Doc why would recommend someone buying a AV program when the free ones work just as good and rank just as good? Save people some money.

Or get Comodo Firewall (with Defense+ on if you can stand it), and leave Spybot S&D as long as Tea Timer & Security Center Integration are off and the registery protection off as well if you have Defense+ (and reinstall if need be to turn those off). The immunization features are okay, though protecting the host file can be better done with Comodo's Defense+.

Note: Comodo's Defense+ will register itself as and anti-spyware program with Security Center, however it is not a scanner so it will not have issues with spyware scanners (MSE counts itself as one) as long as it is configured to all the scanner the access it needs.

Yea I saw those.  But that is not a jpeg infecting you.  You still have to run a program (the actual virus itself).  The jpeg would just activate what is on the system. 

So unless you are already infected, viewing a picture is not going to infect you.  The way the hiloti was written up, it sounded like viewing jpegs could infect you.  if so, I wanted to warn my clients, friends and family (as that is the ONLY attachments I tell them they can open without worrying about viruses).

Thanks for the leg work. I should have told you I had seen those (but did not think about it since they were from 10 years ago).  Sorry for that.

Have to agree. I use Avira and when the premium sub ran out a couple of months ago, instead of renewing it, I started running the free version and the only difference I see in the two is a popup once a day when it updates. From what I've read in A/V lab tests, several of the freebies are as good as, if not better than, the paid versions.

Exactly. I've also read from those tests that Norton and Mcafee are bloatware.

Because I believe Kaspersky to be worth my recommendation.

Look again, Dr Guy - Virus is Perrun or a variant.

Nav: Kaspersky rates significantly better. Remember, theses ratings vary from quarter to quarter, and the free ones are usually 'on demand' rather than 'active'. Also, if you go with a free one, I'd use that as layer 2 with a heuristic AV as well.

Again, I read this stuff daily and Kaspersky is the better AV.... you don't have to take my recommendations. No one has to. 

I've used AVG, Avast!, and Antivir. All of them are free and scan every file as it is accessed. Is that not an "active" program? No one should have to pay money for a decent AV program. Pay versions tend to have a AV scanner surrounded by bloatware.

Yes....No. ...;)

When you buy an antivirus program, what you pay for is the ability to stop an attack in real time. The free versions only find something after the fact, usually when it's too late.

Depends. Some do provide realtime protection in the free version, and add other things in the paid (like a firewall).

Except that if no one paid for them then there would not be any decent AV programs except for those that are funded by the purcase of other software like MSE.

I use AVG. It scans every file coming from and going to the hard drive, DVD drive, USB drive, external hard drive, and internet. Is that NOT real time protection?

Except the fact that MSE is free as well. MSE itself doesn't rank very high as far as AV programs go. Slow detection.

For everyone really interested in this topic, I recommend reading the highlights of a presentation given at "Black Hat".

Seems the testing done on these antivirals (at least the one by Sophos which should be praised for participating in this! Bravo!) isn't really up to snuff, and has little to do with the real world. This could be true about all of them as far as anyone can tell, so all the ratings might be out the window anyway and this whole discussion, moot.

I think the testers need to be transparent about how they test, and allow genuine researchers to "reverse engineer" their products, or say that they aren't going to allow that.

Then we'll be free to interpret testing results by ourselves.

I was rather shaken after reading this from PCMagazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390492,00.asp

"The most common test for an antivirus utility involves showing it thousands or millions of samples and checking how many it recognizes. More advanced tests observe the product in action as it cleans up malware infestations and prevents attacks. Vulnerability researcher Tavis Ormandy feels this just isn't the right way to evaluate a product. Ormandy contends that antivirus vendors should be completely open about the way their products work, rather than hiding behind market-speak and techno-babble. 

Some vendors say that revealing their techniques and algorithms would weaken their security. Ormandy referenced Kerckhoff's principle, which states that a cryptographic system should be secure even if everything about it is public. He argues that the same should be true of antivirus software." - PCMag reference

BTW, a flying "cell tower" has been shown at Black Hat which can pick up all your conversations, and another item? "Square Reader" credit card scanner has been successfully hacked.

I think I just saw this on CNN. A hobbyist built a drone with cell phone hacking abilities and apparently can be fitted to look for open Wi-Fi connections and hack from the air.

Well, it seems to be more specific it's REQUIRED.

I don't recommend Kaspersky in a general way; what I reccomend is Kaspersky Internet Security (also known as KIS); it costs just a little bit more of Kaspersky Antivirus (also known as KAV)  but is a totally different software. KAV is a very good one, but is just an AV, that today is simply just NOT ENOUGH.

