WinAntiVirus vs. Norton vs. McAfee Anti-virus

In My Humble Opinion
1

I need one of these. On the Symantec site, WinAntiVirus seems to be the best–offers the most services and costs the same as the other two–but I’ve never heard of that one. Does anyone have any opinions that would help me decide which to get?

Also, when the price is $39.95, do I assume correctly that that’s for it to be mine-all-mine, or is it for a year, or a month, or what? I can’t tell from the website.

This neophyte would really appreciate any help you knowledgeable people here could offer.

2

$39.95 is probably for a year’s subscription to the virus updates that come out weekly.

For free, have a look at AVG Antivirus, or the web-based and free scan from Trend Micro. Trend may be an unfamilar name to consumers, but they’re big in the corporate world. (They keep our email servers clean and happy) As for AVG, that’s what I set up for friends.

3

Thanks much for the suggestions, gotpasswords. I ran the housecall one, which found two trojans, and deleted them (they were both in temporary files). I feel better already! I looked at AVG, but I don’t have XP or whatever it was that one was for.

So I’ll hope to hear more about Norton and McAfee from others. Since they work continuously, I think one of those is what I should subscribe to.

Thanks again for your help.

4

Actually, AVG is a real-time scanner. AFAIK, it runs on pretty much any flavor of Windows. I goofed earlier - here’s where the free version’s located.

As for Norton, I can speak a little about it as well as I’ve got that here as well. (I do data security for a living, hence all the antivirus programs.) Norton is a fine product, but suffers more than a little from bloat. Over the years, it’s gone from being just antivirus to something that also checks your PC for errors like invalid shortcuts, outdated stuff in the Registry, etc. This is all noble and wonderful, but comes at the cost of size. It takes a fair bit of disk space and processor usage.

AVG does just antivirus and is less intense in its needs. Some people are fond of it as it doesn’t hit you up 90 days after you install it to purchase the subscription for virus definitions.

Trend’s scan is obviously not taking up disk space and not much processor power, but as you noted, doesn’t run constantly.