Well... Depends on what you need and how much you're willing to pay for it...

Kaspersky = RM35/year (Lowyat OEM price) - Best detection rates, medium system slowdown. Medium speed scans.

NOD32 = RM 72 (student price), annual renewal +-RM45 (60% from purchase price) - Very good detection rates, very (very) little system slow down. Fast scans.

BitDefender = Not sure how much it's selling for these days, maybe RM40-50? Very good detection rates, A HIGH AMOUNT of system slowdown (check the net if you don't believe me). Fast scans.

AVG Free = Free, but remember, free can only get you so very far. Average detection rate, little system slowdown. Fast scans.

Norton/Symantac = Bloatware, crapware... call it what you want. Can't even be uninstalled right (needs a separate program to clean it up ). The Corporate editions are good though, but really expensive. High system slowdown.

McAfee = Used to be good, now as bloated as Norton. Medium-high system slowdown. No idea how much. Medium scans.

Avast Free = Free. Good detection rates, medium system slowdown, very slow scanning speed.

AOL ActiveVirusShield = Free. Uses an older version of Kaspersky as its scanner, so quite good at its job. BUT, now officially discontinued (sadly).


My personal recommendations? According to rank they are:

1. Kaspersky - Easy to use, cheap (while they're still selling them OEM stocks... get them quick!). Use the CD-KEY in the OEM packs (KAV 6 only) with fresh, brand spanking new KAV 7 full downloads from the Kaspersky website.

2. NOD32 (What I use) - Not so easy to use (too much things to tweak, but I like it that way), but very quick and efficient. Very little system load, but relatively expensive in the beginning.

3. BitDefender - Also quite cheap, but slows your system down significantly. I don't want something to protect my computer to slow it down, but it has very good detection rates (SOMETIMES superior to No 1 AND 2) to counter this problem. Don't get it if you plan to game with the computer, game + slowdown = not good.

4. AVG Free - If you HAVE to skimp, this is it.

And if you can get the paid ones, do get them - by paying. I don't want to be a hypocrite or anything, but PIRATED ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE IS NOT SOMETHING YOU WOULD WANT TO RELY ON... You can get blacklisted so easily, and why the hick are you trusting your computer with a scanner that someone else already tampered (that's what a crack is) with?

And no, you DON'T want to use more then one of these on one computer... Trust me, one is enough...

Check http://www.av-comparatives.org/ for tests done on most of these programs (keep in mind though, the Avast, Avira and AVG used in these tests are the full, paid versions... The free versions are generally not as good).

But then again, if you don't want to bother with viruses and malware at all for the rest of your entire life, get Linux... Preferably Ubuntu (which I was using previously, but had to ditch because gaming on it was not up to what Windows has to offer)...

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 15 2007, 04:59 AM