Avast + Firewall + Brain 1.0

Kaspersky or NOD32

Avast + Spybot S&D + Ad-aware + Sygate (brilliant firewall imo)

Only use Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware to do a weekly scan. Run avast with active protection and do a weekly boot up scan on that one too. 90% of the time its just a waste of a scan because i also use my brain (dangerous i know!!) but at least it gives peace of mind.

Norton 360 here. Fine and dandy. No problems, bugs or errors, and no viruses, intrusions or failures yet (not that I ever have these anyway). Not noticed any resource hogging (but then I don't think anyone ever does, but it's cool to pretend you can notice the difference in 1% of CPU time)...

Quote from tristancliffe :

Norton 360 here. Fine and dandy. No problems, bugs or errors, and no viruses, intrusions or failures yet (not that I ever have these anyway). Not noticed any resource hogging (but then I don't think anyone ever does, but it's cool to pretend you can notice the difference in 1% of CPU time)...

After I edited a comment in an infected Word doc, and Whoreton went from finding it infected to finding it clean, it blew any (very tiny) credit it had left

Whoreton is notoriously a pig of an app, much like Make-A-Fee.. the problem is just like windoze / IE, trials of both often come preinstalled on new boxes and most people never seem to think that maybe there's a better alternative (and in this case, almost all alternatives are better). I'm not just talking crap, I spent years writing code to circumvent AV utils through my teens and have tested many scanners over that time, primarily to keep track of my vx collection and have contacts on both sides of the fence



Regards,

Ian

Quote from franky500 :

Avast + Spybot S&D + Ad-aware + Sygate (brilliant firewall imo)

rofl... exactly the same as me...

I'm using AVG (always have) and Sygate but I think I'm gonna give Avast or NOD32 a go. Since updating to AVG8 the time from what seems like getting a fully loaded XP to the time I can actually start opening things and starting Fire fox seems to have quadrupled.

Not to mention all the little "improvements" they seem to have made that you just can turn off or can turn off but get a constant reminder via a red icon in my system try.

Gonna give Avast a try.

Quote from Jakg :

Norton 360 is SHITE. Trust me.

I agree with you from personal experience. My parents refuse to drop Norton yet I am reinstalling it every month because it either decides not to start on startup or uses an infinite amount of ram until the low virtual memory message appears (memory leak). Now if they would just stop spending so much attention on making it look good and spend more on useful tools (not automatic online backups over a 1.5/0.3 connection) and stability, it would be a good program.

Just turn off the backups. Mine starts every time flawlessly. Perhaps you're installing it wrong? Mines currently sitting on 7MB/0% usage, and my PC has been on for several days now.

Quote from franky500 :

Avast + Spybot S&D + Ad-aware + Sygate

Yes, I use Spybot S&D + Ad-aware when I sew some problem in my pc, only for scan.

I use CA Security Center and Spyware Guard

I find that vista and norton 360 compliment each other. Norton 360 is designed for full use on vista but is capeable of working on other os'.

Btw tristian do you run vista or xp?

XP

I wouldn't install Vista on someones computer even if I REALLY wanted them dead. I'm not that heartless. No one deserves that excuse for an operating system (my girlfriend has it on her laptop, and it's utter utter shite).

I am using Bitdefender

A very resource friendly program and very straightforward.
I've been using it for 3 years now.

Try the trail, or use the Free version!

After running AVAST for a couple of days I can see how much AVG8 (and previous versions) were really slowing my system down, especially on start up, not turning on to loading XP, I mean on my desktop and the time it took for me to actually start using my PC. I'd start firefox and have to wait what seemed like ages until it loaded up, I'd say 10 to 20 seconds.

With AVAST as soon as my desktop is up I can start running programs. Plus it very customizable, I can update manually without stupid warning icons, choose whatever features I need, it’s much better than AVG (which I'd been using for years).

It also picked up viruses (not serious) hidden in old system restore files in the hidden system volume information folder on all 3 of my hard drives, AVG totally missed them

If you are running AVG, I'd say give AVAST a try and see if you notice a performance increase, well worth the change in my opinion.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I wouldn't install Vista on someones computer even if I REALLY wanted them dead. I'm not that heartless. No one deserves that excuse for an operating system (my girlfriend has it on her laptop, and it's utter utter shite).

Well interesting, i have had Vista for exactly one year now and i cannot say it's bad, its very good and I can't find one reason to switch to XP, works very well etc.

If all people would have same experience as i have had with Vista, then i belive there would be very few complaints.

But offcourse everyone can use OS what they prefer, i just shared my experience.

Only always turned-off avast. No problems.. Because i dont download files as porn.exe ( 20kb)

Avg!

Quote from Luke.S :

vista and norton 360 compliment each other.

Vista and Norton? You must really hate your computer



Anyway, it's NOD32 and Spybot S+D for me these days.(When i remember to turn them on. I usually just run a scan 1nce a month or so if i remember.) Was an avid AVG user but 8 is horrible so i thought i'd try something different.

Quote from The Moose :

Vista and Norton? You must really hate your computer

lol +1

I moved back to XP after having vista on my machine for about 1 month. Im surprised i left in on there that long tbh!

In the end, the compatibilty issues, its refusal to pick up external device's, the way did'nt run most my games, and the way it was all layed out pissed me off. Beside's, i think XP media center edition looks better .

Anyway, im using AVG with XP. AVG is'nt the BEST out there, but its good enough to give you enough protection against typical viruse's, and it does'nt use alot of resource's neither. All in all, providing your not surfing the web at dodgy pr0n sites and that kind of thing, it should be enough.

Quote from The Moose :

Was an avid AVG user but 8 is horrible so i thought i'd try something different.

Yay, I'm not alone!

After switching to AVAST I can see how much AVG8 (and probably other versions) slowed my computer down and missed some trojans, which is a shame cause I've always used AVG since I got my PC.

Yes, I'm dusting off this old thread. ClamWin is very good because its so simple and simplicity is beauty. Its easily downloadable, free and runs very smoothly in the background. It's available on later versions of Ubuntu Live CD or from the ClamWin main page. As for spy ware and other mallicious software, most of them you download yourselfs by accident. There is a good site to name and shame any software that is not as discribed called stopbadware.org where you can submit problem sites. Stopbadware does investigate submissions and trys to action issues in an appropriate mannor. As for a firewall, if your using linux I can highly recomend firestarter, its simple and functional. If you are using windows XP I can highly recomend Jetico PF firewall as again, its simple and functional. I have found that by experance the more popular anti-virus and firewall software like nortons is less functional, slow and simply too "pretty" to complete its task efficently.
Other security software I found to run faster and smoother:

• Avast
  
• NOD3
  
• ClamWin
  
• Sygate
  
• Jetico PF
  
• Kerio
  
• Comodo
  

These all seemed to run fast without chewing up resorces.

Yeah - I was thinking of getting NOD32... we'll have to see.

Comodo runs really well, especially with Avira. If your installing Avira there is no second choice. Its like they were meant to be together!

With Avast, something you really want to do is turn off that VRDB and disable taskbar icon animation. But otherwise I can't really find much to complain about it, works well in Vista x64 with Comodo.