Hey all,

Just curious as to what is a good antivirus nowadays. I usually run Malwarebytes and AdblockPlus/NoScript with Firefox, but I'm looking for a good antivirus to go with those, preferably something that isn't resource heavy while still providing decent protection. I've been using Symantec/Norton the past few years, but it always seems like the general consensus is that's its decidedly 'bleh'.

AVG

For Windows 7: Microsoft Security Essentials, I believe its built into 8.1

Eset NOD32.

I like Panda Free AV these days, seems to perform the best in synthetic malware tests. The problem with Microsoft Security Essentials these days is that most malware attacks are designed to avoid it. Could save you some CPU time on MBAM since it's looking for both.

I use Norton because it's free to Comcast subscribers, but it's fucking annoying with all the messages I can't seem to disable.

You don't need anything outside of windows for this

Though it's not perfect, as someone stated above, I've been using Microsoft security essentials for about 2 years and have had zero problems. Personally, I recommend that over anything right now.

I have used Avast free for so long now and have never really had problems.

I'm also gonna vouch for Microsoft Security Essentials. Stick with the occasional MalwareBytes scan and you should be good.

For free go Avast for paid go Kaspersky (its what I make my parents use)

I pay for Norton and have Malwarebytes installed as well.

After dealing with bullshit from other AV's, (Avast, AVG, etc) Microsoft Security Essentials does the trick.

Same here, used AVG then Avast for years before upgrading to whatever version of Windows had Microsoft Security Essentials.

I use the free version of AVG mainly to scan RARs/ZIPs before opening them, but I've got real-time protection enabled as well since it's reasonably low impact on my system. Avast does a better job as a free AV than AVG, but it's so incredibly annoying that I refuse to use it. On occasion I'll run Malwarebytes just to make sure things are clean, but it's never found anything of note. If I felt I needed it I'd pay for ESET, it's what I recommend anytime I've had to cleanse someone's PC of a virus, but pro-active computer use rather than reliance on reactionary AV software is the way to go (like you're already doing). I haven't had a virus on any of my personal computers in over a decade, but that has more to do with good habits and preventative measures than it does any piece of AV software.

Avast free. However, some suggestions:

After install, go into options and disable ALL sounds and notifications (holy shit the sound is loud and annoying). Also, disable all AV modules except the core AV. IE: email and all that other bs. Will regain some system resources. Also, disable the extra stuff they throw in there (the ""auto updater for programs""") and other stupid crap.

If you don't wanna do that, Security Esstionals is Avast without the crud.

Webroot. Can also be installed with any other anti-virus if you're super paranoid.

After using malwarebytes free for years, I finally paid for it. Never had problems.

Also have Norton free since I have Comcast.

I would avoid AVG because it can be annoying to get rid of and has constant pop ups

I just use Windows Defender. Works just fine and is free.

Microsoft Security Essentials was awesome and built in (Windows Defender if you're using 8.1) and everyone loved it. Recently though Microsoft has admitted to a lot of Defender and MSE short comings. I've always loved ESET Nod32 anti virus. And if you need a customizable firewall (you likely don't windows firewall is fine for more people) you can upgrade to ESET Smart Security. It's EXTREMELY low resource impacting on your PC, it isn't always in the way, and is dead simple with it's interface and has an advanced mode that you can optionally drill down into settings.

Microsoft Security Essentials is pretty good actually. Like Canteu said, just couple it with Malware Bytes, since neither MSE or most other anti-virus programs deal with malware.

Avast is great!

Avast

The one that's built into Windows, just don't do dumb things on the internet.

As per: http://www.tomsguide.com/us/windows-defender,review-2209.html

PROS: Easy setup; low performance impact

CONS: Very poor malware detection; no extra security features

VERDICT : If you’re relying solely on Windows Defender for your antivirus protection, you’re anything but defended.

As per: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/software/1000270/microsoft-security-essentials-2015-review

The problem is that Security Essentials can’t offer real peace of mind. In our tests, Security Essentials/Windows Defender allowed the system to be compromised by 41% of threats. Its response to legitimate software boosted its overall accuracy score, but this is still a worrying result. With that the case, we wouldn’t trust our PCs and our data to Security Essentials. Frankly, neither should you.

