Antivirus

[psp83]

I plan on installing Win7 on my vista laptop that friends and family use..

The next thing is, A good anti virus with spy ware built in etc. I don't want one running that eats the memory.

The vista laptop already has NOD32 installed but I've scanned the laptop today and it picked up viruses/trojans in the temp directory. Surely if NOD32 was doing its job correctly it shouldn't even allow them on the laptop in the first place or pick it up straight away and remove it.

[pctech]

Not true.

Unless it has a network shield or is set to scan on writing as well as reading it may not necessarily.

[Niall]

I had to remove NOD32 when I installed Windows7 a couple of weeks ago. The delay in opening webpages and even accessing things on my backup drive, was huge. Between 4-10 seconds was the norm. I'm now using avast (free version) and there is no delay at all.

One thing I have noticed with Windows 7 that I forgot to mention on here before is that the UAC thing seems to mess up installation of some free security programs. Spybot and Spyware blaster didn't work properly, with spybot not being able to load correctly because the updater was blocked on install somehow so it won't run, and freezes the program. Spyware Blaster constantly said 230 items were not protected every time I restarted the program. I turned off UAC and reinstalled the programs, and they all work now.

Handy that!

[zappaDPJ]

I still rate Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware for cleaning up an infected machine and strangely enough Microsoft Security Essentials which I've been using successfully for a number of months now. You'd hardly know it was there but it does seem to be quite adept at blocking all the things you want to avoid.

[psp83]

I had to remove NOD32 when I installed Windows7 a couple of weeks ago. The delay in opening webpages and even accessing things on my backup drive, was huge. Between 4-10 seconds was the norm. I'm now using avast (free version) and there is no delay at all.

One thing I have noticed with Windows 7 that I forgot to mention on here before is that the UAC thing seems to mess up installation of some free security programs. Spybot and Spyware blaster didn't work properly, with spybot not being able to load correctly because the updater was blocked on install somehow so it won't run, and freezes the program. Spyware Blaster constantly said 230 items were not protected every time I restarted the program. I turned off UAC and reinstalled the programs, and they all work now.

Handy that!

I've never had any problems like that with NOD32 on my main Win7 machine.

When I normally install things I always right click and "run as administrator" that way it gets around most things.

[Niall]

Yeah I did all that. It was acting weird with a couple of other things, but as I say, after uninstalling and turning off UAC, then installing again it all worked fine. I'm wondering if UAC was the problem with NOD32. I might install that again tomorrow to check.

[Simon]

I've been using F-Secure Internet Security for several years, and each year, it seems to get better.  I'm currently using the 2010 version, on XP, and I hardly notice it's there.  Can't say how it would work on Windows 7, but a 30 day, fully functional trial version can be downloaded.

[Technical Ben]

For windows 7 I'd also recommend windows defender (or whatever the name is). The windows virus checker works fine for me. It's found a couple of nasties that have come in spam emails etc. Runds quite fast. I only disable it when it's absolutely necessary on big file transfers etc.

[vitriol]

A friend of mine popped round the other day with a usb disk drive, he was wanting some pictures and videos I had taken at his brothers wedding the other week.

I plugged the disk into my laptop and Microsoft Security Essentials immediately stopped a virus from running and asked me ether I'd like to remove it.  I was quite surprised at the speed it sprang into action.  Works well for a free application.

When I'm in Widows Vista I use MSE, Windows Defender and Malware Bytes. They get my vote.

[Lona]

I use Avast and malwarebytes.  I've also used AVG but found it slowed things down too much.

[Fox]

I am the same as Lona, Avast and MalwareBytes. Both are free and seem to do a good job without a performance hit.

[Rik]

I am the same as Lona, Avast and MalwareBytes.

For a minute, I thought that was a list - you had me worried.