OT: AntiVirus Software

[T-Bone]

I've been a faithful Norton user since 1999 and it has rarely ever given me any problems. When something did manage to come up, the techs were always helpful and courteous.


In the last few weeks, I've been assembling parts for a new PC that'll be dual booted with Windows XP Pro X64 and Vista 64. I've found out that Norton does NOT support the XP X64 at all, but does support Vista. So... I've been comparing and shopping around for other Antiviruses, including AVG and Nod32, and finally decided on Kaspersky Internet Security as it supports BOTH the OS's I'm using and their tech said I'd only need one copy instead of 2 for my system since it's ony 1 machine. I also found out that compared to other AV's out there, the Kaspersky takes hardly any resourses to run itself whereas my Norton was a hog, and McAffee has way too much crap going on at once.

After doing all the comparions to the other Antiviruses out there, this one ranked in the top 2 for almost all of the online sites I checked out. BitDefender ranked ther other, but doesn't support anything 64 bit.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/


What do the rest of you use?

[Rip Rokken]

Hey, dude --

Hope this helps. I used Norton exclusively for years, until it (and just about all subscription-based products) got out of control a few years ago. I've had more problems w/Norton and McAfee over the years (not installing/uninstalling properly, crashing PCs, killing performance) that I've sworn them off completely. No reason security software should threaten the health and performance of your system as those two do.

I quit playing those companies games and started using free products for myself and non-business computers. AVG for some, and personally I've been really pleased with Avast (www.avast.com) -- that's what I use. If you want a commercial product, all those companies offer some, and CA's eTrust also has a much smaller footprint.

For myself, though, I'm not as majorly concerned about which product offers the absolute best protection as I am which one is kinder to my system, because I rely on my instincts above my AV software (I work in the industry). I don't say that to sound arrogant or slight end-users at all, though I do caution all of them that without good practices, the only reliable defense is to kill their Internet connection... haha!

[conversationpc]

We use the corporate version of Symantec here at work. It does a pretty good job. I haven't been all that big a fan of the stand alone version for quite awhile, though. It's almost always a pain in the ass to uninstall if you have problems and I've often had to resort to manual uninstallation, meaning tedious removal of registry objects, manual deletion of files & folders, etc.

[Rip Rokken]

We use the corporate version of Symantec here at work. It does a pretty good job. I haven't been all that big a fan of the stand alone version for quite awhile, though. It's almost always a pain in the ass to uninstall if you have problems and I've often had to resort to manual uninstallation, meaning tedious removal of registry objects, manual deletion of files & folders, etc.

Actually, I don't really mind the Symantec AV Corp at all -- it's mainly the home-based Norton stuff I hate. Symantec Corp. can still be a pill to get rid of if the installation corrupts, and occasionally the defs will corrupt or the scanning engine will go wild and soak up 100% CPU time. Symantec has never been good about creating stable and reliable install/uninstall routines. Any company that gives end-users instructions for removing scads of files and Registry entries for manual removal has their priorities wrong in my book... haha! Having done that a few times was a huge factor in my moving away from Symantec.

I keep a nice little utility called NONAV around for when Norton Corp. goes haywire, but I don't think they've updated it beyond v. 9, so it doesn't completely remove 10.x

For the home products like NIS, they do create a pretty good remover which is updated frequently -- the Norton Removal Tool.

Still begs the question... why in the heck can't they bundle a reliable uninstall routine? These problems have been going on for years.

[conversationpc]

Still begs the question... why in the heck can't they bundle a reliable uninstall routine? These problems have been going on for years.

They don't WANT you to uninstall it.

[Rick]

I used to use Norton exclusively, but as you said, it became so bloated, as well as McAfee. I use Avast. It's free and never misses a beat. I have been fixing pc's for friends and family for a few years, and Avast catches bugs that Norton misses. Trojans and such. I'm very impressed with it. It's light weight and effective. It's only drawback is that you have to initiate your own scans. It doesn't schedule them. The Professional version that you have to buy does though. www.avast.com If you download it, beware, it talks to you. So if you leave your computer on all night, at 3 friggin am, it will blast out "Virus Definition Database Has Been Updated". Scared the piss out of my wife.

[Rip Rokken]

They don't WANT you to uninstall it.

Kinda like AOL?

