What is the best recommended AV to use?

I was not sure where to put this, but after starting all over from scratch and reading over the lastest AV reports. What really is the best Av to use. MSE was not even ranked in the top 5 and test result were poor to the lasted testings.

Avast was In the top 5 but I have already ran into trouble with it due to it blocking a lot of my access to websites, so I had to uninstall it in order to register my software.

When I use to hang here it was AVG, but Z recommended MSE and was using that till I ran into trouble with it when using the 32 bit version of it.

So what do you think.

Jimbo

Well there are many, many opinions on this subject.  I am presently using MSE on my Windows system, but used to use Avast religiously.  Not to take anything away from Avast by any means but I have been having quite a few problems with installing it and then it blocks sites or keeps me from the internet at all.  I am hoping that some of these bugs get worked out and can go back to Avast.  

For the time being I am actually getting ready to test out Panda Cloud Antivirus and see how that goes.  As it is, I only use free antivirus programs so I don't take into account results comparing paid with free solutions.  Maybe this helps?

Yes for the time I am going to go back to MSE, I was using it when I was running 32 bit version. But when a bud showed me latest test result I went to Avast but as I said I was getting slammed and causing me problems of not letting many of my software to connect to website to register my software I had to un-install it. Disabling it was not helping.

I will check back of other suggestions to this post and other views.

Thanks Jimbo

Hi Jimbo. nice to see you again…. I'm currently on vacation, but managed to jump on a free wifi signal……

I have read all the reports on the anti virus trials and the league tables that have been produced….. nothing that I've seen so far has persuaded me to move away from MSE for all my machines…. however as always its a personal decision and I know many folks have strong views either for or against certain AV protections.

I like the simplicity of MSE and the fact that it works in the background and " just gets on with things" without a constant barrage of warnings and requests for me to decide if a service or file should be allowed or denied…. I have used it since its inception with no problems at all..

Against it, is it's position in the league tables……. but whether or not you think that these league tables and results measured against  certain virus like code or behaviour, reflect a true life situation is a more difficult question….. my own feeling is that they leave much to be desired…. but I doubt very much that I could come up with anything that would be a great improvement on the tests without extra layers of complexity that might just confuse folks even more!

All best

paws… 

FYI…

Virus Bulletin: VB100 > RAP averages Aug 2013 - Feb 2014
> http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/rap-index.xml
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AV-Comparatives latest graphic: http://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php
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AV-TEST…
- http://www.av-test.org/en/statistics/malware/
"… over 220,000 new malicious programs every day…"
16 June2014 (… over 220 million total)

- http://www.av-test.org/en/home/
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… so there you go. 'Hope that helps is making good choices.
 

I'm not sure if I should start a new topic or if it's ok to add to this thread since what I have to say is very similar to what's being discussed. If it doesn't belong here just let me know.

I have "Webroot Secure Anywhere" installed on my pc. What I find disconcerting is that when looking at the top ten rankings from PC ANTIVIRUS REVIEWS and even the 30 odd programs tested on AVTEST, it doesn't even get a look-in. Even more grating is the fact that it's very expensive.

I had to go to the August 2013 test on AVTEST to find Webroot there and what I found confusing is that rated poorly on protection but strong on performance _ I thought performance was related to protection. If not, what performance are they testing?

I would appreciate any thoughts on that.

The thing to remember about any AV comparison tests is that they are usually not really very objective, and in most cases are a great deal more subjective. In other words, they are generally not a good indicator of real life performance. Not because they're not trying to be, but because of the many limitations in any testing process that's being used.

In any case, your Browsing behaviour has much more influence on your likelihood of contracting an infection than your choice of AV ever will.

Generally speaking, all the major AV producers products do a pretty good job, but all of them have limitations, and none of them are perfect.

If you're looking for "total" online protection, then you're never going to find it, because it doesn't exist. Anti-Virus, Anti-Malware, Anti-Rootkit, and all the other various named products do a very good job in making it more difficult for you to get infected, but if you think that having them installed gives you carte blanche to browse irresponsibly secure in the knowledge that you can't get infected, then think again.

I've been working various Malware help forums for approx the last 10 years, and in that time I've seen infections on computers with just about every AV known to man, and in almost every case, the reason the computer got infected was not because of the limitations of the particular AV installed, but because the particular computer user did not take sufficient care when browsing the internet.

So if you want to be more secure, don't look to change your AV, look to improve your browsing habits, the payback will be a lot more noticeable.

Thanks for the input, Gary R. I'm still puzzled, though, at how a product which ranked at or near the top of the rankings 18 months ago (the reason I bought it) is not even a contender in the latest tests. But it's possible they chose not to participate.

Without looking at the specific tests run it's difficult to say, but usually it's just because they've changed the "bench marks" that each AV program is tested against.

You've got to understand that none of these comparison tests is truly objective, and that the order of the results is almost always due to the particular subset of infections that the programs in question have been subject to.

There are literally millions of infections and infection variants at loose on the web, and it is impossible to test a program or programs against them all, so the testers select what they hope is a representative selection of infections, and subject the programs being tested to them. That selection will change over time, and the results will change accordingly.

Of course you've no idea how each program would perform against a different "representative" selection, so as I said, the tests cannot ever be thought of as objective, they're just a set of tests, and you can take from them what you will.

And then again, there's the matter of "influence", you don't really know how unbiased the tests are, and especially how impartial the testers are. There's a lot of money made from selling AVs, and it would be naive to believe that all comparison tests are free from commercial "persuasion".