Looking for an Anti-Virus program for Windows

[barking_iguana]

Criteria:

I don't want to notice any performance issues.

I want the updates to run by themselves, or at worst ask me if they should run. And saying yes is all the input I should have to give unless I want to give more.

I don't want to spend much money. I'll spend $30 per year for a noticeably better product, but free marginally better. Open source is fine, but not if it's written by people who take pride in interface incompatibilities with Windows. That is the operating system I choose to use and I expect my software to run smoothly on it.

As far as I know, Windows Defender, which I enabled when my OEM license for Norton ran out, is fine for a firewall and for protecting against spyware and adware. So I don't necessarily need a "suite," just an anti-virus program.

Microsoft's page lists the following vendors as options:

• AVG (geminigirl recently had to uninstall it for incompatibility issues: 1 demerit
• Windows Live OneCare (I'm guessing it's somebody else's product with Microsoft branding and an increased price, but I suppose it should have few incompatibility issues and relatively good on-line documentation.
• CA (I assume that's Computer Associates.)
• (Never heard of it.)
• Trend Micro (I use their online tool, which is a great concept and still useful, but isn't well maintained.)
• F-Secure (I don't know them.)
• ZoneAlarm by Check Point (I used them several years ago and had no complaints. I they're reasonably priced and I get no conflicting advice, I'll probably use them again.)
• Kaspersky Lab (Them, either.)
• Panda Security (I had very bad performance issues with them on a previous computer: 2 demerits.)
• Norton from Symantic (seemed to work well enough when I had a license for it. I've read bad things about it re performance and it being bloatware, and I don't know whether that represents real problems or the bloviating of those who denigrate the leading paid software whenever there's a free alternative.)
• BitDefender (I don't know them, or the next two.)
• Vision Power
• K7 Computing (The subtitle in the logo is in Japanese (I think) which is probably not a good sign for English support and documentation.)
• McAfee (I've read some of the same stuff as about Norton, with the same caveats.)

Comments

[catwithbell.livejournal.com]

I like AVG very much. Never had issues with it, always good at updating itself and scanning the box. Even finds viruses! (A plus in anti-viral software...) So easy, I had my mom using it without any problems.

Hate McAfee.
Hate Norton even more.
Saw both of those make horrible messes of poor computers.
*shudder*

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I now see the free version of AVG doesn't have rootkit detection, which I think may be important as time goes on. The paid version costs more than others that I think will do as well, but I'm glas it's serving you well. Thanks for the info.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

We use f-secure, but it costs much more than $30 (for a 3-computer license). We use the whole suite, but you can get pure anti-virus. It used to have annoying manners but the 2009 version is quite pleasant.

On DOS I used to use f-prot, which was freeware for home use, and a 5-user license for Windows is $29: https://secure.f-prot.com/cgi-bin/buy.
F-prot for DOS was very pleasant, much more so than McAfee’s shareware command-line tools of that era. I would look into getting f-prot, though I’ve never seen the Windows version in action.

(Comcast gives us McAfee as a freebie. Blech, it’s still annoying.)

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

F-secure's not that much more ($40 with the Microsoft link discount) and it has rootkit detection, so it's still on the list. F-prot doesn't, and I decided that might be important, so I'll get something for more than it's $20.

Thank you.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

The recent positive Rootkit Hunter result we had around here was on the Linux side, oddly enough. It wasn’t really a rootkit; it was either a false positive or a kind of very, very stealthy trojan kernel module used for data sniffing, such as in honeypot machines used to study cracker behavior. That might explain why I could not reproduce the result. I’m not sure how such a thing could have gotten on the system and stayed in working order despite the ongoing turnover in our software and kernels – but the machine was physically out of our control for quite a while, due to HW problems. In any case, after studying the rkhunter code that detects such a trojan, I could not think up a false-positive explanation for this particular result, so I rebuilt everything, including repartitioning, and reinstalling XP Pro from CD.

[cinema-babe.livejournal.com]

I hate Macafee and Norton, I've had them both and wouldn't use them again. I'm away from my desk but I'm sending you a private message that might help.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[geminigirl]

I still haven't actually diagnosed what my issue with AVG was, so I don't know if it's something that I personally did or if it was something else. AVAST has been suggested to me as a good alternative, and I don't see it on your list. I haven't had the time to check it out thoroughly yet.

I am interested in your conclusion though because I'm still looking for something to use instead of AVG.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Consumer Reports didn't rank the free version of AVG or Avast highly. And I think I want rootkit detection, which they don't have. So I'm going to end up spending between #20 and $40. If you end up thinking along the same lines, there are discounts if you get to the vendors' pages from the link provided by Windows Defender, which comes with Vista on each machine.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

ZoneAlarm.

K7 is similar and five dollars cheaper, but Zone Alarm has more of a track record, including with me. Webroot also looks interesting and cheaper, but the only review I could find (and the only place I heard of it other than the commercial page I was led to) was a review page by folks I've never heard of.