What commercial antivirus do you reccommend

Daughter had been using the free AVG and got a virus, and a computer hack module (according to the on line scan from Panda). She wants to buy a commercial anti virus program and suggested Norton. Any ideas?????

Hi, I would have Norton as my last choice. AVG free is good, you will find most AV's are not perfect. They can only react to a virus if they know about it, hence the constant updates. Some have better protection tools then others the stand out here is multi AV and the latest definitions, however the average user does not have access to this. The best AV is NOD32 if you want the best protection outside the professional level.

cowboy622--You will get many answers. There are many "best" antivirus programs according to the many reviews. A few are consistently near the top.
One review is
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/about/index.xml
(NOD is Eset)
For some of the other reviews
http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...ivirus+ratings
I personally use Norton. It almost always scores well, but uses a lot of resources when scanning. However, when you schedule or run scanning at a time you will not otherwise be using the PC, the use of resources is not very significant in my opinion.
Almost everyone else here will disagree with me. Norton's tech support is not so hot and there are idiosyncrasies. A post here may help.
You can usually get Norton at very low prices by looking at the ads from the office supply stores in the Sunday supplements in the newspapers.
http://www.salescircular.com/
NAV (or one of the other Norton products containing NAV such as Norton SystemWorks, 360, Norton Internet Security) often are free if you have another AV already installed and can claim an "upgrade" rebate. Even without the upgrade, the price is only about $25. Of course you will need a yearly subscription renewal, but that is no different from most of the other AV programs. And since, at the end of the first year, you then will indeed, be upgrading from the initial installation, the cost of another year's subscription is free (except for taxes and mailing in the rebate forms). Just keep all the boxes, manuals, receipts.
When you buy something from Norton other than NAV, itself, you can just install NAV and not the rest (unless you want to, of course).
As mentioned, this is an unpopular choice around here. But I have been using NAV for seven years. At worst, I have had no viruses until just a few weeks ago, which NAV detected and then helped me delete. (I have no idea how I got the viruses and why Norton did not stop them. But seven years is not shabby.)

Alwil's avast! Home Edition (Free)
http://avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

Grisoft's AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/avg-anti.../lng/us/tpl/v5

AntiVir's AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic (Free)
http://www.free-av.com/index.htm

Norton and McAfee are the two worse anti-virus security products. I have an associate, who was asking my advice because he could no longer get to some websites on his laptop but he had no problem accessing these websites on his desktop. I advised him that his laptop was probably infected (it was with a worm) and to come to VDR to get help on getting it cleaned up. He did and eventually got his laptop cleaned up.

He has Norton on this laptop. Sometimes Norton does not post an update to a specific piece of malware for up to 2 weeks.

I used Panda AV from 2002 - 2007 and I never got infected with anything. I switched to Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS) because they do more frequent updates and typically post a solution to any malware in the wild in less than 4 hours from the date and time that it was released.

KIS includes a firewall. I recommend that whichever product is selected that you get the AV with firewall.

Here are my recommendations:

First Choice -- Kaspersky http://usa.kaspersky.com/

Second Choice -- Panda http://www.pandasoftware.com/

Third Choice -- NOD32

Please post back and let us know what you decided.

Cheers,

Linda

I would go with SpywareDr's recommendation, but with AVG at the bottom of the list :).
Nod32 would probably be the only one I would consider purchasing.

I have Kaspersky on my desktop and nod 32 on my laptop. I don't see a great deal of difference between them. Nod 32's interface may take some getting used to for some users.

I agree with nearly all of the above. (freebies good. Nod, KIS, Panda excellent. Norton, Mcafee not so great)

NOD32 - I use it myself.

I would avoid Norton at all costs. I have recently had to restore 2 PCs for my sister-in-law - both had Norton installed but had become virus-infected and her efforts to disinfect resulted in them both being crippled by Norton. After removing Norton, then the infection, I installed Avast! free edition for her. It's an excellent product given the price :)

Thank you everyone. I'll forward this thread to my daughter and son in law and let them decide.

Avoid Norton whatever you do. I'd consider it Riskware. Install it at your own risk. Mcafee is the same.
Nod32 is the one and only AV I use and recommend. It constantly gets the best scores in online comparison, and was rated the "AV of the year" for 2006 by the well respected av-comparatives.org.
As for the free AV's, they are ok but leave something to be desired. I consider AVG as a horrible AV. Many people think its great until they get a virus which it can't erase. I have used Avast and Antivir and they are ok but not terrific.

Not much else I can say that the others haven't. :) Over the last couple of years, I've test drove several standalone AVs ( I loathe AV suites with a passion!) The ones I settled on... NOD32 for paid installations and AVAST! for freebie installations.

How are Kaspersky and NOD on resources?

NOD 32 - It has the best effectiveness to intrusivess ratio (if there is such a thing ) of any AVs I tried over the years: Symantec, McAfee, AVG Pro, early Avast, and Kaspersky.

Like JPnyc I had Kaspersky on my desktop and NOD32 on my laptop for over a year. Found Kaspersky latest builds too intrusive, and just not learning. Repeatedly asking permissions for sites I accessed three or four times a day, in spite of them being enterd manually as safe.
I think NOD easier on resources, but not measured it.

Nod32 is considered the lightest of the bunch. You don't feel it when its installed. Just as well, the installation takes about 15 seconds on a slow computer, as compared to Norton which will take a good 5 minutes on a fast computer.

Kaspersky is great on resources. It is also known as being the fastest AV company in posting updates for newly released malware. Fixes are distributed to Kaspersky customers in less than 4 hours.

Linda

I am using the new Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 and find that it is lite on the resources. I am running a 900Mhz AMD with 390Ram with XP and I have encountered no problems.

I did a free upgrade from version 6.0 without any difficulty. It is a good product an I recommend it as a non-free program

Doc

I'll bash Norton as well, had it for years, finally got rid of it and WOW!! I had no idea my computer could go so fast, major resource hog even when its not "scanning" its still running in the background and hogging away. I can't speak about McAfee. My father is a Sr. Manager for Boeing's Network Securities Division and always supports Norton and McAfee, but he uses Trend Micro products at home... so I just pay attention to what he does and not what he says when it come to those two.

I've been using Zone Alarm's Internet Suite for about 8 months now per the suggestion of several people here on VD and have been pleased with the protection, but disappointed with the customization options. I can't tell it to update when I want it too (its either manual or auto, but no option for specific time of day) and can't block specific website addresses (they've got website catergories but nowhere to put in a url or ip...) and if either option exists its impossible to find. If you don't care about those options then I'd recommend it as it uses the Kaspersky anti virus which many have already supported. Anywho good luck!

Hey Cowboy---Long time no see.
You are in luck(daughter) IF you act quickly. A free Kaspersky 6.0 is here for the taking BY Sept 1.
http://www.dealigg.com/story-Kaspers...0-070305013529 If you search a little more in the link, I think you will find a free upgrade to version 7.0. Good luck.