Which antivirus, Kaspersky or McAfee?

[LukaBuka]

I am looking for an antivirus for Windows XP because I am tired of all that **** that tries to infect my PC. So far I looked into Kaspersky AntiVirus Personal (http://www.deprice.com/kasperskyantiviruspersonal.htm) and McAfee Antivirus (http://us.mcafee.com/root/package.asp?pkgid=100). Which one is better or should I pick something entirely different?

[classicsoftware]

I personally prefer Avast. It monitors Web-Mail, P2P Networks, Instant Messenger programs as well as the standrad web and POP e-mail accounts. They have a free version and a paid version. If you don't mind not being able to schedule a scan, you can get the free version.

[PrntRhd]

KAV is quite aggressive but it occasionally has some issues with false positives. It has almost continuous updates-8 per day.
Avast is quite good, I put it on my stepdaughter's PC and she never got infected in a year.
NOD32 is very good as a paid AV.

[pop pop]

McAfee? You are kidding, right? It may have been good at one time, it's now a dog, IMHO. It so resource intensive that Norton is envious. Just terrible.

There's a two part answer to this question and you already got part of it. Here's my take:

Free Antivirus

AVG
Avast

Pay Antivirus

NOD32
Kapersky

I've used both AVG and Avast. They're really quite good. AVG is simple but effective. Avast has the advantages that Classic described.

I've used NOD32 and I am currently trialing Kapersky. NOD32 is blazing fast and very effective. The user interface is a bit geeky, not exactly intuitive. Kapersky is highly effective and like PrntRhd said, it updates every three hours. The interface is simple and intuitive. I'm not impressed with scan speed. It's actually the slowest of the four listed here--at least in my experience. Also, beware of the default installation settings. They are incredibly aggressive. I downloaded and installed Kapersky 5.0 and immediately lost my network without warning. I checked a bunch of things and found nothing wrong so I uninstalled and it came back. I went on a Kapersky forum and found that this is a "Defense Against Network Attacks" and is by design. You have to disable that function to get to the internet. I did so and all is now fine.

Now to the issue of false positives. NOD32 and Kapersky may have a tendency to do that because of their agressiveness and use of hueristics. I've had no false positive with Kapersky so far, I did with NOD32. With NOD32 you can adjust the sensitivity of the hueristics to lessen or eliminate false positives.

[Variable]

Kaspersky is a better pick. It has less bloat and is very effective.

[agentLX]

Can somebody comment on TREND MICRO INTERNET SECURITY - PC-CILLIN 2005.

THANX

[Variable]

I think it is equal to McCafee.

[pop pop]

I'm going to agree with Variable here for several reasons. The standalone TrendMicro AV product might be pretty good but as a geneal rule I hate suites because of bloat and I can't name one suite that is all that and a bag of chips. Almost always things go down hill in bundles. Add to that the fact that TrendMicro ticked me off big time recently when the acquired Internute, which I can't stand. I worked on a PC over the weekend. Nice box actually--except for the fact that it had been brought to its knees, not by viruses and spyware but by the McCafee suite, AOL, and Intermute. McCafee went down fighting me all the way--absolutely refused to uninstall several of its processes--and Intermute, well they have big brass ones! Before it would even entertain a request for uninstallation, you had to let it go online (via AOL, no less) where you went through an inquisition about why you could possibly want to remove it. BAHHHH!

Anyway...no suites.

[classicsoftware]

Can somebody comment on TREND MICRO INTERNET SECURITY - PC-CILLIN 2005.

THANX


Mediocre at best. A resource hog at worst....

[agentLX]

Can i get more specific....

how about its...
1. virus trapping, ie. virus scan in real time
2. anti spyware
3. scan engine
4. fire wall
5. over-all performance with regards to virus, trojans, worms, spywares

[classicsoftware]

Go on-line to PC-World or PC-Magazine and check out their reviews. You've had ours and it does not make it on the radar screen here at PC Guide forums...