What antivirus program do you use?

[kendonewbie]

Just curious. Since there seems to be an outbreak of viruses lately (literally and electronically), I though it would be interesting to see what antivirus programs people use on their computer. Oh...yeah. Would you recommend these programs to other people?

[jimswanson]

I don't use an antivirus, mostly because I do most of my computing on Linux or one of the BSDs. At work we us Norton because we have to.

Jim

[piggy]

I use norton myself. I guess it works fine but what really annoys me about it is those little windows that pop up in the bottom right of your screen everytime you search the web. I hate them because it freezes my computer temporarily when they pop up. What they say is that a certian file is waiting for a virus scan so I just click ok because I got norton to do that for me. Not tell me every little thing it does that I don't care about.

2 of them popped up while I was writing this...

[Flylkorean]

I use norton myself. I guess it works fine but what really annoys me about it is those little windows that pop up in the bottom right of your screen everytime you search the web. I hate them because it freezes my computer temporarily when they pop up. What they say is that a certian file is waiting for a virus scan so I just click ok because I got norton to do that for me. Not tell me every little thing it does that I don't care about.

2 of them popped up while I was writing this...

I have the same problem with the little pop ups from norton .... gets annoying after a while ...

[DCPan]

Well, Norton Antispyware Edition made my laptop run like molasses.

Besides, the pop-up keeps "re-popping up" to say my computer is infected, but I can't close the stupid window.

So, I got a refund and got McAfee instead...much better so far.

[LarsCW]

I used to be a Symantec user until I found out it didn't find some trojan virus which caused alot of trouble and almost got to a point where I had to reinstall my system.

Problem is solved Symantec is gone and another better antivirus sollution got back in return. The main problem with these big companies is that they also have big groups of scriptkiddies using scripts to get thru their products which is a reason for me not to use McAffee either.

[StuBear]

I think you mean AVG rather than AGV.

And to be pedantic (it's my job, sorry) adaware and spybot are not antivirus packages, they are for removing adware and spyware - sometimes the difference is hard to see, but they don't stop or check for most trojans or worms.

Not to say they are bad applications by any means, anyone using Windows OS should be using at least one (preferable both) of them.

There is very little real difference between anitvirus software, the main thing to look for is how easy and fast are they to update.

If you are using Windows and are concerned about virus then use Firefox and Thunderbird in place of IE and Outlook/Outlook Express and 99% of virus problems go away.

Better yet, switch to linux and never worry about viruses.

Stu

[R A Sosnowski]

McAfee is my primary antivirus program.

I also use Spybot and Ad-Aware to augment McAfee.

I run the latter pair at least once a week, and the McAfee anti-virus scan once every three weeks - McAfee is enabled and running constantly in the background, and is set up for automatic updates.

I check for updates for Spybot and Ad-Aware before I run them.

The key to anti-virus programs is to keep them current with the latest updates on viruses.

There is also the issue of Firewalls.

I do not use the default MS products, IE and Outlook [Express], either; their security holes are the primary targets of many viruses as StuBear pointed out.

YMMV.

[Senkii]

I use Norton Anti virus and Internet security.

Some spybot killer software helps too.

Pop ups are annoying, but i find whatever the norton utilities dont pick up, the freeware ones (google / msn toolbars) usually do.

Each to their own though.

[Utotin]

I use a combo of antivirus/spyware programs. I use AVG , Adaware, Spybot, and Microsoft. At home I also browse with Frefox instead of IE. Before I started using these overlapping programms my computer would become infested with crap. Now I rarely get anything and if I do it is eliminated before it become a problem. Good thing is that I can set all these to run while I am asleep so I don't even have to physically do anything.

[Kirsty]

I don't use any...I should get one so my computer won't end up with over 8000 viruses again.. I had no idea getting that many was possible.

[Paikea]

I don't use any...I should get one so my computer won't end up with over 8000 viruses again.. I had no idea getting that many was possible.

That...and you end up spreading that stuff around to people you e-mail, share files with, etc.

[Washington]

I just run ad-aware periodically... I don't run anti-virus... on dial up I'm not hooked up to the internet unless I am sitting there using the comp.. any probs just pick up the phone and no more problem

Browser I use modzilla Firefox.. no popups and highjacking of home page etc etc