Anti Virus Programs

[Juan Cortez]

I am looking into upgrading my security programs, and just wanted to know what virus programs do you use and which one do you think is the best? I am looking in to Norton Internet Security 2005 and Norton System works 2005 premier, also what about Panda and Kaspersky, I am currently running Norton.

Thanks

Jay

[Kevin P]

Norton Internet Security 2005 is slow and bloated and slows down all but the fastest PCs. It is also the only brand of security application with an activation scheme (similar to Windows XP). For those reasons, I no longer recommend it.

I'm not big on McAfee either. Although its detection performance is quite high, it tends to be clunky to keep up to date, and it has an annoying spyware-like "security center".

Kaspersky Anti-Virus (KAV) is tops in terms of detection performance, especially for trojans. If you're not a high-risk user who downloads stuff from questionable sites, KAV might be overkill. A nice fast lightweight AV app which I use is Eset's NOD32 (www.nod32.com). Computer Associates' eTrust is also pretty good.

[Juan Cortez]

Thanks Kevin I will try out the nod 32 program.

I have another question. Is it possible to run multiple anti virus programs or will they interfere with each other?

[Kevin P]

Juan you need to be careful with using more than one anti virus program on the same computer. At the very least only one should be running resident (real-time protection), and the others used only as on-demand scanners. Also, it's best to disable the real-time protection when running scans with one of the other scanners, to avoid conflicts and slowdowns.

BTW, most AV vendors provide 30 day trial editions that you can download on their website, so this is a good way to evaluate a product before you invest money into it. Just make sure to fully uninstall one trial before loading another.

[Juan Cortez]

Thanks Kevin

I am trying out NOD 32 and so far I like it. I disabled my Norton Anti Virus Auto protect and the sp2 security center doesn't reconize the NOD 32, but on top of that the Norton keeps opening a pop up window telling me to turn it back on. Can I leave the Norton on or should it be disabled? I also have Norton system works and Norton Internet security so I can't delete the program unless I remove those 2 programs which I use. Is there a way around this?

Thanks again

Jay