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antivirus is so last century... i don't even bother nowadays..

Locking it down to 32-bit Windows is a pretty big fail. I'm not sure what the current numbers are but it feels like we're at a tipping point now with the majority of new computers being sold with 4GB+ of RAM and 64-bit Windows. To not support 64-bit is very quickly becoming a bad business practice.

By the way, I also tried to install Panda on 32-bit Windows 7 and it wouldn't let me. So it's 32-bit XP and Vista only. I hope these guys get their act together soon because they only have 6 month's or so before most new computers come pre-installed with Windows 7 64-bit.

Also, I have dual monitors and the Panda installer kept trying to straddle in the center of the monitors with half the installer displaying on one screen and half on the other. Weird, and a very bad first impression. I don't think I'll be entrusting the health of my machine to Panda in the future.

Stimshady: Remind me to never accept any files from you. ;)

Anti-virus software will become obsolete when viruses become obsolete. In the meantime, it's best to use one that is effective and low-impact, like Avast or NOD32.

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If the 64-bit kernel won't let you intrude the way you need to intrude,, and the APIs MS provides to the AV crowd aren't sufficient, you can't do 64 bit.

I doubt 32-bit only was a voluntary decision.

So the business model implicitly or explicitly includes "we won't be doing this for long".

anti-virus becomes obsolete when users become responsible with their browsing and computing habits. Having hardware and software firewalls, keeping your computer up to date, keeping UAC enabled, running everything you download through online scanners, staying off shady websites, and being aware of tactics used by malicious software/websites... easily keeps you far safer than an irresponsible user who relies completely on an AV app while romping around porn and warez sites clicking yes on every dialog that pops up.

planetarian: exactly.

planetarian: It's no longer necessary to go to the dark corners of the internet to become infected with a virus. All it takes these days is a zero-day exploit in an image parser and you get infected by simply viewing an image on a "safe site." Just as having an AV installed does not guarantee safety, neither does good behavior - but a combination of the two is your best bet in my opinion.

Confession Time: I don't use anti-virus software either.

I do keep UAC running, use pop-up blockers, keep Windows Defender up-to-date, and watch (very closely) where I browse.  I'll use a web-based scanner to check for viruses from time to time, but literally haven't had a virus in years.

Ken --

Are AV products better than they used to be?  I got turned off to them because they were (historically) complete system hogs.  Norton was especially bad!  As a sys-admin, I spent more time fixing issues with the AV software than dealing with viruses.

Are they less system intensive than they were in the past?  If so, which ones seem to be the least taxing?

yipcanjo: Personally, I use Avast 4.8 and notice absolutely no negative impact on my system's performance. To be fair, it's a quad-core machine with 8GB of RAM so it has a lot of resources.

I've actually spent a fair amount of time testing out various AV products in the past year and based on low-system impact and AV performance I would recommend the following in order of preference: Avast, NOD32, BitDefender, Anti-Vir and AVG.

I also highly recommend the AV Comparitives website, http://www.av-comparatives.org, if you want to get a detailed comparison of all the AV products. This is from an anti-virus perspective only and doesn't discuss how resource-intensive they are.

Also, I hear good things about Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gamer Edition. It initially sounded like a gimmick to me but a person I trust says it's actually fantastic so I'll check it out this week.

Thanks, Ken.  I'm still not sure that I want to install an anti-virus app on my box again, but I'm always getting asked for recommendations! :)

17 MB of Ram and it runs from cloud?!

Comodo is 64-bit, uses an average of 7-10MB of RAM in idle and is free...... first in industry? may be the cloud bit, or they have been in their own hole for too long.

@kenmcnamee

Perhaps you should try Comodo Internet Security. I have the same specs as you mentioned above and this anti-malware and firewall has kept me relatively safe. I, too, have tried many AVs but they are either not very satisfactory or have one or two features for paid users only. I hate that.

Darmax, thanks for the tip about Comodo. I'll check it out.

" To not support 64-bit is very quickly becoming a bad business practice"

It also means it won't be Certified for Windows Vista.  FAIL!

"it's best to use one that is effective and low-impact, like Avast or NOD32."

If you actually look at AV-Comparatives (the site that rated OneCare badly), OneCare has moved up while NOD32 has moved down.  NOD32 has not been as good at detecting new virus samples as it was when the news about OneCare was released.

