honestly, how good is AVG free antivirus?

[Freudian]

I can send you a bunch of files your precious Norton will tell you is kosher. Want to run them?

Btw, neither NOD32 or Avast are free.

Anyway, it is pointless discussing since people are so brand loyal that they simply refuse to admit that there are better options out there.

[garyg1]

Has absolutely nothing in the least to do with brand loyalty, 100% with experience in the field. Always testing, always looking for something better, wouldn't hestitate to change in a heartbeat, simply just haven't found anything better yet and I have tested every program listed in this thread for virus and spyware tools. I do this for a living, not a hobby or as a computer enthusiast. I have to use what gets the job done and lets me get on to the next job to make more money. Norton fills that bill, not perfectly, but far better than any competitor.

[Freudian]

Then your scans will miss a lot of new stuff and take ages to do compared to the others. But I don't care. Use whatever keeps you happy.

I know I will never use Norton again. Way too many viruses were able to find their way into my system without a warning from it. Of course I know I probably have different demands from many others since I willingly open a lot of files that could be infected. Thats why I need to have an antivirus with advanced heuristics that will catch a lot of stuff that hasn't made it into any definitions yet. With NOD32, Kerio firewall and ProcessGuard I have dodged a lot of bullets I wouldn't have with a full set of Norton products. In fact I would have a trojan/keylogger on my computer right now since a file I downloaded yesterday had one in it that Norton can't detect.

In fact I will keep this file and test to see how long it takes Norton to catch it.

[AngryCola]

[ QUOTE ]
100% with experience in the field.

[/ QUOTE ]

You keep pointing this out as if it validates your opinions.
It doesn't, and you're still a bit off.

[garyg1]

Sorry it doesn't validate it for you but I am sure many of those who read this information and who don't really have any knowledge of computers or virus's are glad to know that the facts I present here (not opinions) don't come from just one guy sitting in front of his one computer who may never run into a serious virus problem and therefore thinks his program is just great. I do at least 4 service calls a day which translates to over 1000 computers serviced per year, if the facts I present based on that much experience doesn't hold more weight than a single user at home computer guy basing his opinion on his very limited experience, then nothing would be a validation for you. With probably close to 100,000 known virus's out there and more coming out each day, no program is going to be perfect and be able to stay ahead of new viruses every day of the year. One of the messages on this thread say NOD32 is the best there is. I tried it on three different computers that I knew had viruses from the way they were behaving and NOD32 found nothing on any of the three. Installed Norton and it found the virus's and fixed them or gave me the name of the virus so I could get instruction off their web site to manually fix them. This is fact, not opinion. You may get a virus in your computer that Norton wouldn't find but NOD32 would. It is going to happen. None are perfect. So all I can say is that for one particular virus or one family of viruses one program may be better than another for virus protection, but again in my experience in the over all scheme of the big computer world out there, I have found only Norton reliable enough to find and fight off the broad range of virus's in the thousands of computers I have fixed through the years. My job would be a lot harder and nearly impossible on some repairs without it as my main virus tool.

[Jeremy517]

Independant comparisions have shown that Kaspersky (http://www.kaspersky.com) detects more than Norton does, and is far quicker than Norton at detecting new viruses.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/ for comparisons.

[Freudian]

[ QUOTE ]
Independant comparisions have shown that Kaspersky (
http://www.kaspersky.com/) detects more than Norton does, and is far quicker than Norton at detecting new viruses.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/ for comparisons.

[/ QUOTE ]

Those comparatives are a bit useless since they test on a gazillion of very old viruses. How quick the programs are to catch new viruses is more important. Of course if the program misses a tonne of the old ones you should ditch it, but most shouldn't.

[Jeremy517]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Independant comparisions have shown that Kaspersky (
http://www.kaspersky.com/) detects more than Norton does, and is far quicker than Norton at detecting new viruses.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/ for comparisons.

[/ QUOTE ]

Those comparatives are a bit useless since they test on a gazillion of very old viruses. How quick the programs are to catch new viruses is more important. Of course if the program misses a tonne of the old ones you should ditch it, but most shouldn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you look, they do comparisons of how fast they catch new viruses also (in which Norton is quite pathetic). They also will give you percentages if you don't factor in old/DOS viruses.

[Freudian]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Independant comparisions have shown that Kaspersky (
http://www.kaspersky.com/) detects more than Norton does, and is far quicker than Norton at detecting new viruses.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/ for comparisons.

[/ QUOTE ]

Those comparatives are a bit useless since they test on a gazillion of very old viruses. How quick the programs are to catch new viruses is more important. Of course if the program misses a tonne of the old ones you should ditch it, but most shouldn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you look, they do comparisons of how fast they catch new viruses also (in which Norton is quite pathetic). They also will give you percentages if you don't factor in old/DOS viruses.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll check it out more. I just looked at the insane number of viruses 400k+ they had in their table.

Found it. Just shows what use heuristics have. Supposedly McAfee has a new program with great heuristics coming out and they are starting with daily updates also. I think we will see some good competition when it comes to antivirus programs.

[J_B]

[ QUOTE ]
Wow. I mean. Wow.

AVG is excellent (although the Interface is worse since the new version came out) and is so much better than Norton or McAfee it's untrue. Norton in particular is a pile of shít.

I used to fix PCs for a living and recall going to one office where they had Norton installed and had managed to get their PCs virus ridden, probably because they hadn't being doing the updates but nonetheless, I tried to fix one PC using Norton, it just deleted a load of vital system files which were infected and meant I had to do a reformat. The next PC I installed AVG, fixed the lot in one scan, no reinstall required, cleaned the files didn't delete them.

Norton is absolute bollocks, AVG is all you need, I've used it for years and never got a virus.



[ QUOTE ]
My post isn't about Norton, it's about AVG being total and utter crap. Have a look at the table, it's not just old worms they're missing. AVG doesn't come close to any paid virus software on the market. Period.


[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

I second that. I've been in the idustry for a long time. AVG is great - especially for the price. Kaspersky is by far the best. PC-Cillin has come a long way too.

Norton & McCrappy are piles of [censored]. McCrappy is a resource hog and Norton just crashes.

Never had any problems with AVG.

Ohh, and AVG may not be the best for Malware, but Malware isn't eactly a virus. Quit going to porn sites and you'll probably solve most of your problems.