Can you suggest a good premium antivrirus?

Hi Avinash,

I maybe a techie when dealing with Windows and hardware but choosing a good antivirus is just not easy.
i have dealt with customers using Norton, McAfee, Bit Defender, AVG, Avast. Believe me each has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Norton seems comparatively good so i have been using NAV (from May 2009) and i recently upgraded to NAV 2010.

Ok coming to the issue at hand, I want to buy an antivirus for my friend,
but off late Norton's policies have raised some eyebrows. Especially SONAR, which simply quarantines any file which hasnt been used my other Norton users
It uses Norton Insight network to check how many Norton users have the same file and if it is too low it is considered a risk.
Certain compressed files have also come under the scanner. Although when extracted they are clean,it shows the zip or rar file is infected(Weird)
One of my colleagues has Kaspersky and he says it is fantastic when compared to Norton. He says it is very effective and faster than Norton (and cheaper too)
I have not used Kaspersky before. I have tried Avast Home and AVG free (not good enough)
Norton uses a lot of resources too. Can you compare NORTON INTERNET SECURITY and KASPERSKY INTERNET SECURITY and review them for me (and others, i hope)

(Sorry about the long post)

Bye
Ashwin

@Ashwin

Regarding long post, its not a issue. You should write as much details as you want and it helps in answering too.

Regarding Antivirus selection, I wont tell you what my personal favorite is but i Would suggest two options for you.

Kaspersky or ESET NOD 32.

Both are almost great in terms of performance and doesnt consume too much resources too.

If you are still not sure, you can try their trial versions and see for yourself. Both of them are good enough.

Kaspersky though is cheap if you are buying it in India.

Hi Ashwin,

I repair many computers and I end up removing Norton by request in most cases. I hear people say, "it's a great AV, it never once said I had an infection". That's because it's not detecting the infections. When I uninstall Norton and run other AV, I find many infections that the Norton scan said was clean. The latest is a bit lighter on resources than previous versions but all in all, I feel it's bloatware and only popular due to it's name and that it's pre-installed on OEMs. That's my personal take on Norton.

I agree with Avinash, Kaspersky is one I would recommend and has been one that keeps up a good detection rate and is lighter on resources than some others. I would be hard pressed to choose between Kaspersky and Avira Anti-vir or ESET NOD32. All great. However I would suggest Avira Anti Vir, but not their security suite, same with some others not listed here and here's why...

... there may be a major difference when purchasing a " security suite " as the AV may be great but other aspects my not. This is why I wish vendors would stick to doing one thing well instead of following in Norton's steps and implementing the bloat that does nothing but bring down a good security application in many aspects. Kaspersky and Bitdefender have both been running among the highest for good suites since the beginning of 2009 till current. Norton typically remains in the low 60% range.

As much as I am against using Comodo, I cannot deny they have been having a great security run and been right up there with the best if not "better", especially for free. PCtools is another that has been climbing the ladder and actually above as well.

But we all have opinions and what's good for one, may not be what someone else likes so on that note... you may want to browse here

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge/">http://www.matousec.com/projects/proact ... challenge/</a><!-- m -->

They do very in depth testing and are not biased like numerous testing sites which will say, Norton is the best, buy Norton $$$$$.

Hope this helps some,

Paul

Hi Avinash and Paul,

Thanks for replying (to all my posts)

Paul, i have no choice but to use NAV for another 106 days.
It is not that i dont like NAV, but very recently NAV failed to detect a virus on a friend's usb drive,
whereas Kaspersky detected it the moment i plugged it on to another friend's computer.
I was embarrassed, i had copied some documents from my pc to the pen drive and was dead scared about my pc,
thankfully nothing was affected. And like i said before Norton detected a few compressed files as threats and removed them.
I had downloaded those files last summer ,while Norton was still in my pc and i regularly run full system scans and keep Norton updated.
It is Norton's new policies that worry me, any file unfamiliar to them is a threat and gets quarantined (larger files get removed)?
But i still have a lot of time to decide on KIS or NIS or NOD32.
And two of my friends depend on my decision since we bought Norton as a 3 user pack
Anyway thanks for the feedback guys, really appreciate it

Best Regards
Ashwin

Hey Paul, here is my experience with firewalls.

