i need help on choosing which is the best antivirus program out there, i dont care if it sucks down alot of rescources or that scanning may take hrs, as long as i know i'm protected

panda the best but it will hangup your computer
kasper very good speed too
norton 2006

abdo......

AVG has the best algorithm for virus scanning.

Norton is very good if you are not concerned about using up resources.

Kaspersky is good too...

Regarding the final decision, my vote goes to Norton Internet Security with Norton Antivirus.

Regards,
Paramesh.

thanks for the help guys, hmmmm i think i'll try out the free version of avg first, oh btw this might be a silly question but i was wondering if the antivirus that comes with zone alarm security suite provides any real time protection?

regards

I was looking at AV programs last night because for me AVG has failed the last couple of times to update, requiring a reinstall. So looking around I found free AV programs that seem to be better. AntiVir is one that was highly recommended from PC World, and Avast! seems to be another top pick.

Some comparisons I've found:
http://www.overclockers.com/articles1260/
http://antivirus.about.com/od/antivi...s/a/freeav.htm
http://www.av-comparatives.org/
http://products.consumerguide.com/re...?sectionId=322

(Google "antivirus comparisons")

thanks alot for the links and i tried using avast! it has a really cool interface and looks alot better than other av i tried, but is there a way to set it to ignore certain files during scan? it detects and quarantines some files i have that are not actually viruses....

thanks

I dunno. You have to check out configuration preferences and docs on their site.

Update.

I ran Avast! and it completed unattended in under 2 hours. It did not find any viruses. It also did not look into .zips & .cabs at my request.

3 hours ago I started AntiVir and it's less than 30% complete. It's actually decompressing .zips & .cabs, which may account for some of the extra time.

It also stops on each file it deems to be virus-ridden, so it must be watched. If you have a spare 6-8 hours, that would be fine. So far it falsely found two viruses. It claims to have found a Trojan, too, but it was in a TEMP directory.

If it finds any more, I'll post again (if I don't kill it first)

5 hours, 55 minutes -- 44% scanned. I think that's more than enough!
Killing AntiVir...

i ran avast again, still falsly detects, full system scan took about an hour or so, but then again i only have a 40gb hdd, but no other false detections, gonna try out zone alarm security suite later, gonna keep you posted, everytime i run avast i have to keep restoring, wish i could figure out how to iggy some files...cant find it in the program interface