What is best Antivirus program that will not slow or conflict

Not really. Servers get hacked all the time (remember a certain incident last September?). Affected businesses are often slow to realise it, and if it's not personal data being stolen, it could be official downloads being replaced by malware. I remember this happening to a company affiliated with Gentoo Linux around 2002/2003, and a very tiny part of the distribution being affected as a result (the hackers even changed the md5 file so there was no file/md5 mismatch). Something similar also happened to Wordpress last year:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=110

If you don't AV scan every single executable file that is downloaded onto your computer simply because you consider the source to be trustworthy, then you are definitely at risk. We should thank the gods that the malicious parties didn't play with the SL download file last year, particularly because we were required to get it once a week at that time.

/I stopped using AV software around 1993 (very soon after I discovered it), mainly because it was slowing down my PC, but also because I knew what activities put me at risk. (Like you, I have always sandboxed myself from admin tasks on Linux, NT and XP based systems.) Lately however, methods of attack are getting obscure enough to frighten me, and for the first time since all those years ago, I have finally installed the Avast AV suite. It's free of course, and I find that it hardly slows down a modern, high spec PC at all.

I do think it's important to turn of OLE scanning if you work with Explorer or Internet Explorer though because they're always opening those processes (for file previews, active x controls, etc.) The good thing about Avast is you can disable the entire suite with a single right click in the systray if you want to play a high performance game or something...so maybe something the OP would consider.

ive used zone alarm for years. it allows me to schedule everything (virus/ad scans, updates) to happen while i am at work, and it has a 'game mode' as well. i also use kaspersky for a weekly scan. kaspersky is perhaps the best av software out there at detecting viruses. the usually identify them first.

I use Zone Alarm as a firewall, too, albeit the paid version, and have done that for years on different computers without any problems. For AV software, i use Avira AntiVir Personal Edition, which is free and doesn't bother me at all. I hated Norton when i had to use it in the office and got rid of it as soon as I could.

Hi All,

I am a computer programmer by trade and I have used many anti-virus programs and scanners through the years.
I thought I would share what I know about this subject with you.

All active scanning anti-virus programs will impact your computers performance (even a low overhead one will slow it down somewhat).
The ones that protect from spyware impact performance worse than those that do not.
This is because it is scanning some or all of the files on your hard disk constantly. Faster hard disks can mitigate this to some degree.

Good computing and browsing habits will lessen your chance of being infected. This includes not running and servers or services that are internet accessible from your PC such as Web servers, ftp servers, bittorrent or other peer-to-peer services.

On average an an unprotected (ie. no firewall, no anti-virus, etc) Windows PC connected via broadband to the internet will become compromised in about 4 minutes without user intervention (yep just sat there doing nothing) due to exploits within the OS that are found by programs sweeping the internet for exploitable PCs.
The default services that expose these exploits can in some circumstances be reconfigured or stopped but expert OS knowledge admin is necessary and it beyond most people. This need for expert knowledge to protect Windows as it comes by default is unacceptable in my opinion.

A good up-to-date hardware firewall (such as in a router or DSL modem) is needed to stop being compromised. Software firewalls are not as effective as they can be bypassed (software based firewalls also slow your PC down a little too).

The only way to comprehensively protect a Windows PC is to combine a hardware firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware and good habits and take the performance hit.

I took the alternative which was hardware firewall + Linux. I did this because Linux is more secure and less exploitable by default and most malware is targeted at Windows users.

I still have to use Windows at work though and have found that Sophos is the corporate standard for virus and malware protection.
It is low overhead and is about the best protection you can buy. However occaisionally the Sophos people get it wrong and push out an update that causes severe problems that include machines that blue screen of death up reboot, machines that drop of the network, programs that are detected as malware but in fact are legitimate programs.

I believe however that these are issues from which all anti-virus vendors suffer due to tight deadlines needed to push out an update for new viruses (especially the more damaging and virulent strains) and competetive practices. The QA suffers as a result.

As for naming names here are my recommendations (in no particular order): -

Stay away from: -

Norton AV
McAffee

(Laggy, bad QA and do not play well with other software for the most part)

Use: -

Sophos AV
AVG AV
ClamAV
Kaspersky AV
Spybot spyware scanner

Also keep in mind that the viruses that are found by each package vary and so there is overlap. Industry experts recommend one or more AV/Spyware packages to be installed to be absolutely sure. Even then you cannot be 100% covered. Obviously installing more than one scanner will impact performance more and likely result in conflicts between the packages.
The place I work only uses Sophos on the desktop but 3 different scanners on the servers that form our internet feed. That is how serious the problems are!

