2009 Antivirus Software Home Buyers Guide Discussion

[Charles P. Jefferies]

By: Charles P. Jefferies

We have reviewed a half-dozen antivirus solutions in the last month and all have passed our tests. Needless to say, this has left many buyers in a dilemma over which one to buy. Read on to see our recommendations.

Read the full content of this Article: 2009 Antivirus Software Home Buyers Guide

Related Articles:

• AVG Anti-Virus Free Review
• Norton AntiVirus 2009 Review
• Symantec Norton Internet Security 2008 Review

[ChristopherAKAO4]

Could y'all do a review like this comparing the top three free AV? (Avira, Avast, and AVG) I'd be interested in seeing the results.

[adyingwren]

For protection, aren't u guys just better off citing AV-comparatives? With all due respect, it is what those guys do for a living.

Otherwise, good guide. Norton's finally getting the love it deserves after the 2008 version.

[ChristopherAKAO4]

For protection, aren't u guys just better off citing AV-comparatives? With all due respect, it is what those guys do for a living.

Otherwise, good guide. Norton's finally getting the love it deserves after the 2008 version.

I don't think they are really trying to determine which AV is "best" in the same since by running virus after virus against it to see if it will catch it. Just which is best option for the average consumer. Still, I agree a link to AV-Comparatives for further reference at the end might be nice.

[dbacchus]

It's very strange, to say the least, to see a comparison with "AVG Anti-Virus Free", but none with Avast, which is at least 2 times faster.
If to compare (performance) with freeware products, then compare you must with the best-perfroming, not the least performing...

[dysonlu]

Which one is the most lightweight? I don't like having half a dozen resident processes running just for virus protection.

[Phil]

Could y'all do a review like this comparing the top three free AV? (Avira, Avast, and AVG) I'd be interested in seeing the results.

I did some testing with all three. Turned out that Avira has the smallest memory usage.

I also tested the influence on system performance with two different benchmarks (Crystal and Passmark). Differences were insignificant.

Unfortunately I forgot to test the scanning performance.

Based on my testing I concluded to stay with Avira.

Which one is the most lightweight? I don't like having half a dozen resident processes running just for virus protection.

Avira.

[ChristopherAKAO4]

I did some testing with all three. Turned out that Avira has the smallest memory usage.

I also tested the influence on system performance with two different benchmarks (Crystal and Passmark). Differences were insignificant.

Unfortunately I forgot to test the scanning performance.

Based on my testing I concluded to stay with Avira.



Avira.

Thanks for the info. I already run Avira because I've heard it consumed little resources and it scored the best on AV-Comparatives testing.

[RangerXML]

Decided I didn't was to be that big0 of an a**!

[DetlevCM]

Just speaking of Kaspersky 2009 - it also has plenty of additional features.

It can create some sort of backup CD, it has a security analyzer, on screen keyboard (I believe that is against keyloggers)

Nice review

PS: You may have guessed, Kaspersky is my choice