Fell free to search "Windows Defender 2015 review" or "Microsoft Security Essentials 2015 Review" and see for yourselves.

Microsoft Security Essentials isn't good but I use it... I should really switch back to avast at some point.

You really don't need a dedicated 3rd party one as long as you aren't doing anything sketchy these days. MSE works well enough, and if you want to actively scan something, just use MBAM.

In the Consumer Reports review from last year, Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender had some of the worst detection rates and also the highest rate of false positives amongst any of the solutions tested. I wouldn't recommend either one of them to anybody. I personally use Kaspersky and Malwarebytes, but that is really only because I got a license for the former free with my motherboard. If I didn't have Kaspersky I would use Panda which has been performing well in tests recently.

Honestly there isn't one good solution. You really need a combination that will work together rather than attacking one another.

Just make sure you have something that is dedicated to looking for rootkits. Rootkits are real awful mother fuckers and most anti-virus software won't detect them.

For regular old AV, I would used AVG Free or Panda. I would supplement that with Malwarebytes (picks up stuff that AV doesn't) and Spybot Search and Destroy (which picks up the rest that Malwarebytes doesn't). Between those 3, that covers pretty much anything you need to worry about.

I'm still running AVG. In TYOOL 2015, it seems like malware isn't that big of a threat as long as you're not downloading bonzi buddy equivalents. That said, I've still been suckered once in the last fewyears, and boy did it piss me off. Once that happens, I feel like, no matter what decontamination method I use, I have to reformat. I won't be satisfied until I do.

For free I like AVG or Avast. They are both lightweight, but they both have popup ads. They are pretty easy to ignore though. For paid, I cannot recommend Webroot Secureanywhere Antivirus enough (Note Antivirus, not Internet Security). I have been recommending it to my customers for 2 years now and they all love it. It's very effective, very lightweight, and not very pricey. I would never recommend Norton, McAfee or Kaspersky. They tend to be very heavy and resource demanding. That said, Kaspersky is indeed the best of those 3, but I still can't tell you how many times I've seen it cause conflicts with legitimate programs because it's overprotective. Along the same lines, if you ever do get a malware infection with Norton or McAfee, they tend to break the operating system in a way that forces you to strip them from the OS before you can even start cleaning the systems. One last thought. A lot of people are recommending Malwarebytes, and I will do the same, but another great utility to keep in mind if you do get an infection is adwcleaner. Run it after malwarebytes.

Cheers!

Webroot Secureanywhere gave me nothing but headaches because it kept treating my VPN client that I use for work as a threat. The "allow" option when it prompts you is utterly useless as it still scans it while it's running like mad. Webroot also take a "we know more than you" approach and doesn't let you create excluded folders or pathways or to create an allowed application list. You have to instead submit all the application info to them for them to review to then add it to their user wide exception list. I get you don't think that people should be ignoring whole drives or some not new torrented game cracks that obviously are going to flip out an anti virus, but when it comes to work applications... get out of here. Also, awful customer support if you want even a partial refund.

@hardywells: It's funny that you should mention that. I was trying to help a friend with his PC who was a Webroot Secureanywhere user, it was never completing scans. Turns out it was getting caught in an infinite loop caused by symlinks. I couldn't figure out how to get Webroot to stop following symlinks, so I just uninstalled it and set him up with Panda Free instead. Things may have changed since then with updates, though.

Spot on.
Microsoft Security Essentials for Win7.
Built in MS Defender for 8.1.

I use Microsoft Security Essentials and generally recommend it to people when they ask for suggestions.

I think it was Avast that told me to delete TrustedInstaller.exe on an older machine and hoooo boy that was a fun thing to fix. Without it you couldn't install anything from Microsoft more or less and drivers had problems installing. In order to fix it I had to find a copy of the executable online and break the windows file security with some shifty program to copy and paste the file where it belonged, luckily fixing the problem.