[Rip Rokken]

I used to use Norton exclusively, but as you said, it became so bloated, as well as McAfee. I use Avast. It's free and never misses a beat. I have been fixing pc's for friends and family for a few years, and Avast catches bugs that Norton misses. Trojans and such. I'm very impressed with it. It's light weight and effective. It's only drawback is that you have to initiate your own scans. It doesn't schedule them. The Professional version that you have to buy does though. www.avast.com If you download it, beware, it talks to you. So if you leave your computer on all night, at 3 friggin am, it will blast out "Virus Definition Database Has Been Updated". Scared the piss out of my wife.

Rock on! I've been loving Avast at home, and luckily for me, I don't really need or use features not included in the free version. I just need basic protection, and to tell you the truth, I generally leave AV realtime protection disabled on my office PC. E-mail is scanned at the server level, and I'm extremely cautious otherwise. 15 years in this profession, and I have yet to get myself infected. Of course, as a policy I don't recommend that to anyone else... haha.

[Abitaman]

AVG, there is a free version at download.com and a paid version which has spam and all this other stuff. I ahve both versions. oOn the kids I use the free plus the free AD WARE SE and free SPYBOT. Was a Norton user for years. They pissed me off last year, paying over a 100.00 a computer, then wasnt to cahrge me a !00 to fix a virus the program did not remove, Swithced to AVG and have been happy ever since-ERIC

[Deb]

I used to use Norton exclusively, but as you said, it became so bloated, as well as McAfee. I use Avast. It's free and never misses a beat. I have been fixing pc's for friends and family for a few years, and Avast catches bugs that Norton misses. Trojans and such. I'm very impressed with it. It's light weight and effective. It's only drawback is that you have to initiate your own scans. It doesn't schedule them. The Professional version that you have to buy does though. www.avast.com If you download it, beware, it talks to you. So if you leave your computer on all night, at 3 friggin am, it will blast out "Virus Definition Database Has Been Updated". Scared the piss out of my wife.

OMG, hilarious! Scared the hell out of me too the first time it updated! A tech at Best Buy (shh ) and a couple other computer friends recommended AVAST over Norton and McAfee. It's free and I've never had a problem with it. BTW Rick, I downloaded a free version and it too does the "Virus Definition Database has been Updated."

[CatEyes]

I rely on my instincts above my AV software (I work in the industry). I don't say that to sound arrogant or slight end-users at all, though I do caution all of them that without good practices, the only reliable defense is to kill their Internet connection... haha!

Agreed 100%

Common sense is the best protection!!! And ya don't have to worry about latex allergies!!

Cat

[Rip Rokken]

No surprise here -- had to fix a PC today, and Symantec AV Corp. would not uninstall! Waited about 5 minutes for it in a hung state, then cut the power and used NONAV on reboot. Sheesh! We currently use CA eTrust Integrated Threat Management for businesses, having dumped NAV a few years back, but I still have a few clients who use SAV Corp.

Next, had a PC where someone had installed pcAnywhere 10.0 (which is not fully XP compatible), and it killed Remote Desktop. Upgrading it to 11 fixed the issue, but I noticed many people on line saying how much they hated Symantec products for these types of reason. #1 answer when someone asks how to resolve a question seems to be, "Why are you still using Symantec?" HAHA!

[Rick]

I used to use Norton exclusively, but as you said, it became so bloated, as well as McAfee. I use Avast. It's free and never misses a beat. I have been fixing pc's for friends and family for a few years, and Avast catches bugs that Norton misses. Trojans and such. I'm very impressed with it. It's light weight and effective. It's only drawback is that you have to initiate your own scans. It doesn't schedule them. The Professional version that you have to buy does though. www.avast.com If you download it, beware, it talks to you. So if you leave your computer on all night, at 3 friggin am, it will blast out "Virus Definition Database Has Been Updated". Scared the piss out of my wife.

OMG, hilarious! Scared the hell out of me too the first time it updated! A tech at Best Buy (shh ) and a couple other computer friends recommended AVAST over Norton and McAfee. It's free and I've never had a problem with it. BTW Rick, I downloaded a free version and it too does the "Virus Definition Database has been Updated."

Yep, that's the one I use. I finally found the setting to disable the sounds.

[JrnyScarab]

No surprise here -- had to fix a PC today, and Symantec AV Corp. would not uninstall! Waited about 5 minutes for it in a hung state, then cut the power and used NONAV on reboot. Sheesh! We currently use CA eTrust Integrated Threat Management for businesses, having dumped NAV a few years back, but I still have a few clients who use SAV Corp.