Any application I did not mention has not been used by me and I do not know much if anything about it.

All of the above are my own opinions and your mileage may vary, yada yada, yada...

Hope that was not too long winded or hard to follow. Best of luck.

Nathan

ditto

The latest version of the Zone Alarm suites that include an anti-virus program , e.g. ZA Internet Security, use Kaspersky as the av program.

-----------------------------------
My take
-----------------------------------
Kaspersky uses simply the best engine at the moment
with excellent recgonition and speedy signature updates.

AntiVir is the best free solution I know of,
but several classes below Kaspersky.

Good attributes to judge an anti virus software are:

a) Overall Chance of detecting any of the existing viruses.
b) Delivery Speed of Updates for the virus signatures.
c) Delivery Frequency of Updates for the virus signatures.
d) Reaction time between the appearance of a new virus and an update to the virus signaturs.
e) Ressource Efficiency
f) Scaleability of Security


-----------------------------------
A few unsorted thoughts & recommendations
-----------------------------------
Stay away from Norton,
I know from my own experiences working in support,
that at least the versions up to the current one,
were nearly impossible to uninstall without hassle
as well as most inefficient with regard to performance.

Look into the configuration of your antivirus software,
check for options that you do not really need.
Generally the default settings have a tendency to be optimized for security and not performance.
Like with so many things,
the last 2 % of security, cost sometimes 98% of performance.

Stay away from cheesy websites
and do never click any ok button presented by a browser popu up

Stay away also from "Internet Suites",
that include "personal firewalls" and other useless stuff.

If you are behind a DSL router
you probably have a "firewall" solution
integrated in your router anyway.
Read up on the manual and the net if and
how it needs to be configured.

Do a web research about windows services,
that are running on your computer and
deactivate any you do not really need.

Do not install uneccessary microsoft update features,
or any uneccessary software in general

Keep your windows and other critical software ALLWAYS up to date.

Do not NOT use an acount with administrator rights
for your normal internet/computer activities,
if you do not have reached at least a basic level of nerdness

For overkill also activate and
properly configure your Windows Firewall.

Use an alternative browser like Firefox or Opera,
which are not rooted as deeply into windows,
as the IE.


-----------------------------------
*ggr* ... read Nathan Childs post above ... *grr*
*writes a thousand times*
"I will read a thread first and then answer to it.,
I will read a thread.. "

There's something odd about Kaspersky though... when the walls and borders to the Eastern parts of Europe came down, folks there were desperately searching for business opportunities. Few years later, we suddenly had a sh*tload of new viruses around. Rising up to fight this new threats was the first anti-virus tool that could get rid of all of them - Kaspersky.

Got great reviews and test reports. Of course. I mean, those guys were the first to update their software in order to detect the newest viruses. Probably before the viruses themselves were released. I wonder how many other AV publishers work like that... perhaps we simply didn't notice it until the internet was invaded by the East.

Actually the background of some of the Kasperky people,
especially of its founder Eugene Kaspersky gave ground to some humor *chuckles*

Eugene Kaspersky was educated as crytpologist on a KGB University.

Nevertheless honestly no one outside of the security community
had access to state of the art computer technology
or the motherland protect us computer secucrity knowledge.

The the soviet education system had,
to my best knowlege a history of creating some of the best mathematicial minds.

Also the correlation of the development of the internet and the rate
of emergence of new viruses seems quite natural to me.

Therefore the fact of Kasperskies biography and that he started a computer security company seems to me personally to be fully inside the horizon of normal probability.

But one never knows.. *smiles enigmatical*

I used to use Zone Alarm for years. I too was amazed at how many programs were trying to access the internet. I enjoyed the ability to control my pc's internet activity.

It was affecting my peroformance on the file sharing network that I like to use, so I started turning if off when I'd file share. Of course I noticed faster internet and system performance when it was shut down...and got rid of it all together shortly after.

My thoughts on the OP.

Any software you use that offers real time protection of any kind will use system resoruces and affect your system and internet speed.

