What Anti Virus do you use on your home pc's?

[phreak]

Used to use AVG but now I use Avast

[Pottsey]

Avast. Used to run XP 64-bit and for the longest time Avast was the only decent option.

[carnforthhigh]

AVG all the way

[stephenleak]

Norton AV 2007. I've used it since the Peter Norton days and you get to like what you get used to. Fortunately, my PC's have been powerful enough to cope with its demands and it looks after itself and does it job in the background. I always update each year, in case the core program has been improved, and it usually works out cheaper than just extending the update subscription.

[ajbritton]

Nothing on Windows. A/V is a pain and techs really ought to know how to avoid running malware without it spoiling too much of their fun.

 

So what's wrong with ClamWin then?

 

Techs might, but rest of the family won't

[crc-ict]

AVG here too. Effective, and easy on performance.

 

I hate Norton with a passion - people at my schools keep installing it on their laptops and it seems to block networking access by default! McAfee is almost as bad, although the LEA provided Enterprise edition is OK.

 

And they're so resource hungry - I didn't spend £200 on a Core 2 CPU to waste the power on AV software!

[Norphy]

I don't bother with it at home. A decent firewall and avoiding dodgy downloads will see you OK most of the time.

[contink]

Avast Pro on most machines.. Sophos on the server and a copy we foolishly bought of Norton which is on a test machine.

[PiqueABoo]

Sorry but due to the way worms spread (most of the big ones from the last couple of years for example), you should really have some form of A/V checker

 

Worms tend to spread through unfirewalled, poorly configured and maintained operating systems and applications with careless or (innocently) ignorant users etc. What vulns did the big ones you had in mind exploit? What steps would have stopped them?

 

I was doing serious whitehat Internet & NT security not long after NT first arrived and the popular approach to security has almost inverted since then. You used to reduce risks by removing them completely whereas these days most people appear to think throwing more things at the box is the cure.

 

Fortunately I think we might get a shift back to "less is more" e.g. longhorn modular architecture, attention to attack surfaces etc.

 

Techs might, but rest of the family won't

 

Plausible, but not an issue with mine... yet.. will probably end up making some kind of virtual sandbox once the <4 yr old starts getting dangerous.

[manick]

AVG, why use anything else!!, would never, ever, ever recommend Mcafee or Norton myself.

[Guest richard]

On windows I use AVG but form Linux I don't bother.

[vikpaw]

AVG as it's free and you can uninstall it without affecting the PC. I'd even consider trying the paid for version including internet security.

 

Tried Kaspersky Internet Security but it appears to have a very long learning mode.

 

i preferred Zone Alarm, combined with AVG. The paid for ZoneAlarm even looks up program IDs on their web safe list and can autoconfigure settings for you. does anyone know of other firewalls that do this? I tend to install free things for people when they want home use but there's always the problem they will just click allow on every security pop up, which then defeats the object.

 

On top of AV and firewall i normally add Spybot (free), it's passive but has an active registry protector called teatimer if you opt for it, it's great cos at school, i get to see any policy changes that hit my registry and can choose deny if i so wish! hehe. Next to Spybot i occasionally run the passive AdAware which does a deep registry scan and picks up somethings that Spybot overlooks.

 

AVG though, even on it's own picks up quite a lot of threats that are normally adware or firewall type. I guess the lines are merging now between the different attack types.

 

On a tangent; what do you prefer to say: Virii or Viruses?

[shreevie]

I use AVG at work and at home. I don't have too many problems with it, though at work i don't find the Admin program very user friendly.

[SYNACK]

AVG Free at home for me, its fast effective and free.

[Sirbendy]

I use Avast! free on most of mine and Jems..the only fly in the ointment is that on my dual core X2 3800 it locks up firefox and the machine at random whilst surfing, so it's currently without AV.

[azrael78]

Eset's NOD32 here at home and CA E-Trust AV as it's LEA-supplied.

I personally prefer NOD over CA by a long way, but they won't change to NOD as CA is free.

 

Ah well, at least at home I'm better protected

 

Az

[CHR1S]

Nothing at home, and I have yet to pick up anything (touch wood) But I do run the occasional Home Call scan just to be sure.

[dancingdruid]

Kaspersky here on 2x Vista machines. Long training times as mentioned earlier though. I've also used avast which seems just as good - and I've not noticed a difference in responsiveness (I'm sure my pc did speed up once I removed Norton though to put on Kaspersky.....)

[WithoutMotive]

AVG for me

[CraigM]

I use Avast at home, pretty darn good program.

 

I wasn't happy with AVG 7.5, I didn't feel it did a good enough job. Still, comapred to the Norton that I had earlier, it would have been better.

 

I've also added Comodo Firewall, which adds a whole new layer of security, but also complexity.

 

With the spate of Trojans doing the rounds here on Flash Drives in Cape Town, South Africa, you can never be too cautious

[Guest Guest]

Dont normally run anything on my home PC as i have clamAV built into my router which does all my http scanning. But when i have an AV its NOD32

 

Works for me, never had a virus for as long as i can remember

[pvtbanner]

NOD32 across the board at home. Can't fault it. Small footprint and not too resource hungry. Plus I get it free

 

I'm running Eset's NOD32 at home across all my machines - its been excellent with no noticeable drain on resources but is a bit expensive, which is why I want to know how you got it free Ben.

[el8linuxel8]

i run slackware with grsecurity patched kernel and samhain for my HIDS.

 

i also chroot my webbrowser and heavily filter my inbound and especially outbound traffic.

 

Linux can and should be secured too.

[ZeroHour]

AVG free imho is close to useless

 

I use Sophos at home on all pc's

[ChrisC]

Nod32, got a good deal on 3year licenses.

 

Chris