A good antivirus?

[Pyritie]

If your anti-virus don't give false positives then it isn't good enough.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I combine them, which is even better.

The way you said it sounds like you rely on it

 

[The Reborn Devil]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

If your anti-virus don't give false positives then there are 3 possibilities:
1. You don't have any files on your computer which are similar to viruses.
2. Your anti-virus can't find them. I.e. it's not good enough.
3. Your anti-virus got a huge list of exceptions in it.

 

[Pyritie]

If your anti-virus don't give false positives then there are 3 possibilities:
1. You don't have any files on your computer which are similar to viruses.
2. Your anti-virus can't find them. I.e. it's not good enough.
3. Your anti-virus got a huge list of exceptions in it.

You really don't know what a false positive is, do you?

 

[The Reborn Devil]

You really don't know what a false positive is, do you?

The anti-virus thinks it's a virus, but it ain't. I.e. a false positive.

 

[Pyritie]

Yeah, in case you haven't noticed, that's a bad thing.

 

[The Reborn Devil]

Ye, I know, but unless you got a load of exceptions in your anti-virus you're bound to get some. Currently there are no anti-virus programs which don't give false positives. Why? Because it's almost impossible and doing scans would then take many hours.

 

[Pyritie]

The fewer false positives, the better. And norton gives out craploads whereas better antivirs don't.

 

[The Reborn Devil]

I've only gotten a few false positives with Norton, but Norton finds so many things its hard to find which are harmful and which are not. I'd rather have many false positives and no viruses on my computer than no false positives and one or more viruses on my computer.

 

[Pyritie]

You're making it sound like those are the only options. Which they aren't.

 

[robot-dude]

AVG
Avast!
Bitdefender
kaspersky

 

[The Reborn Devil]

You're making it sound like those are the only options. Which they aren't.

Currently they are the only options unless you add tons of exceptions in your anti-virus, and if you don't want that then you need to wait until someone makes an anti-virus which got an awesome AI, so it can understand whether a file is indeed dangerous or not and not only look at how it works and choose from there.

 

[Pyritie]

No no no, you don't get it.

These are the options:
- lots of false positives, no viruses
- few false positives, no viruses
- lots of false positives, viruses
- few false positives, viruses

The first one is too aggressive.
The second one is ideal and yes there are antivirs which do that. (Norton is not one of them.)
The third one is obviously crap.
And the fourth is too passive.

 

[The Reborn Devil]

ask anyone skilled and he will tell you why Norton sucks (with the fact that it's payed >.>)

The only things I've heard is that Norton uses too much RAM and CPU which is not correct if you use Norton 2009 or 2010 (can't remember) and that others are better without giving a good reason for why they are better and what they are better in and that Norton is just a virus and is impossible to uninstall which, of course, is not true if you use Norton Internet Security/Norton Anti-Virus 2006 or above (I don't know about the others) and you have actually bought it. I've also heard some things about Norton giving more false positives, but I have compared anti-virus programs with Norton and Norton gives less false positives, it uses less RAM and CPU, it's easier to configure and it protects against more viruses and when I do scans with Norton I can actually play Crysis without getting a drop in fps. Also, I think there's a reason for why you almost always get Norton when you buy new computers or new motherboards and/or other other parts and why Microsoft actually recommends it.

No no no, you don't get it.

These are the options:
- lots of false positives, no viruses
- few false positives, no viruses
- lots of false positives, viruses
- few false positives, viruses

The first one is too aggressive.
The second one is ideal and yes there are antivirs which do that. (Norton is not one of them.)
The third one is obviously crap.
And the fourth is too passive.

For me Norton is alternative 2. Why? Because I've bought it (it came with my ASUS motherboard) and it's Norton Internet Security 2009/2010 (can't remember and too lazy to check )

Edit: I would say that AVG fits as the last one and that Trend Micro (at least the one I have on my school laptop) fits as the third altenative.

 

[PurplePoot]

My solution: Don't run any antivirus, don't be stupid, don't get viruses. I don't spend that much time on Windows though.

 

[The Reborn Devil]

My solution: Don't run any antivirus, don't be stupid, don't get viruses. I don't spend that much time on Windows though.

The best solution is to get Linux
No viruses whatsoever
But then I can't play my favourite games

 

[Pyritie]

Or just run windows server - that's what I'm doing

(also, microsoft security essentials is surprisingly good)

 

[robot-dude]

Norton is a pile of wank, Trend Micro's a good antiVirus. Used to install it onto Servers

 

[vishner]

I highly recommend Avast, the new version which is 5.0.418 which is free does most of the job well. It also has a silent/gaming mode that relieves you from annoying popups, plus, it has no prompt like to what some other antivirus has when it detects a virus. (some anti-virus even allows you to ignore a virus and let it run, at least Avast automatically sends it in the virus vault in case you want to clean it yourself.