Whats a good AntiVirus product?
posted in Technology |Over the years, I’ve tried many different products. Norton’s suite of products, MacAffee, Panda, Kapirsky, AVG and others. I’ve often been asked “whats the best”?
After the past few years, I’ve gravitated to simple, effective and focused tools. I don’t need or want to install a suite of 5-10 products that does stuff I don’t need or want to understand. I simply want something that will keep my inbox clean from viruses and protect my desktop in case I somehow run a product that is infected.
NOD32, from http://www.eset.com has become my favorite of late. It’s simple. It’s not the most prettiest interface on the block, but I don’t need pretty. The application sometimes will update the virus definitions several times a day, which tells me that is something is “hot of the virus press” that I’ve got a great shot at not being compromised.
The email scanner works well with Outlook / Windows Mail, which I only use for newsgroup reading. I used Mozilla’s Thunderbird 2.0 for email and NOD32 works like a champ, optionally tagging my incoming emails letting me know its been scanned.
Is it free? No. But it is very reasonable in price. I find you get what you “pay” for with free products. I don’t want spyware on my system to be used as the price, nor do I want to be staring at advertising, which helps fund the free versions to the software authors.
Does this have several utilities? No. It’s virus protection done well and is focused on just that. I would rather use a tool that ranks as one of the top tools for spyware protection to deal with that part of the suite from a company focused only on making that type of product be the best. I don’t need a company doing a LOT of things… mediocre.