Next, had a PC where someone had installed pcAnywhere 10.0 (which is not fully XP compatible), and it killed Remote Desktop. Upgrading it to 11 fixed the issue, but I noticed many people on line saying how much they hated Symantec products for these types of reason. #1 answer when someone asks how to resolve a question seems to be, "Why are you still using Symantec?" HAHA!

Symantec sucks! Haven't used it in at least 4 years. Got tired of the massive overhead slowing my system down. I use Trend Micro and that seems to do a nice job but the latest version is pretty bloated and resource hungry. Maybe I'll try Avast.

If I switch to Avast I will need a good software firewall that is easy to use and doesn't add huge overhead. Any suggestions?

Ed

[T-Bone]

I did try Norton Internet Security about 3 years ago, but it was such a resource hog and it wanted to play a part in everything I clicked on, tried to save, picture editing, cd making, downloading, etc... it just pissed me off to no end, so I went back to regular Norton AntiVirus. As I said, I've never had any problems with it and it's been good to me. I just wish they supported XP x64. So... Kaspersky it will be For Now.....

[Rick]

I did try Norton Internet Security about 3 years ago, but it was such a resource hog and it wanted to play a part in everything I clicked on, tried to save, picture editing, cd making, downloading, etc... it just pissed me off to no end, so I went back to regular Norton AntiVirus. As I said, I've never had any problems with it and it's been good to me. I just wish they supported XP x64. So... Kaspersky it will be For Now.....

Kaspersky is top notch software bro. You can't go wrong there.

[Rip Rokken]

If I switch to Avast I will need a good software firewall that is easy to use and doesn't add huge overhead. Any suggestions?

Ed

Believe it or not, for home PC's I just use Windows Firewall unless I think somebody needs something more interactive. To a good degree, a firewall is a firewall, and all the fancy features of many products don't necessarily add up to better protection.

Inbound protection is crucial to protect against direct Windows security flaw hacks (ala Blaster Virus), but is nothing to maintain once it's in place -- it's what people allow outbound that causes most of the problems, and I've just found that even the easy firewall apps like ZoneAlarm can be too technical for novices when they get hit with questions.

First off, everybody hates a nagging firewall. Yes, you can train them to allow your most common apps pretty quickly, but they still nag at times.

Second, someone gets a message like, "Generic Host Process for Win32 is trying to access the Internet. Block or Allow?" In most cases, I find people making the wrong choice -- either they block something necessary like AV updates or allow something malicious out of fear that saying "no" will cause something not to work.

I'm not against those apps at all -- rather, I think they can be great. I just think that the end-user still needs to add some skill and knowledge to the mix or the products might work against them.

Even taking a step further back, if a home user is at least behind a NAT router, though it's not a true firewall in the sense that most don't perform stateful packet inspection (examine the traffic that flows thru it), their need for a software firewall is not as great, because NAT itself is a protection. If they only use a cable or DSL modem and are hosting a live IP address on their machine, then they definitely need one. I know some techs will disagree with me on how safe you are behind a NAT router, but I have yet to see anyone spoof their way thru one, unless remote administration was enabled with a weak password.

For the record, I pretty much keep all utilities stripped down to their bare effective essence, as I've seen too many systems dedicate all their resources to utilities. You've seen the PC's that run every gizmo and gadget out there... and they are slow as Christmas! Haha! I'm especially not fond of Internet security suites like Norton Internet Security, etc. I'm not trying to talk down to anyone that uses them at all, but rather encourage people to know how the basic protective mechanisms such as AV, antispyware, antispam, and firewalls work -- what they do and what you can expect out of them. That can free you from the subscription-based behemoths and get you into using light, thin, and free stuff that works every bit as well, if not better.

Didn't mean to be so long winded, but it's what I do for a living... haha! Hope it helps...

[Greg]

Even taking a step further back, if a home user is at least behind a NAT router, though it's not a true firewall in the sense that most don't perform stateful packet inspection (examine the traffic that flows thru it), their need for a software firewall is not as great, because NAT itself is a protection. If they only use a cable or DSL modem and are hosting a live IP address on their machine, then they definitely need one. I know some techs will disagree with me on how safe you are behind a NAT router, but I have yet to see anyone spoof their way thru one, unless remote administration was enabled with a weak password.

I also just use the windows firewall. I also use AVG free on my home laptop, and we use AVG pro for work. I believe it's the best as far as maintaining the overall preformance over your computer. I dispise Norton, but don't have as much loathe for it as I do Mcafee. I believe all one needs is AVG free, spybot for spyware and Adaware for finding those other pesky programs that spybot didn't get rid of, and you should be ok. Oh, and also, use Firefox or Opera for your web browsing and save IE for when you have no choice.