Comodo free firewall is good but it has short term memory, constantly keeps forgetting my preferences.
Did not try the Comodo Antivirus since i already have Norton, so i cant comment on that
I used PC tools firewall for a week just out of curiosity, it seems slightly better than Comodo but since i didnt use it for a long period i dont know it's Pros and Cons
Norton owns PC tools, but it manages its own operations most people dont know this. So it must be pretty good
Zone alarm firewall consumes a whole lot of resources, so stay away from it unless you bought it.
Online armor has been very good (thanks to Avinash, of course). But if you are an online Armor++user, i downloaded it from giveawayoftheday for my other desktop, you need to turn off the mail shield if you dont use a mail client like outlook. And if you have problems with your browsing speed, i would suggest turning off web shield. It has to scan the web page thoroughly and block stuff ,so it would take a long time. Just use the firewall, program guard and Antivirus. They are brilliant

Hope its useful
Bye

Hi Ashwin,

Well, when I was a Comodo user, the firewall that is, the memory wasn't so much short term as it was very good at detecting a change in application behavior when accessing the internet. Applications that constantly change it's access methods and kick off a firewall make me suspicious. So I am almost 100% positive that it's more of an app change than it is Comodo forgetting.

And currently I am running PCtools firewall only which has been very good, no crashes, lockouts, lag, etc... and while it's now part of Norton in a sense, which we can say Norton owns them but at any given time that branch could sell out or move to it's own or another source, plus they still have separate standards. PCtools AV was detecting 90-something percent of viruses while Norton still only goes around mid 60 percent. So regardless of company affiliations, PC tools is obviously doing it's job at least, lol. Maybe Norton could learn from it's baby sister ;)

ZoneAlarm I wouldn't touch with someone Else's 10 ft stick. They lost me as a user way back when they began letting everything through except my darn connection, gave people's information to foreign sources, and what I mean by foreign is anyone other than the user, plus became so bloated, my kids grew before ZA would allow my pc to boot.

I can't comment on the current O-A since I can't use it but it has been great to me in the past.

All in all, I use Avira Anti-vir personal which is free and currently PCtools firewall which has been great as well. I would like to add that Malwarebytes anti malware will detect all the extras that AV's don't and should be used on any system. It can be run with darn near any other security and runs well.

So yep, it's an interesting market out there and the best we can do is go with what we feel works the best.

Cheers,

Paul

Hi Paul,

You were quick to reply there, thanks

The latest version of Comodo firewall is ok i guess. Well the short term issue i faced was when i was downloading files via free download manager or updating software,
even if i selected 'remember my decision' and allow, it would forget it soon. I visited their forum and what do you know,
Comodo forgetting preferences was a known issue, they advised customers to keep their product updated.
I think it is mentioned in FAQs or help file or somewhere.
Like that would help, it was anything but user friendly. Thats why i kicked it out.
And about your comment on zone alarm's booting LOL :-D yes when i used it it took my computer a whole minute to start.
Online Armor has probably the best user interface i have seen in a firewall, easy to configure and shows your preferences in a nice and clean fashion.
(I know that you are using a 62 bit pc and you cant use OA, i read your comment on OA giveaway)
Well too bad they dont support 64 bit, maybe they will soon.

And i tried the latest Avast Home 5 on my Vista Home Premium, it was good but i installed Norton since i had a subscription. I have read reviews about Avira Free edition on Softonic,Softpedia,Cnet, seems to be excellent from their words and yours. And malwarebytes, hmmm lemme check on my hard disk,
i have downloaded all the free stuff, i distribute them to friends.

