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Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011
by MPB747
I had the 2010 version of this product up until about two months ago when it then ran at, so I upgrade to this one at a discount price. As a first note with many different protection models out there this one is good for its price and is brilliant on protection as well.
One real key feature I like about this product is the ... menu and user interface, it is quick and clear where a button will take you and what you will be able to do once your there. Setting it up is simple as you will get help from the software as it is installing, and even if you do have any problems their help service is very friendly and frequently has fully English speakers, despite it being a Russian product.
You can customise what to scan, what to block and what to left through the firewall, which is great if you have family members which are not carefully when on the internet be it downloading songs from unsavoury websites. Scanning is thorough, maybe too thorough, some scans can take a very long time, I think the largest scan took 12 hours with 9 hours being the most common. Now obviously this is not a realistic time for casual PC users but there were a few considerations to take into account due to my computer. As I am a massive gamer and I share the PC with three others they are a lot of files store on numerous drives and a lot of memory to go through. So that puts a bit of perspective on the times, but if you have got a insane amount of files a full scan would not take that long maybe towards 3 hours max.
There are different types of scans it can do, full, quick and customisable the quick scan is very short maybe 20 to 30 minutes and is good when your in a rush and want to check the important system files for any problems. I could customise my scan to only do my drive and save myself many hours, but as I am in charge of the maintaining the computer I have to select all the drives, which is easy to do with the user interface.
When a scan is complete you can click to view the reports, as it does not pop up after a scan so as not to be too intrusive on the user. The reports are easy to read and often have bar charts colour coded and labelled to fully explain some of the data available. There are allow buttons which can lead you to a link which shows you the amount of dangers currently out there in the world, which is useful when you see sudden spikes in malware counts. Most users may not even use any of these functions and just use the scan system which is fine, the software updates automatically and you can set the scans to run a times you state. So if you not a huge fan of computers you can set this program up in a way which means you would not have to touch it again.
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AVG AntiVirus Free Edition
by Bellroyd
Like so many other computer users, I used to have Norton AntiVirus which was packaged free with the machine for a limited period. Of course, when the free period expires, most of us just renew, but at a not inconsiderable cost.
There's no issue with Norton Antivirus. I was quite happy with it, but a couple of years ago, ... following some on-line research, I felt sufficiently confident in the free version from AVG that I cancelled my subscription when it had run its course and downloaded the AVG software from a safe source (in my case download.com.)
It does everything for you, so if you have no technical expertise, don't worry. You don't need any. It is genuinely free - you just have to be careful of the frequent upgrade messages you get or you may inadvertently click on something for which they will charge. The upgraded paid for version is more comprehensive, but for a casual user like me, who doesn't visit dodgy websites, doesn't open suspicious looking emails and doesn't click on email links I can't recognise and whose usage is fairly standard and careful, I genuinely believe you should look no further.
I have even had two free updates since downloading the free edition, with 2011 version now safely on board. You have some control over the settings in a very easy to use graphic interface, but most folk will leave the software to do its scheduled scans and alert you to any problems.
The security components you get with AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, Version 10 are:
Anti-Virus
Anti- Spyware
Linkscanner
Resident Shield
Email Scanner
Update Manager
License
Anti-Rootkit
PC Analyser
Identity Protection
You can check at any time that these are all active and also check for the time of the last scan just by clicking on the toolbar icon. Scans run in the background and do not interfere with your work or delay you in any way. You can also run manual scans if you so choose.
I think it is fantastic value for no money at all and cannot see myself ever returning to a paid for service.
If you're currently paying, then it's worth at least considering whether you can get what you need for nothing via AVG. You have the reassurance of knowing that millions of people are now using this product globally.
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Softwin BitDefender Total Security 2010
by BaluB8
I googled for "Best Antivirus" and got this so I decided to buy this and check it out and I have to say, this is one of the best antivirus softwares I've ever tried. It protected me from everything my previous antivirus softwares failed to. The thing is that Bitdefender has a strong web protection, it saved me on various ... occasions regarding browsing and accidentally clicking something you shouldn't be clicking, like a Facebook hacked account virus link posted to your wall. My previous antivirus softwares would let the virus into the PC and then, takes action to remove it. Bitdefender puts a wall right before that happens, very useful. You can choose what type of scanning you want, quick scan, complete scan or you can create a custom scan. There are various modes you can choose like, Typical, Parent, Gamer and Custom. I've only used the Typical mode and Game mode so I wouldn't know anything about Parent mode. I can explain about the Game mode though, basically, when in gaming mode, Bitdefender consumes lesser power for your smooth gaming but it wouldn't matter for a person with a high-end computer but for people like me who don't have such computers, it's useful. Talking about consumption, the little problem with Bitdefender is that it consumes alot, like I said, it wouldn't matter for a person with a high-end computer but it would for people like me, I wouldn't recommend it if you have one of the weaker systems. Another problem with it is that Bitdefender may mistake many normal programs for viruses and it won't allow you to use that program, unless you add that program to the exceptions, but it's a real hard deal to do that since Bitdefender blocks the original .exe of the program, you have to switch Bitdefender off for a few seconds, to extract the .exe of the program to the place you wanna extract it, then switch Bitdefender on and add the extracted .exe to the exceptions through Bitdefender. It's pretty tricky. Other than that, it's a great shield against the malicious threats that's all around the web.
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