What are my best Antivirus options?

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XCoalMiner · #1 Post by **XCoalMiner** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 2:33 pm

With a new T61, Lenovo provides a preloaded three months of no-cost Norton AntiVirus. With the option that you pay a subscription fee to continue past the three months. My comment about Norton is if you look in it's control panel, it lists so many components and features that you don't really know what's what. I found out yesterday that it was running a software firewall, which was in addition to standalone ZA that I am using.

If you have Comcast HSI, as I do, McAfee AV is available to you. Usage is free, clear and legal, with regular product and definition updates, full scans, etc. The updates, when they are downloading, take up a lot of resources.

And of course there are the free for personal use AV packages, AntiVir, Avast, F-Prot, .... not sure how many of these are free anymore. Broadband Reports keeps a current update listing everyday, but I never can find a useful comparison report showing what is best for home use these days.

So, for a new T16, with Vista preloaded, what is my best choice are AV ... after the three months?

Jason404 · #2 Post by **Jason404** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 2:40 pm

If you read reviews from well respected sources, you will find that the two most highly regarded AV solutions are from ESET and Kaspersky.

I use ESET's NOD32 myself. It is very light on resources, unlike many others, and is very effective. It finds stuff that server based Symantec Antivirus Corporate missed, in my personal experience.

They also have a full suite, Smart Security, with firewall, but I do not find that necessary.

http://www.eset.com/products/

Wiz · #3 Post by **Wiz** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 2:49 pm

Another vote for nod32 or ess.

I do believe that Kaspersky is very good as well, but i tried it some time ago and had several issues so i gave up, but that doesn't mean kaspersky is a bad av software since a lot of people seems to be happy with kaspersky. Also they released a new version since i tried Kaspersky.

I once used to like Symantec as well, but then they released new versions and for each new version it seems like resource usage increased pretty much. I do believe the latest versions is much better regarding the resource usage since they obviously spent some time to keep it as low as possible after some years with complaints from users. I never really tried the latest versions from Symantec so don't know if this is correct though.

XCoalMiner · #4 Post by **XCoalMiner** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:09 pm

Good replies, thanks. Others appreciated also

> If you read reviews from well respected sources, you will find
What are those sources, can you list a few of them, please.

> I once used to like Symantec as well, but...
I was not intending to imply that. It just came with a new laptop, and seems to be OK. So far. Except for the list of all the components and what they actually do.

For both these recommendations, we are talking about home office use, not a client server based scheme. Right?

Jason404 · #5 Post by **Jason404** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:23 pm

Yes, but it would apply to both situations in my case.

NOD32 Business is needed for server operating systems, and only the central server needs to download definitions. It cannot push the AV client onto workstation, like Symantec Corporate can though. It's a much leaner and efficient sort of AV solution.

Wiz · #6 Post by **Wiz** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:35 pm

XCoalMiner wrote:> If you read reviews from well respected sources,
What are those sources, can you list a few of them, please.

Here is one: http://www.av-comparatives.org/

Click on Comparatives and you can read a test reports for lot of av software since February 2004. They do two type of tests and 3 months between each test. There is a lot of av software tests and the result might differ so this one is not necessarily the definitive truth.

XCoalMiner wrote:> I once used to like Symantec as well, but...
I was not intending to imply that. It just came with a new laptop, and seems to be OK. So far. Except for the list of all the components and what they actually do.

For both these recommendations, we are talking about home office use, not a client server based scheme. Right?

Yes at least i was talking about home products, but i also find the increase of resource usage to be true for the Symantec corp. av software as well. The symantec av corp edition is actually meant for companies, but can be used as a standalone (not client/server) product on a single computer as well.

I just read another post from a admin on this board that tried a Norton 2008 product and said it was low on the resource usage.....that was not the case for the previous versions.

Jason404 · #7 Post by **Jason404** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 4:30 pm

Wiz wrote:The symantec av corp edition is actually meant for companies, but can be used as a standalone (not client/server) product on a single computer as well.

Heh, yeah, but it costs about £800 ($1600) for the server license here. Each client license costs a further £20 or so.

Wiz · #8 Post by **Wiz** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:46 pm

Jason404 wrote:Heh, yeah, but it costs about £800 ($1600) for the server license here. Each client license costs a further £20 or so.

