Norton or McAfee?

[Fluffy_the_ic]

Well, my computer seems to have been infected with ANOTHER virus... I'm in a bit of a dilemma right now. A lot of people I know have had hard drive crashes when using McAfee, including myself, and when they got a new computer, they tried out Norton, and had better results, including the one that just to test them got the same virus twice on a crappy old laptop. They all have told me that Norton is better, but it might be expensive to switch, I haven't looked at costs... And I'm really concerned now, though, as earlier today I had about 40 processes crash-XFire, XFire Plus Music Plugin, Steam, Windows Explorer, Quicktime, Objectdock, Chrome, etc. And I don't want my computer to die again, so which is better- Norton or McAfee?

[RogueKnight]

Spybot - Search and Destroy. After that, use a 30 - day trial of Trend Micro.

[squipple]

I guess it's a choice. Would you rather have a crashing computer or an extra slow computer?
McAffee and Norton will decrease your computers performance significantly. IMO, those programs are viruses themselves. Have a look at this: http://www.thepcspy.com/read/what_reall ... ows_down/5

What I use for Antivirus is Avira Antivir. It's fast, effective, efficient, won't slow down your machine..and its FREE.

[Teancum]

I've used Norton for years and have installed it on hundreds of computers. Though performance issues used to be a problem, anything since they were merged with Symantec has ran beautifully.

I'd actually say the opposite of Squipple. 99.9% of the free anti-virus programs out there get a lot of false detections on things, saying something is a virus when it clearly isn't. AVG Antivirus is #1 on my list for bad detections. Whatever you do, don't use that program. It's awful. It misses actual viruses and false-detects viruses where there are none.

[VF501]

Squipple did list a good one though.

Avira is the best free AV software out there. You can set detection levels, scan via right click through shell integration and it detects everything, even html embedded viruses. It can be abit over sensitive, but I've yet to be hit by any virus while using it.

Only drawbacks are its resource killing updates (it'll lag your comp for about 1min) but you can re schedule those through scheduled tasks, and its pop-up ad during said update, basically just asking you to buy premium. Its the one caveat to having it free. Worth it though because of the protection.

Even comes in Linux, Sun-Sparc, Unix and Solaris binaries.

[Teancum]

I guess it's a choice. Would you rather have a crashing computer or an extra slow computer?
McAffee and Norton will decrease your computers performance significantly. IMO, those programs are viruses themselves.

To be clear they slow the system down due to constant scanning, which can be turned off very easily. I use Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0 (which Norton Antivirus is a part of) and I don't have any slowdown at all, nor have any of my users ever complained. The link Squipple posted is from 2006, and Symantec has made leaps and bounds in speed and CPU usage. You'll also notice that the then new 2007 edition of Norton was significantly better on usage than 2006, proving my point of them getting more efficient. Even still if it was a resource hog I would choose it over any other antivirus program hands down. In all my years and all the PCs I've maintained I've only found one virus that Norton couldn't beat. One.

If you find that whatever you're using just ain't killing the virus, I would suggest a more technical approach using HijackThis!. The program will create a log which you can post on the forums, and users will help you systematically kill the process.

[RogueKnight]

Everyone in my family uses Spybot, and none of our computers have ever had major virus problems that it couldn't fix.

[Teancum]

Yes, but SpyBot doesn't cover viruses, it covers spyware.

On all my PCs I use a combination of SpyBot (free, spyware detection), ThreatFire (free, spyware detection) and Norton Antivirus. In three years I've never had a virus.

[squipple]

I will say that yes, I haven't used Norton or Mcaffee in a long time. They turned me off so much a few years back, everytime I see that little yellow and black swirl I run the other way. They did a good job in frustrating me to the point of no return. So, perhaps it is better now.

I also have used AVG and will say that I had the same issue as the other two. Not just a slow down, but the amount of services running, startup tray items, scans, and popups warning me about stuff that happened, I got rid of that one too.

I've had Avira hit a few false positives, but they were on shady files. It will sometimes detect stuff in keygens, cracks, etc., but it's never false-positive detected something 100% legit.