Buddy, since you are using a free antivirus, why dont you check my post on the European Norton giveaway (yes i know, Norton stinks),
but it is an Internet security suite not just an antivirus. [Use a proxy sever if you are not in Europe]

One more thing i have NAV 2010, OA premium, and Zemana Antilogger :-) do you think i should download malwarebytes free version?
Is it reall the best, ok i will give it a try

Thanks mate

If someone asks me why his system is slow, first question I have asked him generally is : You got Norton Installed and guess what, Most of the time the answer is affirmative. The reason as Paul talked about, It comes pre-installed as OEMs or at least 90 days trials or its still famous .

Regarding Avast, I have tested the latest version 5 and the best thing which happened with the version is the way they changed their interface and made a new one. But It gave me too many false positives and he false positives were of some well known programs setup files directly downloaded from their respective official sources like Internet download manager setup etc. The performance in terms of memory compared to older versions even though its still a bit of memory hungry.

One other thing even though not related directly to any AV. I hate vista and advise anyone of you to switch to either windows XP or Windows 7 :). Just a thought though :P

On the Comodo issue, I guess it's better forgetting allowances than to allow all, lol. ;) And yes, It began to be anti-user friendly some time ago, I agree. I don't keep up on Comodo too often and if they faded away tomorrow, I would not care just to be honest.

As far as being a free anti-virus, I have no issues with that. It's the same engine you get in a FULL version. In 13 years, I have never had a virus or major infection and I run what is doing best or close to it for the time but honestly, I run numerous tools "not just what I mention on sites or blogs" I don't browse where I don't know it's safe or install anything that I feel will be a major threat or use a Virtual Machine to test anything prior and browse questionable sites, never open email that I don't know where it came from AND I stay behind a router w\NAT. That to me is what has given me the best protection so far, not even the tools but the habits I use. Sure, it's not going to suit most people, it would be a very boring browsing experience to most but for me, I usually stick to security sites and software sites\blogs, not much more. My kids on the other hand, heh, different story but they are kids.

Avast is alright but if you use the suite, it can be a hog plus I agree with Avinash on the FP's. It's still better than Norton and honestly, asking me to even think about Norton, I would rather cut my internet cable if that tells you anything. ;) Malwarebytes is something everyone should use and honestly, some think I say that because I created the icon for it but not true. I supported that software long before and it's quality stuff, else I wouldn't have.

Well, I agree with Paul about the way we browse and use our PC over the net and even the way on system itself, Plays a big role in securing or un-securing you from the bad stuff which includes everything.

If you start using safe practices while using your system, few of which Paul mentioned above then you will be much more secure. :)

I think the discussion has came to conclusion, anyway my favorite paid antivirus is NOD32. Ashwin if you want to buy an internet security then I recommend you to go with KIS. Forget NIS, recently NIS 2010 is not working well on my xp, it is unable to start by default...

Hello Samuel or should i call you fellow Norton hater,

:-D LOL

Do i sound rude? Yes? Good, because i paid for it and am not satisfied with their dumb service.
Like i posted on the Bitdefender giveaway, malwarebytes a free software was able to remove trojans, to which Norton turned a blind eye.

Anyway Samuel,thanks for the feedback, Im impressed with KIS, their customer's opinions suggest it is good.
Got over a 100 days to decide though.

No one is sounding rude here LOL :P

Allof us got few likes and dislikes and they come out in the form of opinion best on our past experiences.

I am one of the Norton haters the reason being I have came across loads of people who got Norton installed and the moment I removed norton their half problem is gone.:P

Still I believe its a personal choice for everyone to use one AV or the Other. We are here for sharing our pinions which helps everyone to decide what suits him/her best. :)

I'm a little late to the party, but for what it's worth...

I've used Eset NOD 32 AV for years without a problem. My firewall of choice is Online Armor Pro, but PC Tools is excellent, imho.

