Best Anti-virus for XP?

[pr-man 1]

Thx

[sapiens74 0]

Norton AV 2002.

 

Easiest to use, tho cost a little more then others.

[Jerry Atrik 0]

any norton product that is compatible

im using corp 7.0 works well

symantec makes good stuff

[clutch 1]

I use McAfee Multiplatform VirusScan 4.5.1 (Corporate), though it might be hard to get for a single user.

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

McAfee single user ihave heard nothing but hporry stories. Supposedly it write s ALTO fo file to your boor sector, which cna evntually mess your comp, then u got to format.

 

i have only "heard" this, but one of my works hosts did experience this issue

 

 

So i stick with Norton, never had a virus with it in the 4 years i have used it.

[BladeRunner 0]

This is fast becomming our topic of the month as it keeps on cropping up every few weeks

 

Some people prefer McAfee others prefer Norton/Syamntec.

Others will even tell you about free antivirus software, although as far as I'm concerned I wont trust anything as important as antivirus work to anybody but the big boys.

 

At work I use Norton Antivirus Corporate 7.6 as we also use the server features, automated updates, central quarantine etc.

At homw I use Norton 2002 because Norton Corporate cannot be purchased as a single package - home user, want to purchase one copy, no option but to use the retail version.

I have never been infected with a virus as long as I've been using Norton, although I've had many caught by the realtime & e-mail scanner.

 

McAfee I will not use as there was an initial problem with it under Win2k (switching off e-mail scanning was the only solution and not a viable one as you can imagine).

For that reason I've decided which side of the fence I sit and I'll stick to it, unless this side ever lets me down of the grass on the other side starts to taste of steak!

[clutch 1]

Quote:

McAfee single user ihave heard nothing but hporry stories. Supposedly it write s ALTO fo file to your boor sector, which cna evntually mess your comp, then u got to format.

i have only "heard" this, but one of my works hosts did experience this issue


So i stick with Norton, never had a virus with it in the 4 years i have used it.

Honestly, it's truly amazing how "they" seem to have all these problems with McAfee software and "they" seem to never have a name, nor can back up anything with hard evidence. But man, "they" have the biggest mouths out there and can share their "knowledge" with everyone. I pretty much expected a huge influx of Norton fanboys coming in, but I figured I'd post anyway.

Also, you might want to check out Panda or Sophos, or just do a search on antivirus on this forum as some have posted links to different applications you might have interest in.

[Marktait 0]

I dont like the Norton AV2002 but i do really like Norton AV corporate but thats just my opinion. Norton update quite regularly too.

[BladeRunner 0]

Honestly, it's truly amazing how "they" seem to have all these problems with McAfee software and "they" seem to never have a name, nor can back up anything with hard evidence. But man, "they" have the biggest mouths out there and can share their "knowledge" with everyone. I pretty much expected a huge influx of Norton fanboys coming in, but I figured I'd post anyway

 

So it's nothing to do with the fact that we've used the software, cannot fault it and for that reason highly recommend it?

It was a pretty general question "which is the best anti virus software for XP?" a question that I cannot answer.

However I can simply give my opinions based on four years of using Norton/Syamntec products at work and even longer at home.

It's the best I can offer.

However if you feel you've got some "hard facts" as to why McAfee is the best then I'm sure we'd all love to be informed on these.

 

I'm sorry if you feel that we are "fanboys" but I always believe that if you have a good experience with some software/hardware manufaturers then you should shave that experience for all to see as nothing is better than word of mouth.

[clutch 1]

Quote:

Honestly, it's truly amazing how "they" seem to have all these problems with McAfee software and "they" seem to never have a name, nor can back up anything with hard evidence. But man, "they" have the biggest mouths out there and can share their "knowledge" with everyone. I pretty much expected a huge influx of Norton fanboys coming in, but I figured I'd post anyway

So it's nothing to do with the fact that we've used the software, cannot fault it and for that reason highly recommend it?
It was a pretty general question "which is the best anti virus software for XP?" a question that I cannot answer.
However I can simply give my opinions based on four years of using Norton/Syamntec products at work and even longer at home.
It's the best I can offer.
However if you feel you've got some "hard facts" as to why McAfee is the best then I'm sure we'd all love to be informed on these.

I'm sorry if you feel that we are "fanboys" but I always believe that if you have a good experience with some software/hardware manufaturers then you should shave that experience for all to see as nothing is better than word of mouth.

I don't think that you are quite following here, as it wasn't directed toward everyone. Did you seem whom I quoted? He stated that he "heard nothing but hporry stories" about this software, and you will see the same sentiment in other threads about this same topic. Many people are posting their distaste for a product, when all they are doing is merely repeating what someone told them about someone else's experience. If people have hard facts and good reasons why they don't like something, and could even post examples, then I am all for laying it out there. I just don't care for bashing products on foundless claims. Besides, I think you and I both know that Norton AV seems to be easier to find on w4rez sites, and that alone can make it more popular.

