr.com (and NO I don't make a dime from the endoresement).

They also have some cool "magic button" software that stores and recalls your pc in the case of a catastophic failure. Do whatever you want to royally screw up your system and then use this to reset everything back to the way it was before the failure. It's incredibly fast and cool... Not the topic at hand, but I thought I'd mention it because I now use that too.

I think NOD-32 may have been that #1 you were trying to remember, Firestorm.

GoPC

firestorm · 03-15-2006, 07:26 PM

maybe it sounds familiar. I think it started with a B though for some reason. Maybe it will come to me. NOD-32 is very reputable though!

-MaDcOw- · 03-16-2006, 04:28 AM

I use AVG free and I'm very happy with it.

dpak · 03-17-2006, 01:29 PM

For free antivirus, I use Avast and like it the best, but if you're looking for other options, this site has got a good list of them: http://www.free-antivirus.ca

As for paid, I still like Norton Antivirus the best. Even more so with 2006, with the integrated Spyware protection. Yes, it takes a lot of resources, but if you're using a decent computer, it's not noticeable. I have heard good things about NOD32 as well, but I haven't tried it myself.