Avast is usually higher ranked than AVG though, but it's surprising that people would choose AVG over it.

"If the 64-bit kernel won't let you intrude the way you need to intrude,, and the APIs MS provides to the AV crowd aren't sufficient, you can't do 64 bit."

Kernel PatchGuard was eliminated in Vista SP1, so it's a non issue.  Panda still = EPIC FAIL!

"I hear good things about Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gamer Edition"

The regular Norton Antivirus 2009 product is quite good also.  All of the 2009 products are a huge improvement over their predecessors, although with the exception of Norton 360 3.0 (that's the "2009" version of 360) running on XP or possibly Vista, I'd have to say that looking forward, Windows 7 has the Action Center but no AV software.  All you'd need is either Morro or a basic AV software (I would say that Norton AV 2009 isn't bad).  The non-security features are handled by Windows 7, and to a less-convenient degree, so does Windows Vista (it's not centrally manageable though).  XP still needs auto-defrag, backup, and tune-up capabilities, but there are a lot of features that Norton 360 & Internet Security offers that can be fairly annoying and unnecessary.

First, you have the anti-phishing toolbar - just what everybody needs: another browser toolbar.  :p

Then you have a firewall which isn't necessary now that Windows XP SP2 included a two-way firewall.

You also have anti-spam features, which aren't necessary since most email programs already do that.

OneCare got it right though (Thanks Mike!):  Don't overlap functionality that Windows or Microsoft software already provides.

Norton 360 does cover the non-security stuff that OneCare also did though.  Windows Vista users will find the auto-defrag, backup, and tuneup functionality centralized in Norton 360 too, even if 360 has the above unrequired components.  All of the added functionality in Norton Internet Security over the regular AV 2009 is completely unnecessary though, since Microsoft already provides it in Windows, or in the case of Parental Controls, free online with WL Family Safety.

So to summarize:

Morro:  will be very welcome here on Windows 7 and for advanced users on Vista

Norton AV 2009:  a good alternative that's easy to use and fast, both on Windows 7 and for advanced users on Vista

Norton AV 2009 Gamer:  for gamers on Vista or 7

Norton 360 3.0:  for most users on XP that want the same kind of easy auto-maintenance that Vista and 7 provide in-box, OR for Vista users that want centralized management of those features (as long as they don't mind the extra annoyances as described above)

Norton Internet Security:  not worth the money

@ken, darkmax:

Norton AV 2009 takes up very little RAM now too.  Symantec says it's about 6MB with only 2 running processes.

Gaming Edition reduces the footprint, and turns off on-screen notifications that can corrupt 3D gameplay.

My suggestion:  give AV 2009 a try in a VM.  You'll be surprised by how fast it installs and how well it performs.

@Waethorn

I will try to stay away from Norton. It is notoriously infamous for leaving a load of registry behind after you uninstall. And it cannot be easily remove unless you use their remover.

@kenmcnamee

Comodo Internet Security will be a bit annoying initially but once it learns your habit, it will be very quiet.

Waethorn: Ok, now that's two people that are recommending Norton 2009 to me. I'll download the trial this week, see if it is Win7 friendly and leave it on my system as an on-demand scanner while Avast is my always on scanner.

The fact that NOD32 has taken a hit in the AV Comparitives tests while others have moved up reminds me why I never buy AV software in anything more than a 1-year license. I like to use whatever gets an Advanced or Advanced+ rating while still being non-resource intensive and that really changes from year to year. In the past 5 years I've probably used a different AV product every year.

Ken - save your cash for 1 year, and then check your PC after that year for viruses (if you rebuild throughout the year, then do that too, just act like normal but without the AV)... unless you are a newbie (which you're obviously not) then i bet you won't have a virus after the 365 days... surely you HAVE to do this as part of your 'testing' - you need a control, eh?

Norton is still a big, slow system resource hog. So is McAfee.

Some of the other full-featured programs like Kaspersky do a better job of managing resources, but can also be very intrusive if you use the security suite. Testing out Kaspersky on Vista often required no less than 10 clicks to accept various things when I installed or updated software. Ridiculous, even with configuration changes that the average user won't do.

I actually have always like OneCare, though they will be discontinuing that. I never felt like it got in the way or hogged resources. Perhaps their upcoming free offering (codename: Morro) will be as good.

