umm which is better Norton or Mc-affee

Hello,

Realistically, I don't trust single-point failure systems, ie only one antivirus program.

I have use (at the same time):
1. norton and antivir (excellent together)
2. f-prot and norton (a little bumpy in certain areas)
3. f-prot and antivir (also a little bumpy)

The bumpyness was when both were full scanning at the time.

Why more then one? European viruses travel at a different rate then US viruses. AntiVir (Germany) would have an update 12 to 24 hours before the US venders. Same applies on the other side of the fence.

On my linux mail server, I have 4 (yes FOUR) different virus scanners updated hourly just because of the spread rate based upon origin.

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Using more than one AV is harmful to system(memory)'s health.

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You would prefer installing some usefull applications rather than more and more AVs. :p

...none of them offer you anything close to complete protection. Good training and eye for viruses and spyware is the best protection. There's two good free AV solutions out there: AntiVir and AVG. Both work well on older computers, forget running the latest versions of Norton or McAfee on, say, a Pentium III. Your older computer will take quite a hit performance-wise. He-heh, you need a new computer just to run either Norton or McAfee. :p

Which is better: Norton's or McAfee? I have fewer problems with Norton's, but that's not saying much. I don't think I ever got over having to deploy McAfee 6.0 when it came out. What a bear. After my experience with 6, I wouldn't let McAfee near a harddrive of mine. But I've had a lot of problems with Norton's too.

I usually steer folks into the free AV's and also put them onto online AV scans, like RAV, Trendmicro and Panda. Personally, I no longer use AV software, none at all. But I don't recommend that to most folks. I cut my exposure to viruses by avoiding the use of Internet Explorer, and I flat out will not allow Outlook or Outlook Express to be used on any of my computers. Avoiding MS programs, even if you're using Windows, makes you a lot safer. Sign up for a Yahoo email acc't, or even Hotmail, and you'll NEVER have to worry about email viruses.

Just my two bits...

In my opinion they're all OK. I do feel that Norton is becoming a resource hog. I have used many different brands. I am currently using Avast. I like it because it will generate a recovery database of your files. And it is FREE. I found this link while surfing one day. It compares test results of most known brands of AV software. This is the link:

http://www.geocities.jp/stealrush/en_ScanTest.html

I like noe32 and it lite on your pc.

I know you asked for opinions on "one or the other" but it's been my professional experience that both are resource hogs, loading services you may not need and simply don't catch the most virii. Instead my recommendation is either Panda Platinum (click off the Tru-Prevent feature if it slows you down) or NOD32. Kaspersky is great too, but you said you were a noob so....
Free online virus scans can be had at www.pandasoftware.com, until you decide.

ZT3000

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Your older computer will take quite a hit performance-wise. He-heh, you need a new computer just to run either Norton or McAfee.

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Thats what I said. AVs decrease system performance. :o

I've run just about every AV I could find, including Norton for a couple of weeks, and settled on AVAST!. I recently upgraded to their new 4.6 with the WebShield, and love it.

Between McAfee and Norton, I'd take McAfee's firewall, neither of their antivirus programs. If you read clp727, you'll see that AVAST's older 4.5 software isn't that far behind McAfee in detection rates. The newer 4.6 will boost that detection rate a bit more.