[JrnyScarab]

If I switch to Avast I will need a good software firewall that is easy to use and doesn't add huge overhead. Any suggestions?

Ed

Believe it or not, for home PC's I just use Windows Firewall unless I think somebody needs something more interactive. To a good degree, a firewall is a firewall, and all the fancy features of many products don't necessarily add up to better protection.

Inbound protection is crucial to protect against direct Windows security flaw hacks (ala Blaster Virus), but is nothing to maintain once it's in place -- it's what people allow outbound that causes most of the problems, and I've just found that even the easy firewall apps like ZoneAlarm can be too technical for novices when they get hit with questions.

First off, everybody hates a nagging firewall. Yes, you can train them to allow your most common apps pretty quickly, but they still nag at times.

Second, someone gets a message like, "Generic Host Process for Win32 is trying to access the Internet. Block or Allow?" In most cases, I find people making the wrong choice -- either they block something necessary like AV updates or allow something malicious out of fear that saying "no" will cause something not to work.

I'm not against those apps at all -- rather, I think they can be great. I just think that the end-user still needs to add some skill and knowledge to the mix or the products might work against them.

Even taking a step further back, if a home user is at least behind a NAT router, though it's not a true firewall in the sense that most don't perform stateful packet inspection (examine the traffic that flows thru it), their need for a software firewall is not as great, because NAT itself is a protection. If they only use a cable or DSL modem and are hosting a live IP address on their machine, then they definitely need one. I know some techs will disagree with me on how safe you are behind a NAT router, but I have yet to see anyone spoof their way thru one, unless remote administration was enabled with a weak password.

For the record, I pretty much keep all utilities stripped down to their bare effective essence, as I've seen too many systems dedicate all their resources to utilities. You've seen the PC's that run every gizmo and gadget out there... and they are slow as Christmas! Haha! I'm especially not fond of Internet security suites like Norton Internet Security, etc. I'm not trying to talk down to anyone that uses them at all, but rather encourage people to know how the basic protective mechanisms such as AV, antispyware, antispam, and firewalls work -- what they do and what you can expect out of them. That can free you from the subscription-based behemoths and get you into using light, thin, and free stuff that works every bit as well, if not better.

Didn't mean to be so long winded, but it's what I do for a living... haha! Hope it helps...

Thanks. Maybe I'll just go with the Windows Firewall although I don't think it checks to see if something is outbound. At least the XP version doesn't from what I remember reading. Maybe I'm wrong about that.

Ed

[Rick]

If I switch to Avast I will need a good software firewall that is easy to use and doesn't add huge overhead. Any suggestions?

Ed

Believe it or not, for home PC's I just use Windows Firewall unless I think somebody needs something more interactive. To a good degree, a firewall is a firewall, and all the fancy features of many products don't necessarily add up to better protection.

Inbound protection is crucial to protect against direct Windows security flaw hacks (ala Blaster Virus), but is nothing to maintain once it's in place -- it's what people allow outbound that causes most of the problems, and I've just found that even the easy firewall apps like ZoneAlarm can be too technical for novices when they get hit with questions.

First off, everybody hates a nagging firewall. Yes, you can train them to allow your most common apps pretty quickly, but they still nag at times.

Second, someone gets a message like, "Generic Host Process for Win32 is trying to access the Internet. Block or Allow?" In most cases, I find people making the wrong choice -- either they block something necessary like AV updates or allow something malicious out of fear that saying "no" will cause something not to work.

I'm not against those apps at all -- rather, I think they can be great. I just think that the end-user still needs to add some skill and knowledge to the mix or the products might work against them.

Even taking a step further back, if a home user is at least behind a NAT router, though it's not a true firewall in the sense that most don't perform stateful packet inspection (examine the traffic that flows thru it), their need for a software firewall is not as great, because NAT itself is a protection. If they only use a cable or DSL modem and are hosting a live IP address on their machine, then they definitely need one. I know some techs will disagree with me on how safe you are behind a NAT router, but I have yet to see anyone spoof their way thru one, unless remote administration was enabled with a weak password.