I also like the free AVG personal antivirus. It makes a good combination with Windows Firewall and Defender, UAC, and good browsing/email practices. AVG is not intrusive and not resource-hogging.

So yes, there are good solutions out there.

For some of us (those that understand and practice safe browsing), maybe AV isn't as important. But how will you feel if one slips through?

For the average consumer, though, it is more important. You just can't expect to educate everyone successfully about good practices.

"It is notoriously infamous for leaving a load of registry behind after you uninstall."

That was older versions.  2006 was brutal for that.  That's no longer the case though, just like with the performance.

Until I actually tried 2009, I wouldn't have recommended it either.

@ken:

Tip:  don't run 2 antiviruses at the same time.  When your on-demand scanner picks up something that your on-access scanner didn't, the on-access scanner will likely kick into overdrive and interfere with the on-demand scanners attempt to clean it.  Use safe online habits first, then pick one and only use it.

Norton will tell you that there are conflicting programs anyway, just like OneCare does.

"Norton is still a big, slow system resource hog. So is McAfee"

Sorry but that's not accurate.

Norton is getting better, while McAfee is getting worse.  McAfee is now where Norton was 3 years ago.  Norton is now where OneCare is, performance-wise.  Installation time-wise, Norton is better.  

Norton 2009 doesn't have the issue that OneCare does, where OneCare can suddenly, and for no reason, spike the CPU to a continual 100% usage after an update.  The culprit is MSMPENG.EXE, which is the "Microsoft Malware Protection Engine".  That same engine is also used in Windows Defender and the Forefront Client Security agent software.  The CPU usage problem only occurs on OneCare though, and there's no solution except to completely remove and reinstall OneCare.  Microsoft doesn't even know what causes the problem because it happens at odd intervals during their updates.

@mikegalos, if you're watching:  Do you have any response to that problem?  Have you ever witnessed that problem first-hand?

That's happened to me 4 times since OneCare was released.  Aside from that problem, I would still recommend it.  Unfortunately with stock in the channel drying up WAAAY too early, I have to look at alternatives until Morro is released.  Norton will probably fill that gap.  I absolutely recommend the Gaming Edition to gamers though.

stimshady: "save your cash for 1 year, and then check your PC after that year for viruses"

Maybe you're willing to take that chance with your personal information and files but I'm not. In any case, I don't need to wait a year to see if I've gotten infected since I've already received virus-infected files a number of times over the years which could have comprimised my system.

Waethorn: "don't run 2 antiviruses at the same time"

I've been using various 2-AV combinations of Avast, AVG, AntiVir, NOD32 and BitDefender for the past several years and never had a problem using one always-on AV and one on-demand scanner. In my opinion, one aspect of the "low system impact" requirement for an AV product is that it plays nice with other security products. If Norton is not able to handle that scenario then that crosses it off my list since I don't believe in relying on only one method of security.

I practice good security behavior and use multiple AVs so that I can get a "second opinion" on risky files which gives me better virus coverage. No AV product can protect you against all viruses but multiple AVs can come pretty close.

"Wah-wah-waaaaaahhh.... FAIL."

So unprofessional. Like that other post a while ago that was ridiculed across the blogosphere. The one with the "Hahahahahaha".

@ken:

Why not just use an online web scanner as your on-demand one?  That way you don't have the requirement of actually installing a second AV?

Every major AV company has a web-based scanner.  Many even do cleanups (some don't).

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I'd like to add my opinion that AVG free should be avoided at all costs. Every single machine I've had to perform a virus clean up on, has had AVG free edition, fully up to date, and it was oblivious to any infection.

Waethorn:

"OneCare got it right though (Thanks Mike!):  "

On behalf of the team, you're welcome.

.

Waethorn:

"@mikegalos, if you're watching:  Do you have any response to that problem?  Have you ever witnessed that problem first-hand?"

Send me some mail and I'll see what I can find out for you.

robertsjoe: you are a ***.

dammit, my comment got autoblocked! well, it said a male chicken.

gorath: You're right about AVG. It used to be decent back in the 6.x and 7.x days but I haven't been too impressed with 8.0. As far as free AV, AntiVir is the best option I think. The only problem I have with it is a single annoying window that it pops up once per day when it does an update.

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@mike:

It seems to be a common problem.  Just use the search terms:

msmpeng.exe +cpu

It doesn't happen to everybody.  Some people blame the updates.  I have no idea what causes it though.

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