[Jerry Atrik 0]

from personal experience i have had a virus infect a mcafee machine (updated of course) where the norton stopped it.

[JediBaron 0]

Norton 2002 costs more?? what?? $8 a disk for a year's subscription is breaking my bank for sure

[DosFreak 2]

1. If you have a Corp ver of Norton Antivirus at work you are able to use that version at home. It's in the License. I'll scrounge up the link if ya need it.

2. Mcafee (or any other virus scanner for that matter) does not modify the MBR unless a virus modifies the MBR.

3. IMO, Norton Antivirus Corp is the best Antivirus scanner that you can buy.

4. The RETAIL ver of both Norton AV and Mcafee are TERRIBLE compared to their Corpo counterparts. If you can not get the corp versions then I recommend that you download the freeware antivirus programs off of the 'net.

5. Mcafee is easier to find on "*****" sites. Simply because as far as I know their Corporate Login/Password is still working as it always has for the past 5 years running. Using this pass you can download ALL of their AV software (why you would want to I do not know). As far as I know their is no Norton AV Corp Pass/Logon that has been leaked ever.

6. If your in the military (or if not ) you can download ALL versions of Norton/Mcafee Antivirus at www.cert.mil This is where I get all my Norton Products since I am in the military.

[pr-man 1]

Anyway to get NAV corp 7.6 to work with Outlook Express 6?

[clutch 1]

Quote:

5. Mcafee is easier to find on "*****" sites. Simply because as far as I know their Corporate Login/Password is still working as it always has for the past 5 years running. Using this pass you can download ALL of their AV software (why you would want to I do not know). As far as I know their is no Norton AV Corp Pass/Logon that has been leaked ever.

I remember what you are talking about with their old download site (4 or 5 years ago though), but I *always* see Norton AV Corp on P2P applications and newsgroups. The only time I see McAfee anything on these sites is the full "Office" ensemble (which is total $hit, like SystemsWorks from Symantec). Occasionally, I do see both retail versions, and they both suck. Hell, I get freebie disks of the home version of Norton AV constantly, but I had a few installs stall out that I couldn't repair (last year), that I decided not to waste my time on that anymore either. The last bit of anything from Symantec that I have respect for is Ghost, but I have PowerQuest Deploy Center instead.

[CheekyMonkey 0]

I have personally used both and have NEVER had a problem with Mcafee. Norton did not function as well. I have never been infected while using McAfee and have watched it catch stuff coming by way of am email. McAfee is updated as often as Norton is, so those that think Symantec is ahead of the game are mistaken. I also get updateds beyond a year without having to pay more money. Though $8 or whatever it is that they charge would not break me, there is a principle to the whole thing. I already paid for the product once, I refuse to keep paying yearly to make sure it still does the job it said it would do when I purchased it.

 

McAfee has also been the aplication of choice in every corporate environment I have been in. So, they must be doing something right.

[Davros 0]

Hey Clutch, I didn't know you were a P2P-er!

 

Anyway, at my old job they had a virus get through some machines. The ones with McAfee or PC-Cillin got infected, but the ones with Norton were fine. I'm not saying Norton is infallible or anything, that was just one experience where it was able to protect better.

 

Also, I remember one UNinstall of Norton that went bad. It wiped EVERYTHING in the Program Files folder EXCEPT for the Norton AV folder! That was about 4 years ago and I've never seen it another time.

 

I think one of the best ways to measure antivirus effectiveness is to find out which is better at stopping unknown viruses. I remember some articles late last year where Norton was slightly ahead of McAfee there, but that was a while ago, and it was only one study. Still, your personal preference will win out in deciding which to use, and if you implement it properly you shouldn't have any trouble.

 

Does anyone have any experiences with antivirus software OTHER than Norton/McAfee? I remember iRiS AV, it was bundled with Packard Bells for a while. Needless to say, it sucked as hard as the computer it resided on.

[clutch 1]

Quote:

Hey Clutch, I didn't know you were a P2P-er!

I've been at this game for quite a while, and you could say that I have dabbled here and there...

[Admiral LSD 0]

Quote:

Does anyone have any experiences with antivirus software OTHER than Norton/McAfee?

Before they completely terminated the program I used the free Personal Edition of InoculateIT and that was reasonably effective. They're refusal to update the core engine (they terminated the program a while back but kept providing updates until April this year) meant it had a few XP issues (it's real-time module wouldn't work, no matter how much compatibility BS I tried, because as far as it was concerned XP was an "unknown operating system") but other than that it was fine.

My folks machine came with Norton (I forget the actual version though) but their shitty subscription service meant that when we need it most (My dad had managed to get the machine riddled with that Anna Kournkova thing) we couldn't get the update so I uninstalled it and went looking for something else. That was how I found out about InoculateIT, my uncle suggested it.

After the InoculateIT PE program ended, my parents signed up for an email scanning system maintained by our ISP and that seems to be quite effective. I'd still like some protection on their machine proper though and for, given my experience with InoculateIT PE in the past, I'd choose MyETrust which is basically the paid version of InoculateIT PE.