For the record, I pretty much keep all utilities stripped down to their bare effective essence, as I've seen too many systems dedicate all their resources to utilities. You've seen the PC's that run every gizmo and gadget out there... and they are slow as Christmas! Haha! I'm especially not fond of Internet security suites like Norton Internet Security, etc. I'm not trying to talk down to anyone that uses them at all, but rather encourage people to know how the basic protective mechanisms such as AV, antispyware, antispam, and firewalls work -- what they do and what you can expect out of them. That can free you from the subscription-based behemoths and get you into using light, thin, and free stuff that works every bit as well, if not better.

Didn't mean to be so long winded, but it's what I do for a living... haha! Hope it helps...

I'm with you on what you say here. I prefer to keep the processes running under or around 30 with XP. I disable unnecessary services like the Security Center and Error Reporting. That's all I need is something else telling me that my antivirus definitions are out of date.

I like to keep the machine running lean and mean. I use a NAT and the Windows firewall, which is redundant I know, but I'm not sure how well I trust the NAT firewall. Programs like the Half-Life server I sometimes run have to be configured manually, but after it's all set up, it's painless and doesn't slow down the machine.

I don't know why Norton and McAfee have to be such resource hogs, they're like boat anchors, but this Avast has a nice small footprint and does a great job. There was another free one called Active Virus Shield that AOL was giving away to anyone and everyone, and it was made by Kaspersky Labs. I was using that one until they discontinued that program, so back to Avast I went.

[Rip Rokken]

Thanks. Maybe I'll just go with the Windows Firewall although I don't think it checks to see if something is outbound. At least the XP version doesn't from what I remember reading. Maybe I'm wrong about that.

Ed

Beginning w/XP SP2, it does do outbound, and will ask. What I usually find when I examine someone's firewall allowances is they've said "yes" to just about everything... haha! So again, how effective outbound protection is remains up for debate. I work strictly for businesses (I'm actually a network engineer), so what I think of as a firewall is hardware device -- a Cisco PIX or a WatchGuard Firebox that's been configured by an admin, and the users don't have a choice as to what is allowed or disallowed. Blocking P2P, chat, music downloads -- now that's true security!

Home computers are really a different animal altogether, and especially difficult to protect if kids come anywhere near them. Home users in general don't like restrictions that they can't control, and much of the bad stuff out there targets the nativity of kids.

Here's what I use personally:

(MAIN OFFICE PC)
Currently running Windows 2000 Server, with it's own Active Directory domain, connected by trust relationship to the company's domain. I lock all my stuff down w/file and folder permissions, and not much need for a software firewall on that box. I'm able to get to it from the outside via Terminal Services, and also access my library of utilities via HTTP.

I currently don't have any antivirus or antispyware utility installed. Was using eTrust AV, then uninstalled it. Our company has AV and anti-spam on the server, and I run a client-side anti-spam utility on my box to clean up what it misses. I'm extremely cautious with what I do on this box, and am at negligible risk for infection.

I also have a MAC in there to play with, but don't use it much. My plan is to dismantle this PC soon and replace it with a loaded Vista Business PC -- though we barely push any Vista at all, it will help me to be working daily with it -- that's how I learn the in's and out's of a new O/S.

(HOME PC)
Runs XP SP2. Avast Antivirus (free), and MS Windows Defender (free antispyware w/realtime protection, currently disabled on my system). Mozilla Firefox for browsing, and Mozilla Thunderbird for E-Mail.

I became quite skilled at spyware removal a few years ago, and have yet to find something I couldn't completely remove unless it wasn't in the best interest of time to do so. You can't rely solely on scanning programs anymore, as hidden rootkits are becoming more common -- with many, you flat out can't see them or their processes, even in Safe Mode or when viewing Hidden/System files, because they mask themselves from view. Usually with very infected systems I do much of the removal including the rootkits manually. More often than not I will only use the scanning programs once the system is stable just to clean up any orphaned files and Registry entries. Fun, fun!

[JrnyScarab]

Thanks. Maybe I'll just go with the Windows Firewall although I don't think it checks to see if something is outbound. At least the XP version doesn't from what I remember reading. Maybe I'm wrong about that.

Ed

Beginning w/XP SP2, it does do outbound, and will ask. What I usually find when I examine someone's firewall allowances is they've said "yes" to just about everything... haha! So again, how effective outbound protection is remains up for debate. I work strictly for businesses (I'm actually a network engineer), so what I think of as a firewall is hardware device -- a Cisco PIX or a WatchGuard Firebox that's been configured by an admin, and the users don't have a choice as to what is allowed or disallowed. Blocking P2P, chat, music downloads -- now that's true security!

