Choosing Your Anti-Virus Software

[teter]

http://www.paretologic.com/images/choosing_your_antivirus_software.jpg
When it comes to choosing your own anti-virus product, it is important to choose an effective solution that will protect you from a variety of threats. Below are some characteristics of quality products that you should look for:

    Automatic Virus Updates: There are always new threats emerging. To continue to keep you protected, your anti-virus solution must provide ongoing database updates.
    More Than Just Viruses: While viruses are certainly a major problem, you also need to be protected against spyware, adware and other malicious code. A program that can protect you from a variety of threats is far more valuable.
    Real-time Blocking: There is no sense in letting threats reside on your PC even for a few hours. Real-time blocking provides you with active protection against threats that are attempting to download onto your PC. Depending on the settings you choose, it will automatically block identified threats or give you the choice to allow or stop the download.
    Filled With Features: Some software will get the basic job done for you, but a product offering a well-rounded set of features will provide much better protection. For example, you should look for products that can deal with threats located in scripts and that can also remove rootkits, which try to cover the tracks of dangerous malware. The more advanced anti-virus products even have the option of blocking access to websites that are well-known to contain malware.
    Scheduled Scans: It can be hard keep to a computer maintenance routine. Good programs allow you to schedule scans to provide hassle-free protection.
    Easy-to-Use: The makers of the software should be the computer geeks, not you. You should be able to use it effectively regardless of your computer ability.
    Help At Hand: While the program should be intuitive and easy for you to operate, it is also good to know help is available when needed. A good company will have a website available to answer frequently asked questions. It also should have a way for you to make contact regarding more specific concerns.

Keep these characteristics in mind, and you should have no problem finding an anti-virus product to effectively keep your PC safe and secure.

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1715113050

[Azukki9]

I am using avast! and I have been pretty satisfied with it.

[bryant.coleman]

I am using avast! and I have been pretty satisfied with it.

I am using Kasper. I think that they are the no.1 anti-virus available. And pretty affordable as well.

[tyrael78]

I've always found av-comparatives.org to be helpful in deciding on AV software: http://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php

[Ravocado]

NOD is my choice...i'm sticking with it for a long time, and of course being careful is best protection.

[Open4lies]

Im using Kaspersky antivirus, but the best protection is browsing trusted sites only and do not download shit

[dogedealer]

Just send every non-signed exe file to https://www.virustotal.com/
Think twice before running any app as administrator.
Or just use linux 

[pand70]

avast + malwarebytes do the job for me. Also commons sense can be the most effective antivirus.

[BlueMonkey]

I using kaspersky and it help me a lot

[sunnysingh]

I am using avast! and I have been pretty satisfied with it.

Likewise, been using it for a few years now. Previously I used to use AVG and also tried Avira, but found they were both too heavy on CPU usage and gave me tons of false positives, avast seems to be much more lightweight, and still maintains a high detection rate.

[bryant.coleman]

Talking about various anti-Virus software, are there any who accept Bitcoins for subscription? If there are none, then we should ask Kasper to consider creating a Bitcoin payment platform for the purchase of its AV. Kasper is based in Russia, and it is relatively easy for it to accept BTCs, as compared to Norton and McAfee. 

[pand70]

Talking about various anti-Virus software, are there any who accept Bitcoins for subscription? If there are none, then we should ask Kasper to consider creating a Bitcoin payment platform for the purchase of its AV. Kasper is based in Russia, and it is relatively easy for it to accept BTCs, as compared to Norton and McAfee. 

No matter how i like businesses accepting bitcoins i will not choose my antivirus based on that. 

[PrintMule]

Almost all my life I was using ESET NOD32 and it did not fail me once, though the darkest porn sites and script-kiddy forums.

My mom had a little fail using severely outdated version, but thats only case of nod failing us.

I tend to install MSE(windows defender) lately, on people's computers. It's not confusing them, not eating resources, and (wow!) actually is a quite good antivirus.

Me myself - I sit behind a very anal firewall and limit my exposure.

EDIT: I ditched nod 1.5 years ago, and mostly sat behind windows defender too. But with BTC it seems too risky.

[TiagoTiago]

Just send every non-signed exe file to https://www.virustotal.com/
Think twice before running any app as administrator.
Or just use linux 

There have been malwares that infect machines without using obviously executable files; including ones that you only need to open a website to get infected, hell there have even been viruses spread by image files and even shortcuts with malformed icon data, that you only had to open the folder they are in to get infected.

[xkeyscore89]

To be honest, I pirate all my software and still don't have a true, real-time AV program running on a regular basis.  I've installed a cracked version of Bitdefender 2014 recently.  It will receive regular updates for the forseeable future. I keep a free version malware-bytes updated and run scans regularly on my laptop.  IMO, it's going to pick up anything that a traditional AV client would, without hogging the CPU and slowing the system down.  I regularly check the processes I have running, to see how processing power is being distributed but also to check for any fishy-looking processes.

Every once in a while, I'll install an AV client and run a full scan just to see if my current configuration is still picking up everything I think it will.  If the scan results don't impress me, the program's getting uninstalled.

I'm rarely surprised by the scan results of MB.  Either I expect nothing, some tracking cookies, or a full-blown, massive infection if I know I've downloaded or installed something questionable recently.  I have other tools to maintain the registry and check for changes made to it.  I don't see any reason to leave installed an unnecessary AV client at this point.

[btcton]

I'm an avid Avast! user as well. We shall keep it up!

[Itun]

I'm using Norton.

I'm pretty happy with it.

Affordable and good service. All I need  

[Kenshin]

I am using Linux, no need for Anti-Virus. 

[Itun]

I am using Linux, no need for Anti-Virus. 

Well, there's Clam for Linux.

There must be some kind of virus for Linux too 

[bryant.coleman]

No matter how i like businesses accepting bitcoins i will not choose my antivirus based on that. 

No. I wasn't asking anyone to purchase AV software only if they could buy it for BTCs. I was just inquiring whether any AV brands offer that choice or not.

And for me personally, the decision to purchase an AV software depends on a number of issues. BTC compatibility is one of them.