Advice Request Why did you choose your AV?

Please provide comments and solutions that are helpful to the author of this topic.

roger_m

Level 41
Verified
Top Poster
Content Creator
Dec 4, 2014
3,014
I'm using 360 Total Security Premium. These are my main reasons for using it.
  • Recent versions are extremely light.
  • You can configure it to prompt you and ask what action you want to take everytime it detects something. Which is great, as I hate auto quarantine.
  • When something is detected, you have the option to whitelist it.
I really wish that more antiviruses would have the option not to auto quarantine and to easily whitelist files.


The following is also quite nice.
  • You can manage your license from UI. I've got a license to use on three devices. If I want to deactivate the premium license on one of my PCs so that I can install it on another PC, I can do that from within the UI.
  • While definitely not needed in a security product, the speedup and junk cleanup modules, do work very well. The cleanup module will find more junk files to clean than most other cleaners.

Issues with it.
  • It has minor issues wtih false positives. This is not really an issue for me, as you can whitelist anything that is detected, with no need for manual whitelisting.
  • I don't like the ads in the free version. But legit licenses are very cheap on eBay, which is why I upgraded.
 

stefanos

Level 28
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Oct 31, 2014
1,712
I'm using Avast PRO antivirus.
Is light on system. Hardenedmode aggressive. Have sandbox. Good signatures. Good antiphishing and Url filtering. It has many languages. (very positive for people who do not have English as their mother language. And very strong protection with SysHardener combo.

Behavior protection needs some improvement. Negative comments for telemetry data.
 

Durew

Level 1
Verified
Aug 1, 2017
17
My main AV used to be SEP as it was provided by the university. EAM was later added as a companion AV, mainly for the Behaviour Blocker. When my new laptop did not get SEP so EAM became the main AV. For a single PC it was a quite cheap choice as well.

Reasons for using it:
  • Behaviour blocker
  • Light on system resources
  • Later: good reputation
  • Privacy
  • Motivated and fast-responding helpdesk
  • No 'fake' certificate used for https webprotection (link)
  • No annoying bloat stuff (think norton safe search, speedup programs)
  • Works with MBAM
  • Works with Sandboxie
  • Works well with with OSArmor (source: OSarmor helpfile)
Downsides:
  • Does not always play well with Folding at Home (FAH is fine, EAM not that much, already reported)
    • Rare and not always noticable. (PM if you want a bit more info on this.)
  • Settings spread out over two tabs ("settings" and "protection")
  • Blog not that great
Overall I'm very pleased with Emsisoft Anti-malware.
 

vtqhtr413

Level 26
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Aug 17, 2017
1,448
Tried a lot, came back to this one again and again, has been a regular guest now:

Tencent PC Manager Global (with custom settings)

Realtime protection mode: Expert mode (Prompt upon detecting suspect actions)
File system protection level: High (monitor all file operations)
Action on threat detection: Choose action manually
Download Protection: Security prompt on dangerous files only
Auto report upon blocking suspected virus and trojans - Cloud Protection Project ("Auto-SUD")

Why?
+in custom settings, quite reactive behavior blocker
+Comes with Bitdefender engine, which get's autoupdated by TCPM multiple times an hour, and seems to always have the latest definitions.
+Tencent cloud will cover quite some threats, that Bitdefender will not have in signatures yet
+receives new versions regularly (sometimes once a week), autochecks if a new version is available, you'll get a notification, and if you decline, it will ask again shortly
+Decent URL filter built in (does however not work with M$ Edge, Vivaldi and Brave Browser yet, to my experience)
+Download Shield will check downloaded files against Tencent cloud & local Bitdefender signatures (does however not work with M$ Edge, Vivaldi and Brave Browser yet, to my experience)
+TCPM Realtime Protection will monitor the system all the time, using Bitdefender signatures, malware drive-by's will be blocked even if there is only a TEMP file yet
+Light on the system (~250 MB of RAM usage), also Boot time is very good (on my laptop, 4.1 sec)
+free of additional tools, just a plain AV
+Ad free
+Very good cleanup features (assisted by both rules and Bitdefender local signatures)
+can remove running malware from memory without reboot (when detected by Bitdefender local signatures for example
+can be bundled with additional security software (like as AppCheck AntiRansomware free, Sphinx Software Windows 10 Firewall Control,...)
+not crippled by VPN (at least not by F-Secure FreeDome) - great Firewall of China will block VPN connections
+forum with quick replies by staff (but it's in chinese, you'll need Google Translator, and registration requires QQ account - staff replies in English)

Some negatives I found:
-a bit buggy on first setup - custom settings did reset after a reboot, however, once set again, they stay as set, even after upgrades to a new version
-Bitdefender signature updates take quite some time to download + Bitdefender isn’t the fastest vendor to detect new malware
-upgrade download speed is rather slow
-no scheduled scans option
-only available in English
-Zemana Anti-Malware flags all / most related files as PUP

Help Me Decide - Free Antivirus of the Year 2018 - Nominate

Find it tested in the Malware HUB also.
Statistics and Reports
Your endorsement here is notable too me, also, I'm reading this as complimentary? " Zemana Anti-Malware flags all / most related files as PUP "
 

Ink

Administrator
Verified
Staff Member
Well-known
Jan 8, 2011
22,361
I didn't choose it, it chose me.
  1. Avast went downhill midway through my subscription.
  2. AVG was bought by Avast.
  3. Avira has the Launcher and an obnoxious UI.
  4. Bitdefender Free requires a registered account
  5. Comodo is past it's due date.
  6. Emsisoft is OK, but I can get the definitions to scan my PC with EEK instead.
  7. Kaspersky has too much going on.
  8. Norton is OK, but I'm not wasting money on a yearly subscription.
  9. Sophos Free requires a web account to manage it's settings.
What's left? Windows Defender Antivirus.