Home computers are really a different animal altogether, and especially difficult to protect if kids come anywhere near them. Home users in general don't like restrictions that they can't control, and much of the bad stuff out there targets the nativity of kids.

Here's what I use personally:

(MAIN OFFICE PC)
Currently running Windows 2000 Server, with it's own Active Directory domain, connected by trust relationship to the company's domain. I lock all my stuff down w/file and folder permissions, and not much need for a software firewall on that box. I'm able to get to it from the outside via Terminal Services, and also access my library of utilities via HTTP.

I currently don't have any antivirus or antispyware utility installed. Was using eTrust AV, then uninstalled it. Our company has AV and anti-spam on the server, and I run a client-side anti-spam utility on my box to clean up what it misses. I'm extremely cautious with what I do on this box, and am at negligible risk for infection.

I also have a MAC in there to play with, but don't use it much. My plan is to dismantle this PC soon and replace it with a loaded Vista Business PC -- though we barely push any Vista at all, it will help me to be working daily with it -- that's how I learn the in's and out's of a new O/S.

(HOME PC)
Runs XP SP2. Avast Antivirus (free), and MS Windows Defender (free antispyware w/realtime protection, currently disabled on my system). Mozilla Firefox for browsing, and Mozilla Thunderbird for E-Mail.

I became quite skilled at spyware removal a few years ago, and have yet to find something I couldn't completely remove unless it wasn't in the best interest of time to do so. You can't rely solely on scanning programs anymore, as hidden rootkits are becoming more common -- with many, you flat out can't see them or their processes, even in Safe Mode or when viewing Hidden/System files, because they mask themselves from view. Usually with very infected systems I do much of the removal including the rootkits manually. More often than not I will only use the scanning programs once the system is stable just to clean up any orphaned files and Registry entries. Fun, fun!

Yeah, if you let the kids on it's a crapshoot for sure. I finally caved in and gave the kids my old computer and built myself a new box! Or at least that was the excuse I gave the wife. You know, the kids keep messing mine up and make it un-useable. I set their system up and used Acronis True Image to make a working image of the system that's stored in a protected space so they won't delete it. If problems crop up I don't have to reinstall the whole system from scratch. Just restore the image and tweak a few things.

Ed

[Don]

I use Avast free edition, Comodo firewall (free), CCleaner(free) and SpywareBlaster(free). I have surfed some risky sites (warez, porn,etc.) and had no problems at all.

[Rip Rokken]

Yeah, if you let the kids on it's a crapshoot for sure. I finally caved in and gave the kids my old computer and built myself a new box! Or at least that was the excuse I gave the wife. You know, the kids keep messing mine up and make it un-useable. I set their system up and used Acronis True Image to make a working image of the system that's stored in a protected space so they won't delete it. If problems crop up I don't have to reinstall the whole system from scratch. Just restore the image and tweak a few things.

Ed

All excellent ideas. The worst PC's I run across are office PCs that employees use to babysit their kids when they bring them to work. Especially bad are when they let their kids use other people's PCs instead -- my phone usually rings the next day... haha!

You are right on -- if your PC is important to you, keep everyone else off of it (kids especially), and they can use their own. Having a restorable image is as smart as you can get, especially for the kids PC. Saves a trip or two to the Geek Squadron!

[Shadowsong]

I use Avast free edition, gld to see it's good.

[kellz]

Hi folks, long time lurker, 1st time poster.

I work in a call center that provides Hardware & software support for PCs. Personally I hate Norton & McAfee as they can cause too many problems & they are a nightmare to remove. AVAST is the best out there, we always advise customers to download this if they are having problems with AVs they are having trouble with.

BTW, Norton Removal tool can be downloaded from HERE

[Rip Rokken]

Hi folks, long time lurker, 1st time poster.

Welcome, kellz, from another long time lurker! Keep coming back!

[Socratic Methodist]

I use PC Cillin, and have had NO issues........

I pause when I hear that 'such-and-such' is the 'BEST'.

Whatever works, man.......

[Rip Rokken]

I pause when I hear that 'such-and-such' is the 'BEST'.

Whatever works, man.......

Agreed, and those opinions (especially from magazines) change regularly anyway, each time products are re-rated. I try to find something I like and stick with it unless it burns me too bad, then I'm likely never to give it another chance. Dropped McAfee first several years long time ago, and now am done with Symantec.

[T-Bone]

This is why I went to 10-15 different reviews and comparisons websites before choosing what I wanted to try. The Kaspersky continually rated in the top 2-3 every website, so it seemed to be the most consistant to me