I had previously had no active virus protection, simply because I had a stand alone scanner that I'd scan files with. Then one day I got a nasty virus, and I couldn't remove it with anything. There are a few programs I've used in the past (Dr Web Cure it!, Combofix.exe) to remove various things if I got them (For some reason the Vundo virus loved my machine), but this one would not go away. After I wiped my machine, I got Avira, and it's worked great at blocking stuff that may be trying to run.

So, to summarize, I'm not here to argue. Teancum may be right, Norton may be all fine and good now. I had a hugely frustrating experience with them and will not return. I've had quite a bit of experience removing viruses from machines, and I like Avira. Take my opinion or leave it.

[Teancum]

So, to summarize, I'm not here to argue. Teancum may be right, Norton may be all fine and good now. I had a hugely frustrating experience with them

Yeah, me too. I went back because I get it free through my work (100% legal). Since I came back I've loved it.

But yeah, Squip's right. There's two opinions here. Honestly both ways are good. It's just a matter of preference.

[Frisbeetarian]

Yep, it really just comes down to preference. I get McAfee free through my university (also 100% legal), and I've never had a problem with viruses or with it.

Spybot - Search and Destroy...

...is anti-spyware, not anti-virus.

[Dohnutt]

I've used Norton for years and have installed it on hundreds of computers. Though performance issues used to be a problem, anything since they were merged with Symantec has ran beautifully.

I agree. Everyone says that Norton sucks because they get viruses with it, but if you start up the virus yourself (not necessarily on purpose) then it's not like the anti-virus program can do much. Norton is a great program, and Norton 2009 is even better, as it's MUCH, MUCH faster.

[Maveritchell]

AVG Antivirus is #1 on my list for bad detections. Whatever you do, don't use that program. It's awful. It misses actual viruses and false-detects viruses where there are none.

The results appear to be mixed. I've read articles (each of which did what would appear to be valid tests) that show AVG as yielding fewer false positives than other A-Vs, and articles that show it as being the worst in terms of generating false positives. Speaking from personal experience, I've been very satisfied with AVG - probably because it's a fairly "low-profile" program and I don't have a lot of processing power on my desktop.

Regardless, if you take the free protection route, it's always best to use multiple programs - I use AVG, SpyBot S&D, and MalwareBytes Antimalware (this is really good; although I only have used it once or twice for on-demand scans when I was concerned - it picks up a lot that other free programs do not and it seems to have a pretty good e-reputation).

And of course an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Don't surf unsafe and it will hardly matter what AV you have, because you very likely won't ever have a virus problem.

[Valthero]

I used to use AVG, til I got a super-virus that made me crash my entire computer. Now I use Avast! Antivirus, and it works great for me. You get a 30-day free trial, then when you register it for free you get it for another year, and then I think you have to pay. But still, 13 months free is pretty good. I've caught about 50 viruses so far in 2 months *I like to download things..*

[MasterSaitek009]

I've only gotten one virus. It was a really weird one that spread from exe to exe infecting/destroying each file as it went. I walked away from the computer and came back and AVG had a bunch of warnings thrown up on the screen. After about 25-30 files got nuked AVG was finally able to shut it down. The moral of the story: Never leave your computer alone. Ever. It gets ideas...

In my experience AVG works well and seems to be the least complicated, free AV. I've tried Avast and Avira and they were both semi-nagware and very complicated for an the inexperienced end user. I put AVG on my dads computer and he doesn't have to do anything to it to make it work.

[RogueKnight]

The best payed program available for antivirus is Trend Micro. My Grandpa uses it for his whole company, both my parents used it for their multimillionaire companies, and I use it for my online businesses. It scans once a day for viruses/spyware/adware/trojans/keyloggers/everything else. It has a registry logger, so nothing happens to your registry that you don't know about, and it can also go through and scan your registry for errors and fix/delete them to make your computer run faster. It comes with a website blocker, so if you go to a site that hands out viruses, it blocks you from going there. It has internet filters to keep out useless spam, a personal firewall, Parental controls, email filter, data theft prevention, a whole network of helpful people, and it can all be password protected.

