Hi Soar,
being honest I don't have a preference with my AV. I have been using NOD32 for several years now and have never had a problem with viruses or any other attacks. It also has a small install footprint which was one of the reasons I started using it in the first place. I also got a good deal on a multi-user licence a couple of years ago and as I am responsible for many builds I have found it prudent to stick with it, for the time being.
However, I have been running Microsoft Security Essentials on a recent laptop purchase and have been very impressed with it. For one thing it is free (if you have a legitimate copy of Windows) and so far, after 3 months of testing, I have not had a problem with being hit. In the future I may switch to this AV as it is also quick to initialise and doesn't take up a lot of system resources.
Absic,
Thanks for the info. Well, you are a truly blessed computer techie! I have had problems with viruses, hacks, trojan horses, malware, you name it since the 1990's!
I grew up in Silicon Vally. My mom and dad's home is within walking distance to Apple's headquarters. In the beginning I was deceived into thinking Norton was the virus Savior of the world...what a huge blunder on my part! I can still remember when Norton wrote an anti-virus program that was darn near impossible to remove from your computer once it was installed! The bloatware factor was off the charts, and forget about any real true protection. The worst part of all is I did some work for them in the 1990's and thought they were pretty good guys [sound proofing some of their buildings and rooms, etc.]. After it was all over I wanted to take their install disc and send it to Pluto forever and ever!
They really messed a lot of things up but in the past 3 years have done a lot in rewriting their programs and greatly reducing the bloat ware factor...still, you could not pay me to ever use they software again. In the antivirus industry you cannot afford to attempt to ride on past successes...you must remain on the cutting edge or you are history!
Kaspersky, BitDefender, Webroot and NOD32 seem to top the charts here for the last couple of years...yet I have had problems with both Kaspersky and BitDefender both! I often receive free licenses for Kaspersky, BitDefender and Webroot but now i refuse to use them.
I switched everything over to Microsoft's SE at the beginning of the year and now no problems at all and best of all, it is 100% free!
[Good job Bill]!
Hey, maybe we can devote a segment of this forum to antivirus chat and such. It is a big deal now-a-days and perhaps it can help people who are looking for some honest answers.
Anyway, I did not mean to go off on an anti- antivirus bunny path.
So sorry!
Soar