What is best Anti-virus, spyware, malware?

[donald]

What is the best Anti-virus, Anti-spy, Anti-Mal-ware and any similar program type.

What do you think is best, including non-portable full install?

What is best of the freeware, and or Open source in those categories?

Any specific recommendations?

Any favorites?

[joby_toss]

For me: Avira AntiVirus Free + Spybot S&D + Comodo firewall.
If i could afford it, I would buy the full Avira suite.

I know this AV has its contestants, but in my case nothing went by it, my system didn't suffer from decreased efficiency or loss of data. Actually I use it for more than 3 years...I don't even remember what I used before...I think it was AVG (and Sygate firewall free).

Yet again, I don't have "bad" habits while browsing the net, I always know what exactly is that I'm "sticking" into the usb ports or dvd drive, and I always used WinXPProx86 (except for 1-2 months when I was stuffing myself with anger towards Vista).

My feeling is this: the best AV-AS-FW combo is the one that DOES IT for you.

[m^(2)]

I dislike all antiviruses. I dealt way too many false positives to had any sympathy for them. I wonder whether they do more good or bad to it's users...and can't find the answer.

Personally I use my brain which can usually tell whether a file is trustworthy better than any AV. In the rare cases when this method doesn't give me an answer, I use Virus Total. And periodically scan whole disk with several security tools, notably AVZ, ClamWin, Spybot, Ad Aware, sometimes others too.

All I listed is free, I would never pay for something working as poorly as an AV.

Well, there's one security tool I respect - ProcessGuard by DiamondCS. Because it was the only tool that was able to detect a rootkit that I wrote for Windows holes exploration some time ago. How good is it overall? I don't know and don't really care, I won't use it anyway.

[freakazoid]

I always like to check out AV Comparatives' tests:
http://av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews

For payware antivirus apps, most people like to list Kaspersky and NOD32.
For freeware antivirus apps, people like AVG, Avast and Avira.

Personally, the only freeware I keep is SUPER AntiSpyware and an updated HOSTS file (I use MVPS).
Although, I haven't really been looking for other malware apps in awhile, so there could be something better than SUPER.

[johntoh]

I think Norton Antivirus is pretty good . I am using Norton Antivirus for about a year and with online security this is a good option.

Along with this you can use MalwareBytes anitmalware - free edition , keep updating this manually and you are all set.

by the way , there are discounts on norton at new years time and this is best time to stay protected

[-.-]

i like avira and sygate firewall

I'd switch to comodo firewall because sygate is outdated but i just like it so much lol

i have a subscription to iobit's antimalware program when they handed them out, once it expires i probably wont use it since i dont use it a lot now anyways

So far my favoriate AV is nod32 but I cant afford it now but avira works as well, nod32 was a bit faster and lighter on resources though but being free i can use avira

I also have defensewall from Gizmo's when they handed out free subscriptions and I like it so far as well.

[Lupo73]

I think a good firewall solution is Outpost: http://free.agnitum.com/

[tpan]

Antivirus:
I have used AVG for several years now without a problem, but recently I have used Avira free on some newer PCs.

Adware, Spyware, etc:
I still use Spybot S&D even though it's become bloated and slow. However, it still is a effective program with other useful features I also continue to use SuperAntiSpyware and SpywareBlaster. I also like MalwareByte's Anti-Malware.

[LeonardB]

Interesting reading on Microsoft's Security Essentials - ranked as one of the best performing free Antivirus applications. Works with XP 32bit/Vista 32bit/MS7 64bit OS. Also, lists other high performance ranking antivirus applications too.

http://lifehacker.com/search/antivirus/ ... range=week

[donald]

Has anyone tried returnil yet??? it comes in three flavors one is free.

It says that it uses system virtualization to prevent changes to your system.


http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com/rvs-home-free

It also has two paid versions, though I believe a website was giving the Lux version away a while ago.


Anyone have an opinion on it? or a review?

[freeware4all]

I use AVG and it has worked fine for me for years. The only thing that bothers me is that there is no progress indicator when you do a scan.

[micofy]

Hi guys!
You might want to check also this antivirus reviews website to see if the software that you are using is suitable for your computer or if it is top rated or who knows you might to change the one you are using with another better rated.