[Teancum]

The best payed program available for antivirus is Trend Micro. My Grandpa uses it for his whole company, both my parents used it for their multimillionaire companies, and I use it for my online businesses. It scans once a day for viruses/spyware/adware/trojans/keyloggers/everything else. It has a registry logger, so nothing happens to your registry that you don't know about, and it can also go through and scan your registry for errors and fix/delete them to make your computer run faster. It comes with a website blocker, so if you go to a site that hands out viruses, it blocks you from going there. It has internet filters to keep out useless spam, a personal firewall, Parental controls, email filter, data theft prevention, a whole network of helpful people, and it can all be password protected.

Three things:

1-What use is antivirus for an online business?
2-What are you doing having an online business at 14 years old?
3-What is your online business?

[Twilight_Warrior]

Ummmmm...I've been using McAfee for years and my harddrive hasn't crashed once...
So yeah, I'm a fan of McAfee. It also tends to lag my games less than Norton. When I'm playing BFII online, some of my frineds will get self-lagged out of their games due to Norton, and I've never had that happen with McAfee.

[RogueKnight]

The best payed program available for antivirus is Trend Micro. My Grandpa uses it for his whole company, both my parents used it for their multimillionaire companies, and I use it for my online businesses. It scans once a day for viruses/spyware/adware/trojans/keyloggers/everything else. It has a registry logger, so nothing happens to your registry that you don't know about, and it can also go through and scan your registry for errors and fix/delete them to make your computer run faster. It comes with a website blocker, so if you go to a site that hands out viruses, it blocks you from going there. It has internet filters to keep out useless spam, a personal firewall, Parental controls, email filter, data theft prevention, a whole network of helpful people, and it can all be password protected.

Three things:

1-What use is antivirus for an online business?
2-What are you doing having an online business at 14 years old?
3-What is your online business?

1)Anti-virus so that virus's don't get into my computer and steal my data
2)Making money in a down economy, what else would I be doing?
3)I have my own ebay business where I sell peoples stuff for them, and I sell nerf guns off of my youtube account VIA Paypal. I also help my parents with HTML/webdesigning for their websites, and do a little graphics designing that I sell on a website that my mom told me about.

[redgroupclan]

Well, I'll be! After reading all of these posts, I may have discovered half of the reason why my computer runs so badly.

I used to use AVG, til I got a super-virus that made me crash my entire computer. Now I use Avast! Antivirus, and it works great for me. You get a 30-day free trial, then when you register it for free you get it for another year, and then I think you have to pay. But still, 13 months free is pretty good. I've caught about 50 viruses so far in 2 months *I like to download things..*

Didn't you tell me on Xfire that you hate Avast because you couldnt even minimize its window and it was so cruddy and cheap and that you were mad at your dad for being so cheap as to get it?

I use Norton.
It seems like its own virus to me, though. Before I finally shut down a scan that would pop up in its own window every day at 8 p.m., I hated Norton so much. I'd be in the middle of playing Star Wars Battlefront or Arcanists and then all of the sudden the game minimizes, I have a minute of lag for everything on the screen to load correctly, then I'd have to spend another minute or more waiting for the scan to close after I click X, then I'd slowly get back into Battlefront, and I'd be disconnected from the server I was in, or people who were in my server would get disconnected, and I'd experience lag for the next 5-10 minutes of my gameplay. In the case of Arcanists, the game screen would go white, and I'd be cut off from the game and lose everything I had staked in games.
Thankfully, I made it so scans that pop up like that can only happen manually.
Although when I got that problem solved, this new Norton PC Checkup thing pops up every day at 6:23 p.m. now, and I cant figure out how to turn it off. It makes my computer lag, and it doesn't even do anything. It'll make you see what you want to see, "PC performance: Good" and "Something: Good" but then it'll go 'but somethings wrong! You need to buy this for a price I'm trying to make seem inexpensive!'
Makes me think Norton is a greedy troll that doesnt really want to help you.
But a question about Norton, did I read right that Norton is constantly running scans, like ones that you dont know about?

I