You might say it's a rubbish AV, but I'm not you. I don't sit around waiting to get Windows infected.
 

Svoll

Level 13
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Nov 17, 2016
627
You might say it's a rubbish AV, but I'm not you. I don't sit around waiting to get Windows infected.

"Statement of the Year" material!!!!

After testing a lot of AV, either thru trials, donations from vendors, group ( School Club) discussions and benchmarks, I choose the one that fits my needs, computer specs, and price.

I ended up with SEP14
-Free thru University (Managed Client but with complete control)
-Light on resources 18mb usage
-Simple interface
-Nice firewall



Only dislike is the huge amount of logging it does on event viewer, and in a bunch of diffrent folders in appdate, programdata, etc...
 

plat

Level 29
Top Poster
Sep 13, 2018
1,793
You know how you read about stuff over time and subconsciously, you form an opinion? Then, when the time comes, you instantly choose it. I had major and serious problems with Nvidia graphics drivers which escalated to Firefox and periodic "firefox exe was blocked from accessing graphics hardware." Since the latest GPU drivers were causing slower startup, dragging shutdown and screen artifacts, I had to use older ones. Then, when I installed Chrome, antimalware service exe made a serious pest of itself whenever Chrome opened and/or new tabs opened. Briefly, the CPU, a 6700K would hit 99% at times and I couldn't fix it. So, that's how F-Secure got on here--not the "best" AV it seems, but competent and very unobtrusive. The serious hardware graphics issue is gone.

By the way, searching online for the exe blocked from accessing gr. hardware issue, I found if you delete the TdrDelay registry entry, as one tutorial proposed, video recording software like Bandicam won't open at all.
 

DeepWeb

Level 25
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Jul 1, 2017
1,396
I switch AVs the moment the one I have becomes too heavy and too annoying. Right now I'm using Kaspersky because it's the best combination of security and lightness for my setup. I think all the major AV vendors are essentially the same in detection rates so I focus on performance and low false positive rates.
 

shukla44

Level 13
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Jan 14, 2016
601
I chose kaspersky after trying every security solution i could find to remove a spyware infection which gave me hell in 2005-06. Kaspersky & malwarebytes combined cleaned my computer. And from that day, it's kaspersky all the way, never disappointed. Yes it's a bit hard on performance but i used it on 512MB of RAM so i can definitely use it on 8GB of RAM.
 

voyes

Level 3
Thread author
Verified
Dec 26, 2018
106
I chose kaspersky after trying every security solution i could find to remove a spyware infection which gave me hell in 2005-06. Kaspersky & malwarebytes combined cleaned my computer. And from that day, it's kaspersky all the way, never disappointed. Yes it's a bit hard on performance but i used it on 512MB of RAM so i can definitely use it on 8GB of RAM.
Kaspersky is a good choice :emoji_v:
 

Janl1992l

Level 14
Verified
Well-known
Feb 14, 2016
648
comodo cloud antivirus, because of the autosandbox(almost dont need to care about malware whatever i click on, it simply get sandboxed. Great for my family too, all happy clickers. Installed comodo and never cared about malware again.) + the new beta is realy light. I dont feel it is installed after abit of use.
 

zkSnark

Level 5
Verified
Well-known
Jan 13, 2019
203
I have been using Kaspersky Internet Security for a few years and it has done a good job for protection. However, three months ago, I wanted to shift my browser from Chrome to Brave but Kaspersky was deleting Brave automatically every time I installed it.

So I just uninstalled and tried Bitdefender Total Security trial. But the problem with Bitdefender is it was disconnecting my vpn every few minutes. Uninstalled Bitdefender and after reading recommendations for G-Data Security here, I installed G-Data Total Security trial. But this one was also a little bit confusing to configure on its interface as well it deleted Windows 10 upgrade components.

Now I am back to Kaspersky, the best one (and Kaspersky has not deleted Brave yet ;) )
 

harlan4096

Moderator
Verified
Staff Member
Malware Hunter
Well-known
Apr 28, 2015
8,635
The issues with Kaspersky + Brave have been reported to he KL Forum by soem users, in fact I have been also suffering it... I hope KL fix it asap, it seems KL fixes it but with every new Brave version the issue comes back... :unsure::unsure:
 
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Cortex

Level 26
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Aug 4, 2016
1,465
Pretty fond of Kaspersky ESET & EAM: However on this PC I started to use use Norton Deluxe, didn't pay much for a two year 3 PC licence so it's now on my quite low spec lappy & my also other half's laptop too. I use this PC for selling & a music/video server (many firewalls/AV's are a total pain to use with streaming) to devices around the house & mainly my lounge.

I like the Firewall which is simple to configure & when you add an exception it actually works unlike Kaspersky for example. Norton gives me the fastest boot of any AV I've used. plays well with VPN's, gets good results in tests, very light, I run it with Voodoo & OS-Armor. I never have any problems. Though never has a virus in my life in 23 years of using Windows (I did have a worm once Benjamin) :)
 
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kylprq

Level 4
Verified
Jul 26, 2018
146
off topic

comodo cloud antivirus, because of the autosandbox(almost dont need to care about malware whatever i click on, it simply get sandboxed. Great for my family too, all happy clickers. Installed comodo and never cared about malware again.) + the new beta is realy light. I dont feel it is installed after abit of use.

we dont recommend this here you shouldnt click everything you want comodo even has its weakness like all others sometimes comodo rating becomes > trusted that unsigned untrusted apps cracked games ie ı tried with unsigned cracked farmingsimulator2015game. exe it first unrecognized ı didint allow any alerts or /run nor change file rating this after one day in the file list it becoming trusted by comodo it is pup but comodo should not trust them
 

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