What Is The Best Antivirus Protection?

Posted on: April 6th, 2011

This is a frequently asked question and the answer contains useful information for everyone.

This is a subjective ground and you can find wildly differing opinions on this subject. The data here is based on practical experience of working on hundreds of home and small business computers. You should not take the data in here at face value but evaluate for yourself.

First of all I’d like to state some stable data and dispel some myths on the subject of Antiviruses:

- There’s no perfect antivirus. In other words there isn’t any antivirus that would be able to protect against every single possible infection. It’s one of those unattainable absolutes of this universe. Virus makers and Anti-virus makers are in a constant race, so sometimes there are new viruses that trick the antiviruses (at least for a little bit).
- You can’t rely 100% on your antivirus to protect against infections. This is a logical extension of the previous statement. We found that the users’ level of knowledge on the subject of viruses and scams has a direct relation to how frequently their computers get infected. The more one knows about it the less chance of infections. I can keep my computer free of viruses without any kind of antivirus; on the other hand we have seen cases where computers got infected shortly after being cleaned up, no matter what kind of security software was running on it.
- Not true: Antivirus X is no good because it’s a free antivirus. Paid antiviruses are not necessarily better than their free counterparts. There are quite a few effective, and free antiviruses that work better than many paid ones. Antivirus software development is a lucrative business so there are a lot of companies that try to sell inferior products with questionable marketing practices. The best route is to search the Internet for reviews and comments on discussion forums about the particular antiviruses you are considering. Collect data from as many different sources as you can, in order to get the most accurate picture.
- Not true: the more antiviruses you have on your machine the better protected it is. If you load two or more different antivirus products that are all running in the background all the time then the most likely result will be an incredibly slow machine, freeze-up and other unwanted behaviors. One good antivirus coupled with common sense user precautions is the best recipe.
- Not true: an Internet Security suite gives so much better protection than just a simple antivirus. This does not hold true in practice. While it seems to be a good thing to have a fancy firewall with “intrusion” prevention (whatever that is) and “privacy protection”, etc. these do not appear to be very effective. However, they can be very effective in creating all kinds of trouble by blocking things that shouldn’t be blocked. They also tend to slow down computers more. Most computers are already behind a double firewall consisting of a router and Windows’ built-in firewall. So adding yet another firewall is just not necessary. And privacy is much better protected by educating computer users on how to spot and avoid scams, rather than relying on a complex and often faulty automated system.

So, with the above statements in mind, I’d like to give some advice on selecting a good antivirus protection. The main points that I’m considering in an antivirus are: effectiveness in catching infections (rate of detection), preferably small use of system resources (not slowing the computer down too much), and the cost.

Here are the ones that we found good and effective:

- AVG: Has a free version. Works rather well. Download: http://free.avg.com/us-en/download-free-antivirus
- NOD32: A little known but quite effective and lightweight antivirus. Not free though, but has a trial version: http://www.eset.com/us/home/nod32-antivirus
- Norton Antivirus: New versions are pretty good and don’t slow the computer down much. It’s also not free: http://us.norton.com/antivirus-us.html?s_tnt=24133:1:0

Note: These are the basic, simple antivirus editions. All of them have more advanced and complex versions which, based on the statements above, are not really necessary.

And here’s the list of those that we found better to avoid:

- McAfee: slows the computer down quite a bit and not very effective in stopping infections.
- Spysweeper: Same as McAfee. Slows the computer down and not effective.
- Little known antiviruses that may be advertised on TV or Radio. These are usually of poor quality software and don’t worth the money and sometimes are borderline scams.

There could be a lot more items listed under both categories but these are the ones that we have sufficient first hand experience so that we can give a firm opinion on. If you have other antivirus products in mind then you can check out the reviews on those software by simply doing a Google search like “_____ reviews” where you need to substitute the antivirus’ name for the blank. Read many different sources so that you will get a good understanding on the quality of the software.

Switching or Upgrading Antivirus Software

If you decide to move from one antivirus software to another, or install a whole new version of it then make sure to scrub the old antivirus well before loading the new one. That will avoid future issues.

You can generally remove an antivirus using the usual uninstall procedure. But in some cases that might not work and the uninstaller fails or does not remove all components. It is a frequent enough issue that most major antivirus makers provide “removal tools” that will get rid of their product even if the uninstaller does not function anymore. Here are the three main ones that we use on a regular basis:

- Norton Removal Tool: http://symantec.com/symnrt
- McAfee Consumer Product Removal Tool: http://majorgeeks.com/McAfee_Consumer_Product_Removal_Tool_d5420.html
- AVG Remover: http://www.avg.com/us-en/download-tools

For other products try an online search of “_____ removal tool” or “____ removal instructions” , substituting the blank for the name of the antivirus.

Summary

I hope you found this article informative and will make a good informed decision on which antivirus to use and possibly save some money

McAfee Consumer Product Removal TooMcAfee Consumer Product Removal Too