Home Forums Discussions Problems Which anti-virus will give me the leat problems?

I have AC v4 running on a peer-to-peer network, the main computer has XP Professional SP3, my peripheral laptops are all running Vista Home Premium.

I have been using Windows One Care for my anti-virus / anti-spam / firewall. There is a problem connecting with my peripheral computers. Every time I open AC for the first time of the day, it gives me an error the first time I connect, I have to connect a second time and point it to the correct directory. This has been evaluated by AC support, and the bottom line is they say Windows One Care is interefering, and I should use a different anti-virus software. When I disable OneCare, it works fine. I have tried everything to give AC permission in the firewall of OneCare, and it will not work.

So, I'm about to install new anti-virus software. Any recommendations? I am looking between AVG and McAfee. I just want reassurance from someone who is using one of those, or something different, and is not having any issues.


Is there a best anti-virus software to suse?

Thanks,

-Lee

I use AVG and it has never given me problems.

AVG here and I agree with Steven.

leslie

I have used both McAfee (free with comcast) and AVG (paid for commercial use) both work. I like AVG better, but free is good.

I have a peer to peer Windows XP SP3 network too. AVG has been great. Note you can download the free version and try it out first, then if it works for you then buy a license code.

They do offer substantial discounts for multiple computers. I have found their license codes sometimes confusing to enter and keep up with.

McAfee tends to be a memory hog, and occasionally interferes with the functionality of other programs. Case in point: last week I bought an "off lease" laptop which had all of its software programs wiped off, McAfee STILL had remnants active in the background, necessitating the use of a special "McAfee Removal Tool".

That said, I do occasionally use one of the many on-line McAfee Online scanners, s.a. the one here- http://home.mcafee.com/Downloads/FreeScanDownload.aspx?affid=0 Another good on-line scanner is http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

I agree with AVG- it's a great program with a small footprint. Another good one is Malwarebytes' Antimalware. URL- http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html Like AVG, it's free.

Al

Thanks everyone for the input.
I have removed OneCare, and installed AVG Internet.
It is working well, and I no longer have the problem.

This comes at a good time. Apparantly, as of 2010, OneCare will be discontinued and no longer supported by Microsoft. I liked the idea of the same company who creates the OS also making the anti-virus software, but apparantly it is not to be.

Thanks again everyone,

-Lee

Quich follow up question to this topic....

On my Vista computers, now running AVG, Windows Defender is still running and doing things. Is this part of AVG, or should I try to de-activate it?

Thanks,

-Lee

Windows Defender is separate and I would recommend leaving it running.

I think anything except McAfee or Symantec, and you are fine. Internet Suite packages are notorious for causing networking problems.

I think:

ESET NOD32 and AVG are the best. AVG is a bit more user friendly. I have Trend Micro on the server, and it is very good, but my next AV will be either AVG or NOD32.

AVG is pretty good with rootkits, and you can download a free scanner from AVG. Scary, though, I ran it on all of my clients and found one rootkit, and after a week of trying to get rid of it, I just reformatted.

As far as using Microsoft products on their OS, certainly things like Office is great. I would say Internet Explorer is very good whether you like Firefox or other browsers and Office is awesome. But, just about anything else they copy is not nearly as good as 3rd party version.

System Might Not Restore is nowhere near as good as GoBack was until Roxio sold it to Symantec, which destroys everything.
Paint has got to change. It is archaic.
The firewall isn't too bad, but not very robust.
You can go on and on.

Let me tell you my Windows Defender story. I got a particularly nasty virus in Windows Vista. I was TRYING to do that. I was taking a Vista certification class and wanted to see if the UAC (that annoying popup every time you want to do anything) would stop some nasty stuff. I went to a few warez sites and said "No" to the UAC prompts several times when they came up. I finally closed Internet Explorer and ran AVG. It found several items, but they were all part of the same virus. AVG said they were removed except one, which it needed a reboot to fix. I rebooted and it said it removed it. Now I ran the scan again. The threats were back. I decided to try Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. This did the same thing. I scanned again, no luck. (BTW MBAM has cured nearly everything I have ever tried it on) I was upset, and I tried the same processes with System Restore disabled (viruses can hide in there) and in Safe Mode. No luck. I disconnected my network cable from the computer, so my network would not be at risk, and no information could be transferred and left the computer running in normal (not Safe) mode and went to bed. When I woke up Windows Defender notified me that during it's nightly scan it found and removed several objects. I ran AVG and MBAM and they did not find anything. My computer was clean and Windows Defender did it all alone, without my input.