Anti-Virus, anti-malware and Anti-spyware: The Good, the bad and the worthless

I've heard from knowledgeable people who know their way around computer hardware and software like RomU's loonylion that Norton/Symantec IS THE ABSOLUTE crappiest program out there that claims to be an Anti-virus program. And ESET/NOD32 and Kaspersky are the two top-notched ones in terms of what they deliver.However it seems there are quite a few of these applications out there that I've never heard off until now. Here are forty six (46) programs that are listed and used by https://www.virustotal.com/ to scan files people submit to them using their online scanner service:Agnitum
AhnLab-V3
AntiVir
Antiy-AVL
Avast
AVG
BitDefender
ByteHero
CAT-QuickHeal
ClamAV
Commtouch
Comodo
DrWeb
Emsisoft
eSafe
ESET-NOD32
F-Prot
F-Secure
Fortinet
GData
Ikarus
Jiangmin
K7AntiVirus
Kaspersky
Kingsoft
Malwarebytes
McAfee
McAfee-GW-Edition
Microsoft
MicroWorld-eScan
NANO-Antivirus
Norman
nProtect
Panda
PCTools
Rising
Sophos
SUPERAntiSpyware
Symantec
TheHacker
TotalDefense
TrendMicro
TrendMicro-HouseCall
VBA32
VIPRE
ViRobotSome of these I do know off such as Avast!, AVG, NOD32, Super Antispyware, malwarebytes and trend micro, but the rest I've no idea.I also kind of recall that AntiVir and ClamAV were once thought of as scareware or bogus applications but I guess they no longer are.And yeah, Norton should definitely be removed from this list.... same with McCafee.EDIT: Addendum.And Avira should have been on there as well.

clamav has never been scareware, its an opensource virus scanner thats popular on linux servers. It's most major flaw is a lack of resident shield (it's an on demand scanner only)

How good is avast? also i once used AVG and it blew my whole windows to the ground, i remember the UCV was selling kapersky on some places how good is keprsky compared to Avast!

kaspersky is the second best paid for AV on the market. (best is nod32 but that costs a lot more than kaspersky does)

Replying to #4

I migth try to buy a copy of either one, since whatever is sold here is pre cracked avast is like the third best AV since it's free so people dont have to worry about updates blowing out of the water the crack (trying to *buy* norton here is about some 900$ original AV norton)

Loonylion · #4kaspersky is the second best paid for AV on the market. (best is nod32 but that costs a lot more than kaspersky does)

On top of that, Kaspersky has 100% rebate deals with some retail stores. Fry's Electronics had a full rebate deal for Kaspersky Internet Security on Black Friday.

Well, I'm thinking of *pirating* ESET-NOD32.
I know I should buy it, but I'd like to check it first. I've had bad experience with my antivirus' in the past, so I'd like to make sure it does the job.Will a crack (like, keygen or something) be detected by it?

Duncan IdahoHow good is avast? also i once used AVG and it blew my whole windows to the ground, i remember the UCV was selling kapersky on some places how good is kaspersky compared to Avast!

Avast! is one of the better choices in the free AV categories and is infinitely better than AVG. For one Avast! is not bloated like AVG is. Second it isn't entirely difficult to uninstall, whereas uninstalling AVG often leaves bits of the program that for some reason still function even if the necessary items it requires are no longer on your computer causing issues. Then in order to remove those left over bits you'll need to download and run AVG's personal removal tool that often doesn't do its job the first time you run it.Avast! also has a better web shield application that blocks webpages that are known to be carrying nasty virii or malware on them, whereas on AVG it will allow you to access an infected page and then warn you of a threat the page is carrying AFTER you've accessed it.But what really sold Avast! for me is its "Boot time scan" feature that is offered with its free version whereas that's something only available on other platforms' paid version or they don't even have such a feature at all. What boot time scan does is it does a full system scan of all your hard drives upon startup just before Windows loads when virii and malware are not yet active so the AV can find and detect them without any resistance.

Duncan Idaho · #5trying to *buy* norton here is about some 900$ original AV norton

$900 dollars for crapware? 0_o

Replying to #7

You shouldn't crack AV's IMHO as those cracks and keygens for it might actually include code that "might" open up holes for virii and malware to enter your system.

Replying to #8

the equivalent, it's around 1500 bolívares and by unnoficial dollar is more or less that

If you must know my version of avast kept downloading viruses every 5 minutes and asking me if I wanted to delete them, but that was years ago...Now I mean no offence but have you heard of:
Hitman Pro

Duncan Idaho · #3How good is avast? also i once used AVG and it blew my whole windows to the ground, i remember the UCV was selling kapersky on some places how good is keprsky compared to Avast!

Avast is useless sometimes it doesn't scans my Pen drives and viruses easily infect my system. it was before i started using Kaspersky , ilove this and haven't got a virus from that time.i have used Panda and ComodoComodo is also a stupid antivirus prog.
Panda is slightly better than the Comodo or AVG it does notices some trojan and also spywares.

Replying to #11

Avast was never designed to handle USB drives :PAlthough people are submitting suggestions to Avast! for such a function:https://feedback.avast.com/responses/automatically-scan-usb-storage-drives-on-plugging-in
https://feedback.avast.com/responses/usb-drive-scanner-permission-module

Replying to #12

no wonder why viruses were in rampage :D

...anyone know if norton has changed since...well ever?Friend of mine swears by it despite my DEAR GOD NO and so forth.I swear by Karpasky myself now, so don't think its me, its the only AV Ive been willing to pay for, EVER!

the only real change norton made was downhill when it was taken over by symantec. since then, not really.

I just want to say how crappy Norton is! It's a huge waste of resources!

under worthless carlos should slap in panda av, early builds were imcompatible with windows 2000 and was know for secure formattimg your pc.