[sapiens74 0]

I meant Norton retail compared with other AV that are pretty cheap nowadays

[Sampson 0]

Clutch asked for experience. In my experience the worse virus was one that did not come through the network but the one sitting on the other side of the keyboard. In the corporate world this was the cowboy who had a home computer and pulled some stunt and tried the same thing on the company computer. For those whose home computers I have worked on, because they had "anti-virus" protection on their machine, they thought they were impervious and would do stupid things that no anti-virus software could protect them from.

 

Corporate environment

McAfee corporate - you do have to be clever to distribute it or you can have some real problems. When you take over as a system administrator, it is generally a system you didn't put together. It takes months to track down the bugs and sometimes they were nothing other than design flaws due to budget restraints. If the system is done right, McAfee will work its "wonders." Its little shield is a pretty good metaphor when it is working right. But, and this isn't McAfee's fault, when the system is flakey, McAfee is not your friend.

 

Norton's corporate edition is a lot easier to distribute and seems to be more forgiving, but it also leaves you a lot more vulnerable to some who know just enough to get the system in trouble. Also, Norton seems to want its own firewall.

 

Both corporate versions seem to suffer from apocalyptic stories, the famous "they", but sometimes you don't have the choice about what was installed before you got there so a working knowledge of either is still important.

 

Home versions

In my experience both Norton's and McAfee suffer from the same thing - they put hooks in their versions for their other products - hooks that do cause unnecessary headaches. I don't like the way McAfee uses the registry as if it is its own personal version of SimCity. I don't like Norton's desire to insinuate its .dll's and run its version of "Windows" over that of Microsoft. I always found McAfee's update easier and when you go into pay for Norton's yearly subscription, it is remarkably difficult for some new users as compared to the liveupdate they had been accustomed to.

 

Most home users get used to the software that was planted on their machines when they got it. Many of them think of their anti-virus as actually part of the operating system. Once they've paid for it, they should never have to pay again - "it came with the system."

 

I used to put InoculateIT on new PC's because it was free and it's updates were easy, and it did as good a job as most. However, the free version did not protect email. Then, CAI quit supporting it.

 

I put AVG on home machines because it is free, it protects you from viruses through email or from disks, it is very good with its updates and while an ugly interface, for whatever reason, for new users, it is simple to use. I don't know why some home users think that software ought to be free or that they can trade programs like baseball cards. They just do. When Nortons or McAfee legitimately request fees for further services, some become incensed uninstall the products (no mean feat the way either insintuate themselves into a system) or get pirated versions. Or worse, come back to you and want the latest and greatest if you built their machine because it was on there when they got it. I have looked at Pc-cillin, Sophos, Dr. Solomon, F-Prot (which I found kind of neat) - but you can't beat free and effective.

 

I do like TrendMicro's housecall as a quick scan over the net when a user has opened an email and didn't have virus protection. It is not infallible, but sometimes it is all you have for a paniced user.

 

Bottom line: To me it depends upon the sector you're working in. Anyway you try to get around it, familiarity with a product may be just as important as the product itself - all things being equal.

[clutch 1]

Perfect. Now *this* is useful information! Several people have now posted their own experiences with the various software packages, rather than merely repeating what he/she has heard from others. So many of these rumors (yep, that's what many of them are) get so exaggerated that they serve no other purpose than to simply propogate themselves further. I mean honestly, would anyone want the opinion of someone on a given item when he/she has never even used it? At least Mr. Guvernment did preface part of his post stating that he heard some of it, so that does let the reader know. But in other cases, persons have declared that a given product is horrible only to find out later that it was a really old version still being used and/or it was improperly installed/configured. Opinions can be valuble, but all I ask is that they be somewhat based in fact.

[Admiral LSD 0]

Quote:

However, the free version did not protect email

Actually, thats not quite true. It depends largely on your email client and how it handles attachments. Given that Netscape Messenger and Outlook Express (and probably others, including the complete Outlook) download mail and attachments into encoded container files then InoculateIT Real-Time Protection can't scan them. Opera's built in email client however downloads messages and attachments seperately and stores them on the disk as such meaning the Real-Time Protection can scan them. Of course, this information is only helpful if you use Opera or another email client that behaves the same way...

[Immortal 0]

Why is iy always me who brings up the name Sophos? has anyone even bothered to try Sophos Sweep for NT? Its damn good. It automatically detects the viruses via the IC monitor, and leaves it to you to do what you want with it!!! Pretty good, if you keep the files up to date and surf the net alot (like me!!!). others arent bad, but my experiance with Sophos makes me recommend it to anyone!!!

[Sampson 0]

"Opera's built in email client however downloads messages and attachments seperately and stores them on the disk as such meaning the Real-Time Protection can scan them. Of course, this information is only helpful if you use Opera or another email client that behaves the same way..." ... and you want to continue to use a piece of software that is now extinct.