Anyone have a recommendation for an antivirus for a small business? About 50 clients, with a centrally managed server? We've been using Norton, but I really don't want to give those jokers any more money.

EZ Armor/eTrust Internet Security is pretty good too. And I think it's FAR this week at Staples.

Quick question about the AVG free program:

Is this any always-on anti-virus that intercepts and deletes bugs from visiting infected web sites?

Or is it just an "after the fact" disc scanner?

Thanks!

AVG is an active virus protection program. It will monitor your system, scan in/out email, and will do "after the fact" disc scanning.

Thanks. I knew it did the email and after the fact, but I didn't see anything that mentioned real time monitoring of web site visits.

While I'm no tech expert, according to this website, AVG ranked #8 with it failing some sort of Level 2 test.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Kaspersky (or is it Kasperski? I can never remember.) Symantec/Norton didn't play well with my pc running Windows 2000 Pro, and neither did Trend Micro. With Kapersky? Peace at last!

So this morning, after last night's update, there was a screen on my computer saying that after January, AVG would no longer be free. Sigh.

Any new recommendations for a decent free av program?

I heard this from a friend, but I, myself, have not seen this. It's not on their site either. Could this simply be a license problem?

The screen said "click here to view your upgrade options."

I didn't do so, but the screen seemed pretty clear: Free AVG would soon be no more.

last i checked, AVAST is still free and works well. you just need to renew your licence once a year.

I know the folks at Grisoft/AVG pretty well, and have decided to use BitDefender (http://www.bitdefender.com/). They also have a free version, and it gets even higher marks than AVG. Kaspersky also gets high marks, but not sure if they have a free version.

fduvall

Thanks for the link. That URL should be http://www.bitdefender.com/. The link posted above has an extra ) character in it so it doesn't work.

Over the space of five years I have used:

Norton: Decidedly bloatware, and as per the OP allowed some pests onto the system. Not good at all.

AVG: Free, light on system resources and fairly effective. No complaints during the time I used it.

AntiVir by AVIRA: Free and fairly light on the system. Seemed very effective but updates took quite long to download.

Sophos: Performs much like AVG. Used it only because the university had a license and updates weren't charged to our accounts (we pay per MB downloaded).

Kaspersky: Costs A$55 for a one year license but provides close to hourly update signatures and is rated as one of the top two in effectiveness (the other being eset's NOD32). My PREFERRED choice.

Windows Live OneCare: Free 90-day trial but left several trojans on the system that Kaspersky found.

NOD32: Several friends have used the product and it is consistenly rated as the lightest on system resources and among the highest detecton rates. I was impressed at how it doesn't slow down boot time.


The best of the free antivirus products (AVG et al) are up there with the likes of Norton and McAfee. However, I believe Kaspersky and NOD32 are a rung above in detection and efficiency.

I've been using Nod32 since I posted in this thread earlier and I've been very impressed. Very light on the system resources and I get signature updates everyday - sometimes multiple times a day.