Best Antivirus Security Package?

[ghostowl]

Hello all

My Norton Antivirus package is due to expire soon, and I was wondering if there are thoughts on if there is better software, or if I should go ahead and renew my subscription. The package I have includes a firewall, antispam, anti spyware, and antivirus. I've used McAfee in the past, and couldn't really tell the difference between the two. Any recommendations from you experienced folks out there? I have a PC, running Windows XP Professional.

Thanks,
ghostowl

[JPnyc]

Kaspersky has the best, or among the best, detection rate in the biz.

[Computernerd22]

Are you looking for Anti Virus software or a complete internet suite? For AV by it's self I would recommend AVG or NOD32 both are excellent for AV software.

As far as a complete suite I only know of a few, ZA, NIS, Mcafee etc...

To be honest IMO all 3 are resource hogs and I personally would use a complete suite. I wouldnt download inividual software for this.

[JPnyc]

Kaspersky is less of a hog and has a higher detection rate than McAfee(which is better than Norton). I dunno about the others. Nice thing about Kaspersky suite is that when you run a scan, it relinquishes ram to other apps

[joshmobile]

Just go with Avast. It is better than Norton, Mcafee, and it is free.

[ghostowl]

I am looking for a security suite. So most people think Norton is the worst?

[ghostowl]

Thanks JPnyc, I've never heard of this brand before. I will check it out! Why do you personally prefer it? Is it the high detection rate? I'd certainly like a suite that is less of a hog on resources!

[JPnyc]

Yes, it's the high detection rate (99% in the test i saw. McAfee was 96, norton was 94 I believe), the moderate resource use, the firewall and the fact that the spam filter is made for my email program, among others.

In general, the more popular an AV is, the more likely that some new virus is going to slip past it. If you're a sociopath writing a virus, you'll at least want to beat detection by the bigger AVs out there so you test with them.

[Aardpsymon]

Yeah, I'm with JPync on this one. I avoid norton and mcafee purely because so many people use them. Its like writing viruses for linux. Its just not done because so many more people write windows. Same as you don't write a virus to slip past some proprietry anti virus, you hide from the common ones.

Of course, if you are targeting a specific unit that uses a proprietry scanner, then sure. I personally use AVG. We have sophos at work. I also liked the panda suite, very convinient.

[nihil]

PC-Cillin (Trend Micro) also provide a suite that is less of a resource grabber.

It isn't only the resource utilisation that puts me off Norton and the like, it is the question of compatibility and conflicts.

I don't subscribe to the concept that Norton and McAfee are more vulnerable because they are the most common. I am sure that malware authors are aware sites such as this:

http://www.virustotal.com/en/indexf.html