Ashwin, why do you feel stuck with NAV? I noticed you mentioned you and friends bought a 3-license pack, but if the software's not preforming to your satisfaction, get rid of it. You could e-mail Norton and let them know why you're ditching their AV. They may give you a refund of some sort. I've done that with software that I bought and didn't like after installing; the authors have refunded my purchase price, in two instances.

hth

Ron

Hello Ron,

Thanks for the feedback.
About 8 or 9 days back one of our forum members Mike (mrm52858) was gracious enough to give me and Paul (PCHammer) a copy each of BitDefender Internet Security, valid for 3 years and it is outstanding, atleast for me.

Even though i dont like Norton, my two friends are still using it without any complaints, mostly because they dont dont download as many files as i do or stay online for hours. LOL :-)

And i use Online Armor++ on my other desktop and i am not very pleased, updates are manual and too slow. Keeps asking for permission to allow programs to run even after i choose remember my decision. Reminds me of Comodo. Pc tools firewall is awesome, my friend has it on his PC.

A review of BD IS 2010
http://www.avinashtech.com/forum/Thread-BitDefender-evaluation

A review of OA++ here
http://www.avinashtech.com/forum/Thread-Online-Armor-Review

[Both reviews are based on my personal experience with BD and OA.]

Cheers
Ash

I would have to suggest Avira Antivirus. It has one of the best detection rates and one of the lowest footprints available.

The firewall in the suite is not up to par but the antivirus is top notch.

I use Avira antivirus and Outpost firewall Pro

kaspersky PUREor Avira premium security suite...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TeXaCo

I would have to suggest Avira Antivirus. It has one of the best detection rates and one of the lowest footprints available.

The firewall in the suite is not up to par but the antivirus is top notch.

I use Avira antivirus and Outpost firewall Pro

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A strong combo, but you should notice switch off the antispyware function of outpost firewall pro

I agree with majority opinion here that Norton is letting down its users, few years back Norton used to be the first s/w i would install after a fresh OS install, now its either KIS or ESET

Hope Norton revamps its code and gets better and belongs where it used to belong, as the king of all s/w security products

Well the post is quite lengthy but if "premium" you have the money then I'll go for KIS 2011 or maybe ESET.

Been using Kaspersky 2010 and 2011 over the past year and I am going back to Norton IS 2011. Kaspersky is good in terms of detection and not too many false positives, but it can be very resource intensive. I've used Norton 2010 and Norton 2011 (Laptop) and it runs so much smoother than KIS. While virus detection with KIS is very good, so is NIS. Therefore I will go back to NIS simply because it's faster, less resource intensive, and pretty much the same detection rate. Thanks to a tip from another member, I was able to buy a brand new copy of NIS 2011 for $21 (1 PC). Too good of a price to pass up.

I used to be very anti-Norton and wouldn't use any of their products. But since NIS 2010 they have really stepped up their game. Thanks to a review from Avinashtech on Norton 360 v5, it seems it doesn't have as much user control as NIS 2011. I find NIS 2011 has plenty of user controllable options, at least for me, and in taking advice from the Avinashtech blog, I bought NIS 2011 over Norton 360.

In the end I think there are a lot of good AV products, I have tried a vast amount of them. Sometimes it comes down to personal preference when it comes to the top players. But regardless of AV you choose, just do some research and find out detection rates, false postitives, and user reviews like the ones here at Avinashtech and you'll find the one the suites your needs.

Good luck Jeremy...:)

Ash my suggestion is Avg Internet security or Bitdefender
Kaspersky is very good but does not remove threats completely

Quote:

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Originally Posted by avibky

Ash my suggestion is Avg Internet security or Bitdefender
Kaspersky is very good but does not remove threats completely

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This is a very old thread. and if I remember correctly one of my first posts :)

I have used sevral AVs since posting this :heh:

Hi,
To me Norton IS 2011 is the best. Its working faster than Kaspersky IS 2011. And.. i had some problems with older Kaspersky version - 2010. After I uninstalled it - i had to recover my WinXP registry files cause of some corruption and my OS stopped booting ;p It happened 2 times on 2 machines so i dont like KIS very much ;)

Regards