This may nt be a question that can be answered, but I wanted to ask it to spark some discussion here. I need to get some anti-virus protection for a new computer I am planning to build this month, and I am wondering if there is such a thing as "the best program" to have. I see that there is a lot of freeware that is recommended here, as well as some software programs that need to be purchased.

Please help me make a decision on what anti-virus software to use! I have no problem purchasing a software package if it is effective and not bloated.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Woody

Hi, this is a question that will be answered. A lot of us here have a distaste for Norton and McAfee products, for various reasons.

IMHO, Paid products #1 kapersky, #2 bitdefender, #3 Nod32, #4 Panda, #5 Trend Micro.

Free Products: #1 Avast, #2 Avira, #3 AVG (these all have active protection) Freeware Replacement thread

IMO you must run an antivirus that has active protection. There are other Free antiviruses available, such as bit defender Free, but the last I looked at it, it just put an icon in the system tray, but still only had manual (on demand) scanning.

This is an often-asked question. If you do a search on this forum, using "best antivirus" I am sure you will find quite of few threads discussing various views about which is best and whether the free AVs are as good as the paid ones.
Regards,
John

Thanks John, I will try the search method.

Do the paid products you mentioned have active protection like the free products you mentioned?

Also, have you looked at the reports this website does: http://www.av-comparatives.org/? Interesting information to say the least!

Thanks,

Jason

Yes, all the paid software has active protection. I have looked at av-comparatives, I took their reviews into account, but only gave the opinion based on what I have actually used, plus my own personal testing.(non scientific).I also took into account special features, such as boot time scanning, software packages that include a bootable cd, etc.