Well i never said it's the cheapest av software available:)

But i think the price you refer to is not the standalone workstation corp edition since the price (buying online from symantec.com) is $654 for a 25 business license pack. A 5 business license pack is about $180. The price is a bit higher for a volume license, but still not close to €800 for a single workstation license. €800 must be with the server management software included which is a waste for a single workstation. I'm talking about Symantec av corp edition and not endpoint protection even if the endpoint protection is also way cheaper then €800. Also since the starter of this thread is talking about T61 i did not talk about server licenses.

goofyGAguy · #9 Post by **goofyGAguy** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:23 pm

AntiVir Personal works fine for me, and you can't beat the price.

mattbiernat · #10 Post by **mattbiernat** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:00 pm

another for antivir.

CeeDee · #11 Post by **CeeDee** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:02 pm

AVG Free is still my first choice, but the new version 8 is a little bulkier.

beGi · #12 Post by **beGi** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:35 pm

I'm using AVG Free 8 also, but not so happy with it, I'm considering to replace it with Avira, but too lazy for now...

#13 Post by **carbon_unit** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:44 pm

AVG and Avira are both good choices. Pick your poison.

XCoalMiner · #14 Post by **XCoalMiner** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:43 pm

I could interpret the lack of responses on the 90-day Norton trialware on new ThinkPads to mean . . . no one opts to get a Norton license after the 90 days?

For new ThinkPads used in corporate environments, the corporate AV standard will be used of course.

But I'm surprised that no individual ThinkPad users stick with Norton, or none have spoken up yet.

Edit: The new T400/T500 spec sheet says this under Included software (preloaded)" "McAfee VirusScan® Plus with 30 days of virus definition updates". That is a switch from Norton/90 days to McAfee and 30 days.

Purcy · #15 Post by **Purcy** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 10:20 pm

I also use AVG free version and loved the version 7.5; somehow my version got updated to the newest 8.0, hate it. So I downloaded the vers 7.5 again and uninstalled 8.0; I like the interface of vers 7.5 much better.

msidd · #16 Post by **msidd** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:38 am

Avast Ant-Virus

beGi · #17 Post by **beGi** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 8:13 am

Purcy wrote:.....I like the interface of vers 7.5 much better.

I agree, but one of the reasons why i do not like it, is that drop-down advertisement.

I know it is highly unusual to tweak AV software, but:

To get rid of the "Dropdown Notification" all you have to do is change 2 files in the "AVG8" folder located in "Program Files".

Change avgresf.dll to> avgresf.dll.bak

Change avgmwdef_us.mht to> avgmwdef_us.mht.bak

If there is someone that share my opinion about that thing, this should help....

syrenab · #18 Post by **syrenab** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:24 pm

I have used AVG for years, but have not updated beyond ver. 7.5;

After reading previous comments, I won't.

Note that AVG updates daily, automatically, and has picked up Trojans that McAfee/Norton didn't

beGi · #19 Post by **beGi** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 1:09 pm

syrenab wrote:I have used AVG for years, but have not updated beyond ver. 7.5;

After reading previous comments, I won't.....

It seems that you will be forced to do upgrade/change your AV software by 31st August, when support for free version ends....

Purcy · #20 Post by **Purcy** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 1:41 pm

beGi wrote:
It seems that you will be forced to do upgrade/change your AV software by 31st August, when support for free version ends....

This really miffs me, my husband's T23 also had been updated to vers 8, and I recently discovered that the virus definitions and such had not been updated since July 3, even though I had it set to automatically update during the day. I manually did an update and it said I had to reboot, which I did; it went into an endless loop of saying I had updates available, which it would download and then again say I had to reboot.

that is when I uninstalled 8 and installed 7.5. Guess I have to look for a new AV program.

#21 Post by **ZaZ** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:22 pm

I too dislike the newest version of AVG which is what I ran before. Right now I'm going without antivirus. I keep multiple backups. If for some reason my install get corrupt, I can throw in the True Image disc and put back a clean install. I stay off marginal sites, don't do Limewire, etc. and have a good firewall. I haven't had a virus in years.

What are my best Antivirus options?

What are my best Antivirus options?

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