KIS is an INTEGRATED SECURITY SUITE with a lot of different real-time protection modules, very useful extra tools and features such as Safe Run for Websites, Safe Run for Applications, Vulnerability scanner based on Secunia database, Virtual Keyboard Anti-Keylogger (everything is typed from there can not be "seen" from the OS, it doesn't matter which kind of malware could be resident in), Program Control (HIPS), System Watcher and many more.... 

Besides, one of KIS componet is probably THE BEST firewall at the moment available: very powerful and highly configurable.

I can assure you there is NOTHING you can get for free that can be compared with KIS . More, mostly (if not ALL) of other shareware Security Suite can not be compared with KIS as well. But the main point, in my opinion, is that you don't know really what you are talking about (no offense, a lot of people don't get the right info about these kind of issue). What I can say to you is this: remove your free AV  (AVG, Avast or Avira, you can reinstall it at any time, of course), download and install the trial version of Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 (it's free for 30 days with FULL functionality). There are also available instructions in PDF format.

Just try it, and you will see what I'm talking about. I hope everything is OK, but could be that your first "discover" will be that your PC is infected, and till now you don't know. 

I've used Avast Home (FREE) for several years, and find it more than adequate for my use.
I guess that's a big fat NO to your (or anyone elses) recommendation about shelling out cash on other options.

Cute shop of the Trojan...

I think there's a spectrum of users as well as evolving problems.

Now, there are more attack target surfaces... phones, pads, increasingly complex apps (IBM has stated that for every 1,000 lines of code, there are 1-5 bugs), and increasingly complex OS's.

So, what was good protection 5 years ago isn't necessarily now.... nor is it necessarily inadequate.

I also advocate layered security. KIS is supposed to be excellent. I would add Mamutu 3.0 (free), and Malwarebytes (not the free one, as that is 'on demand' only). I also believe that it's a function of your own preferences. I said "supposed" because of general lack of transparency in AV's and ththeir testing.

"Threatfire". This is free (and will pop up "buy me"'s) and an outstanding malware behavior detector (does not prevent it being downloaded) note that it will offer to install a Google toolbar ("Just say no") I prefer Mamutu because it doesn't nag. I also use Comodo Dragon Chrome.

But none of this rises to the level of 'passion'.

I also believe that until AV software and 'Suites' become a lot more transparent as well as the testing methods, there's little to argue about as the tests are artificial and not standardized, and not very relevant unless the software being tested can be examined as to how threats are being handled and where they fall down and need to be improved.

Before i swapped to kaspersky internet security not kaspersky antivirus i had norton and tried AVG as well since it was free. I knew i had viruses but neither found any. I decided to go with KIS and true it found 4 or 5 different viruses infecting multiple files.  

They might scan the files but they need to recognize viruses, trojans ..... as well

Mamutu is not free, and overlaps with with the Application Control in KIS. Both are Host Intrusion Prevention Systems (HIPS). And so is Comodo's Defense+ (comes as an option with the free firewall) and ThreatFire (Defense+ offers more protection, so use it if you do not have a firewall that is part of some other security suite, and these are the only ones I have looked at).

Mamutu 3.0 was free.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/get-world-class-mamutu-malware-blocker-free.htm

But it not to a free product, there are just occationally special deals where it is free.

I'm running KIS ...9.0.0.736 .... it works.

When setting up others' machines [that I'm not paying for their AV ] it's Comodo.  Seems OK enough....at least the price is right...;)

What are you talking about ,Snowman? Are you jocking? Are you DRUNK? I can understand that perhaps you are one of those people that are "proud" (I apologies, but sometimes it makes me laugh..) to use only freeware security software, but please don't tell me again that I'm happy  in making people spend money. I'm not that kind of person.

I can assure you I DON'T WORK FOR KASPERSKY AND I DON'T GET ANY COMMISSION !!! What kind of security software you use is your business, not mine.

If you read my previous post in this thread (Reply # 25) after my suggestion about buying Kaspersky I suggested as well some freeware software, above all  Comodo firewall and Emsisoft Emergency KIT (ex A-squared free). 

So, please...

Thanks for understanding 

Agreed.

Well, I got Malwarebytes PRO as well (of course with real-time protection disabled because of KIS) .All other progs you mentioned, as Gwenio1 already said, are incompatible with KIS. 

About testing, this is not true for Kaspersky. That for a simple reason: as probaly you know every release of Kaspersky software has a period of beta testing before being available in market. Well, a lot of Kaspersky beta tester are simple customer (some of them are friends of mine), though they can get sometimes a free license key; it depends from their work.  Beta testers must reports all found bugs and failure, reproducing them and creating log files for developers to be sended to KL Moscow. So, there is nothing better than talking with a beta tester to really know about the prog situation; this can be easily done on official Kaspersky forums.