What anti-virus software do you use? - 2014 edition

[Aramonde]

I use Avast(free) with Malwarebytes(free) and never had any problems.

[marurun]

3 years ago it would have been Avast all the way, but in its latest incarnation it drags my laptop and desktop both down a bit. Turns out AVG has turned the tables on Avast in terms of speed. And let us be honest, there isn't an AV package out there that is truly effective against the latest and greatest. You still need to be careful where and how you browse and interact on-line. The AV package is just a bit of insurance for when you slip.

[Pulsar_t]

Hobie-wan and marurun make pretty good points. Classic viruses have become less of a risk when you apply common precautions, but the fact remains many many people still click on stuff they really shouldn't be

[irixith]

No anti-virus at all. Seven computers, all familiar with the seedy underbelly of the internet. The only two extensions I have installed on Chrome are AdBlock & DoNotTrackMe. Never any trouble with viruses, adware or malware, but then 90% of these infections are due to lack of knowledge (or care) on behalf of the user.

I'm a computer tech (oh god, we've all heard this one before), and I spend a large portion of every day cleaning viruses, adware, malware, what have you from other people's computers. I've seen everything -- MSE, NOD, AVG, Norton, Avast, you name it. They're all useless. Some of them (AVG, Avast) are super special offenders, with brutal system resource usage and the extent to which they murder your hard drive while real-time scanning every file that gets created, opened, or downloaded.

As far as I'm concerned, the whole anti-virus industry is utter shlock. They can't save users from ignoring "Yes, please install this fantastic ad bar in my browser that will change my life", nor can they prevent users looking for the latest pirated movie from clicking on that 70kb exe file. Most of the stuff infecting people's computers these days bypasses all the checks and heuristics anyway, and Windows is full of more holes facilitating this crapware than the swiss cheese I had in my wrap for lunch today.

Before anyone asks, I leave whatever a user has on their computer alone for anti-virus software, since it doesn't really matter what they use. If they use something horrific like AVG/Avast/something free, I'll replace it with MSE simply for the system performance improvement they'll see after I'm finished cleaning their machine. I then do my best to educate people about how to pay attention to the dialog boxes when they install programs/games, and what to look out for when browsing the seedy underbelly. With some education, the vast majority of my customers remain virus free after their first or second hit. Others (like the ones who just use their computer as a pornography conduit) come back fairly regularly because they couldn't give a shit -- they just want to watch porn. Works for me. :p

[Aramonde]

Hmmm idk i've had Avast save me a few times when looking for harmless pics on google images. On a few occasions when i clicked on a link to view the pic Avast closed the tab and told me there was Malware on that page. So i wouldn't call it completely useless.

[BRIK]

I've been using AVG free for years. The best virus protection is common sense.

[fastbilly1]

So what AV are you using? Or tell us how awesome you are because you don't use one, or you use Linux or a Mac and don't need one.

For general web browsing, I do use a linux box. It is just easier for me to not have to worry about that, and the box is so low powered that running the OS and an active scanner just never worked out for me - EEE 900A.

On my gaming pcs I have Malwarebytes pro. The pcs are only on to play games, so it is rare for anything to go wrong, but if something happens MalwareBytes fixes it 99% of the time.

[ZenErik]

Window's Defender. Built in to Windows 8. No need for anything else.

[Ziggy]

BTW, there's no more Malewarebytes Pro. With the 2.0 software, the paid version is now called "Premium" and is subscription based. It's $24.99 for one year, but you can install it on 3 PCs (Pro was lifetime but you could only install it on one PC). So weigh the pros and cons there.

You can still buy a Pro retail version and get the lifetime license. And any one that has Pro can upgrade to Premium (2.0 software) and keep their lifetime license.

I downloaded the 2.0 software. It looks a little flashier, but I'm more of a fan of basic layouts. Like what's with these new BIOSes that are all flashy? What's that all about? I don't want that. Anyway, 2.0 is suppose to have better scanning/detection, so you really wanna update to it.

The most annoying change is that the scans are named differently now. Fast Scan is now called Threat Scan. Full Scan is now called Custom Scan (because you can choose which drives or paths you wanna scan). And Flash Scan is now called Hyper Scan. They seem to be named for dumb people.

[fastbilly1]

Good to know Ziggy, looks like I will be buying a couple retail copies for family members.