Macafee, Norton, and PCcillin, are the worst. They themselves are becoming virus and spyware like, and you pay so much for them.

I've been using the free versions of AVG anti-virus and anti-spyware. The free versions don't offer real time protection, but if you really want you can upgrade to the pay versions. It's still more reasonable priced than the the three above. In my opinion avg works better than the others too.

Watching my internet server stats for virus, spyware etc., there are very very few viruses any more. Its mostly spyware and other nasties. I'm using Winproxy at the server level.

On the workstations:

I use AVG anti-virus anti-spyware. And AVG anti-virus with Sunbelt Software's Couterspy. These combinations seem to work well and don't cause any sl problems.

Anyone looking for good anti-spyware, Sunbelt Software was giving away a free copies at their island site. Do a search for Sunbelt and see if they are still doing it.

And as mentioned before. Stay well away from Norton.

I have used Norton and Mcafee, and found Norton to be bloated and a hog. Mcafee was a bit better but still caused noticeable slowdowns, particularly during file activity. I have six PC's at home, and now have a great setup. On my most commonly used PC's I have Microsoft OneCare, and on my three least used I have AVG Free.

OneCare has 1) one license covers 3 PC's, 2) is NOT bloated or piggish, and 3) has caused no detectable slowdowns in games/SL.

I like AVG Free a lot too, the only issue with it is that I can't as easily control when it updates/scans etc., and it goes out of date regularly requiring a manual install of a new version.

If you want premium and stuff like automated backups and tuning, pay for OneCare.

If you want free and basic, get AVG Free with the personal free version of ZoneAlarm for a firewall (and Microsoft Defender for spyware).

I use both setups.

You should still use a software firewall, ideally one beyond the built in one in Windows (e.g., free ZoneAlarm if you don't want to pay).

Hardware firewalls protect against incoming traffic, but software firewalls protect against outgoing traffic also. A software firewall will notify you if a program is attempting to access the net, which gives you an additional layer of safety.

Exactly, I'm surprised people like it because it has to be about the most annoying, frustrating, and ultimatly useless piece of software out. The only thing worst is the built in security in Vista.

If ZA finds something it means your own practices must be flawed because as someone else said - whatever was flagged up got there through your own interaction.

An incoming firewall is fair enough as that is something trying to intrude into your system however an outgoing one is just annoying.

Firwall wise the best are hardware firewalls on internet routers. If you have a firewall on a router do not install one on the PC's - it's not needed.

As I said above - totally wrong, your own practices are at fault if you need to firewall outgoing traffic, not to mention such firwalls tend to block windows networking too.

If you have a hardware firewall turn off all software ones, your just wasting resources, and follow safe practices.

Heck, if it looks like a virus, acts like a virus, walks and talks like a virus...
while you're at it, if you're running AOL, get rid of that too.
Course, if you're stuck with windows, try 2000 instead of XP or Vista (shudders)

But yeah, "I'd avoid Norton like the plague. I use NOD32 which is very effective and easy going on system resources, I know its a popular choice among IT geeks"

I agree with what they said

its easier to use zone alarm than configure the dsl firewall, and i experience none of these performance problems either.

!!!sic

The protection offered by a "packet filter" software,
running on the machine that is to be protected,
based on a swiss cheese architecture like windows,
configured by a novice user,
is like protecting onself in a firefight with a sheet of aluminium.

The only thing worse,
and I have seen this many times in support cases,
is covering oneself under a ton of reinforced steel.

I have had so many cases of users,
wondering why their systems
were spending more time rebooting from crashes,
than actually running,
that had installed several firewall and/or antirus solution
trying to run them at the same time.

Nicely put

Zone alarm is like protecting yourself with paper, DSL firewall is like protecting yourself with 10ft of concrete.

that would be system 10 for the macintosh

ANY anti-virus program will slow your PC down to some extent, simply because there is no "free lunch" when it comes to system resources - you're asking the PC to do extra processing, so it must take more time.

I've been _told_ that NOD32 is good for fast performance.

Those of you that want to try Kaspersky but don't wish to pay for it should try AOL's Active Virus Shield. Despite the name, it's just an AOL branded version of Kaspersky and just as effective. It's available for free at http://www.activevirusshield.com/antivirus/freeav/index.adp?

i like my AVG and i'm stickin with it!

http://www.download.com/3000-2239_4-10703202.html