I can't recall if it was Avast or McAfee, probably McAfee, but I had an anti-virus freakout that was quite spectacular. The anti-virus updated and immediately flagged everything as a virus. Every website was, according to the program, super duper evil, and it was counting how many viruses I had in the tens of thousands. Every other anti-virus found nothing. So that was fun.

So my slightly off topic advice is check before you remove something any security software things as a virus. Something shady sounding like "TrustedInstaller.exe" could be legit problem and may mess up your computer if you remove it. A wow update had a similar issue at one point too where anti-virus thought part of it was a trojan.

@mb: It's too bad, webroot seemed so promising and inexpensive. I really like ESET Nod32 and it's pretty easy to find on sale.

@hardywells@mb I'm sad to hear you both had issues with SecureAnywhere. I'm curious to know what version that was, Antivirus or the Internet Security? I've never personally had any issues with it whitelisting programs and I had actually found their tech support to be helpful for my clients. That said, every system configuration is different and there is always a possibility for an A/V compatibility issue with various software. That's why we have so many options to choose from. Every A/V works a little differently. I did forget to mention in my previous post that I too really like Nod32. I'm glad people are recommending that one. It's my second favorite paid for A/V, and if I hear of too many more complaints about SecureAnywhere it may go back to being my favorite.

@slaegar: I'm not saying it wasn't Avast, but I will say that I had that exact thing happen to a customer who was running McAfee. I did manage to restore his machine but it wasn't easy. I personally think McAfee is a more dangerous piece of software than it is useful. A recent and quite common issue I've seen since the release of windows 8.1 is that the Windows 8 version of McAfee that comes preinstalled on a lot of new computers isn't compatible with windows 8.1, but with the way the windows upgrade works, it loads it on anyways. What happens is after a few reboots is that it will start bluescreening on startup and won't even boot into safe mode. I haven't seen Microsoft, McAfee, or the PC manufacturers give much warning (if any at all) about this. Nor have they given any guidance about fixing this issue, but there are forums posts upon posts of poor PC users who didn't know and (for them) bricked their systems because of this. The fix I found involved booting into a linux distro, ripping out McAfee manually by deleting all it's files (or bloodily by its heart as I like to say), boot into safe mode, run system file checker and hope that it can fix any damage that McAfee left over. Fortunately that method has worked for me the few times I've dealt with it (most of my customers hate McAfee as much as I do so immediately replace it on a new system), but I've seen forum threads where others still had to wipe their OS and start back with Windows 8. Such a bummer, especially since the 8.1 upgrade is not fast by any means.

TLDR: McAfee + Windows 8.1 Upgrade = Almost completely bricked system.

@zeel: Antivirus not Internet Security. There's hardly any differences between them though (Mobile Support)

@hardywells: Thanks.

Bitdefender free is my jam.

I've always used NOD32, will likely never use anything else. It works and doesn't do stupid shit.

Does any of this apply to Mac OSX? They say Mac doesn't really get viruses, but what about the other types of crap?

I've also seen people say not to turn on UPNP on Time Machine (don't even know where you would), but I think UPNP or lack thereof is what's making some of my gaming downloads slow or laggy.

@rachelepithet: OSX has active exploits. So much like Windows make sure flash and java are up to date (or not installed) and stay off the porn sites and you'll probably be OK.

@skullpanda1: Thanks. I tried to live without flash and Java, but school b.s. designed in 2002 (hey, still not as outdated as our textbooks!) forces it, and while Click To Flash plugin for Safari ironically replaces most flash videos with HTML5 video easily rather than blocking flash altogether like AdBlock for Video, OSX no longer supports WebM (Perian and the old QuickTime discontinued) and web sites that use flash not for video but for multimedia (ESPN front page) won't work without it. So I'm stuck having flash installed too. It's specifically annoying on Macs because it installs not as a quick browser add on or even in the App folder on Mac like most Mac programs do, but installs the way an Antivirus would, into the Sytem Prefs menu (macs equiv of control panel).

@rachelepithet: in university I had a VM of Win XP for all that junk. Might not be optimal for your use, but that's what I did.

@rachelepithet: My wife uses ESET Anti Virus on OSX for her MB Air. She's never had any trouble with it but I'm not well versed in whats good for OSX.