[Admin edit: the website the user posted is either spam or close to it. The site appears to not have any unique or useful information and there is no clear review system in place. If you would like to visit it anyhow, the address is www [dot] best-antivirus [dot] co]

[fideljacob]

Hii,
I hav installed the combo of Macfee & Advanced System Protector."Advanced System Protector " blocks the spyware b4 it can enter your system, will also clean the infections if any and it gives routine updates of the latest definitions and is very easy to use.free version of ASP is also available which provides free scanning and cleaning.for me it is the best antispyware.
Try this.

http://www.systweak.com/AntiSpyware/Download/

[lyx]

As m^(2), i dislike all antivirus apps (and also firewalls, but thats a different topic). Reasons in my case:

- false sense of security (biggest security issue actually is the user behind the machine)
- too many false positives
- unclear purpose. Virusses almost dont exist anymore today, so their job now is malware-detection. But what is malicious and what is not is a grey line - even more so since most antivirus apps act "malicious" in one way or another. The unclear purpose is also visible by "antivirus"-apps including more and more stuff that doesnt have to do with detecting "virusses". They're now just bloated catch-it-all "make me secure so that i dont need to care anymore"-apps (see "false sense of security")
- misleading alerts and questionable "detection"-strategies (i.e., labelling all UPXed binaries as threat)
- does not solve the "how to recover from an attack"-issue at all
- nothing slows a system down more than a resident virusscanner. And what for? To detect 8 years old nonexistent malware, so that they can in tests claim "detects N virusses".

What i do:
- Switch on my brain and understand basic principles about trust and computing.
- Run my system virtualized, so that the system itself cannot be compromised for longer than one session.
- make frequent backups of my data and portable apps, so that if stuff goes bad, i can just copy back a backup
- have an on-demand non-resident malware-scanner scan my downloads, not more.
- once per month do a full hdd scan

[fpelletier]

I think that some of you are continuing to miss the issue with viruses. You that think you understand the basic principles of trust and computing...never trust anything unless you are buying a machine and never loading any software...period. Malware (the term used to describe spyware, viruses, etc.) use an incredible array of devices to make it onto your machine, propogate itself, and attack your machine. You want as comprehensive a solution as money can buy. I'm all about freeware, shareware, etc. but the problem is, you need an entity that is vigilantly geared for keeping up with malware as it continues to morph. Unfortunately, volunteer efforts will never keep up with the pace the legion of professionals who are paid to spend all day everyday sorting out issues and programming against them. You need to buy a best-of-breed, comprehensive product, as rated by competent industry recognized security labs. Fortunately, these products are not expensive.

Occasional scans are not okay (a passive scanning method). You want active protection to keep malignant software from even getting onto your machine. Much like cancer, there is a threshold at which point, removing some malware becomes next to impossible--you can't afford to allow that to happen, unless you enjoy rebuilding your machine. Virtual machines are a wonderful device to contain potential threats. Use them as sandboxes to scan newly acquired software before moving them out of the sandbox. As I have said, you need to buy a best of breed security suite, however, much like contriceptives, your chances of success go up if you stack them--run as many scanners as you can (there are lots of free ones) against a new application before allowing it out of the sandbox.

Don't think you'll know when you have contracted malware. There is a class of malware called rootkits who's main job is to hide themselves from the O/S and security software. The second order of business is to propogate and infect, and the last order of business is to perpetrate deviant behavior. A favorite mechanism of Rootkits to survive is to replace something core to the O/S that is implicitly trusted, such as svchost.exe in Windows. When your machine is running, many copies of svchost.exe run on behalf of different processes. Some rootkits become "angry" when attacked--if you make lame attempts at removing them, they can lash out and do things like destroy the master boot record, preventing you from booting your machine. Malware sometimes employ teams of processes which look out for their brethren in order to keep the team alive--while you are attacking one component, the others are attacking your effort, attacking your system, and replacing the component that you just removed.

Look, unless you are an experienced expert of your O/S and quite skilled, you are likely not to even know that the malware is there until it avails itself to you in a way that you don't like. You are likely to unknowingly back them up in your archives too. Do not under-estimate the brilliance of malware writers. On the planet, there are several Einsteins out there who are unfortunately geared for doing damage. It is humbling when you fancy yourself to be an expert and then get infected by a rootkit that you are ill equiped to remove. I once identified a rootkit on my system and spent 6 hours collaborating with renowned Comodo experts only to find that none of us could remove it--I painfully rebuilt the computer.

Incidentally, I run fairly recent hardware and use ZoneAlarm's Extreme Security Suite on Windows 7. I have noticed no degredation in performance or stability, and knock-on-wood, I haven't had any issues for quite a while.

However, if you wish to increase the likelihood that you will continue to compute trouble-free, be a student of your O/S, be a student of the best-of-breed security suites and buy one that you are comfortable with. Be paranoid. Use a virtual sandbox as a scanning lock. Today, buy a best-of-breed security suite that actively scans all entry points onto your machine, and always, always, always keep your definitions up to date!

Oh yeah, to lyx...regarding the detection of 8 year old malware...those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it...good luck.