Fastest PC security software revealed by PassMark

Which brand would you trust the most with your computer security?

  • Norton

    Votes: 6 5.2%

  • ESET

    Votes: 20 17.4%

  • Avast

    Votes: 15 13.0%

  • McCafee

    Votes: 1 0.9%

  • Trend Micro

    Votes: 4 3.5%

  • BitDefender

    Votes: 1 0.9%

  • Kaspersky

    Votes: 12 10.4%

  • AVG

    Votes: 5 4.3%

  • Microsoft

    Votes: 38 33.0%

  • Other

    Votes: 13 11.3%
  • Total voters
    115
I'm currently using MSE as it was the only free AV (At the time) that provided a native x64 version (Why I want a native x64 AV is irrelevant :p)

Browsing to the avast free site, they don't offer one, and we have NOD32 here at work, which gives some... issues cleaning viruses (You have a virus here, here, and here - Now I will close, and leave you to delete them - Manually! :D :D)

So, until Norton release a permanently free native x64 version, I'll stick with MSE for now :p
 
It is not just their pre 2010 products that cause endless grief for friends, family and co-workers in my experience. It is ANY of their stuff supplied as bloatware, including 2010 & 2011 products on new laptops... the 1st thing I ask the crying, pleading voice on the other end of the line is "did your new pc come with Nortons pre-installed"... 90% of the time is YES, 95% of the time is spent removing it completely, and then 99% of their problems are solved. They are then instructed to install MSSE for free or purchase NOD32... and voila. Comments like "My laptop feels like a new laptop should", "Wow, everythings just working now" etc always follow.... and somehow, without everything and the kitchen sink that Nortons threw at them, they remain safe on the net and virus free.

So... yes, I am sure that the newer stuff is an improvement over the older stuff, but it is still is pffffffffffffft.



pkid said:
Fair point. Anything older than Norton 2009 is unusable in my experience. Even Norton 2010 feels a little slow compared to the 2011 products. I just get annoyed when people have had bad experiences with older versions of the software and then make up their minds for eternity. Symantec have actually done some good work and I think that they should get some recognition for it.

NOD using 2.6 megs of RAM is great. I am guessing the anti virus only doesn't have the backup, firewall and tune up features that Norton 360 does? My point was that 20 megs of RAM is not bad for a security product. Definitely not using all my 4 gigs of RAM. I think that I can spare 20 megs of RAM :)
Click to expand...
 
Use Avira on almost all our computers. Very light on resources and yet has tested great on virus detection.

Great to hear that Norton is finally sorting itself out. I haven't been able to recommend their products since DOS days. Generally when someone's PC is running slow I ask the following:
- How much free space have you got?
- When last did you defrag?
- Do you have Norton or McAfee installed?
 
kilobitsperyear said:
It is not just their pre 2010 products that cause endless grief for friends, family and co-workers in my experience. It is ANY of their stuff supplied as bloatware, including 2010 & 2011 products on new laptops... the 1st thing I ask the crying, pleading voice on the other end of the line is "did your new pc come with Nortons pre-installed"... 90% of the time is YES, 95% of the time is spent removing it completely, and then 99% of their problems are solved. They are then instructed to install MSSE for free or purchase NOD32... and voila. Comments like "My laptop feels like a new laptop should", "Wow, everythings just working now" etc always follow.... and somehow, without everything and the kitchen sink that Nortons threw at them, they remain safe on the net and virus free.
Click to expand...

+1.
invariably you also have to kill the ever-appearing "virus software is out of date" windows because your sister couldn't be hassled with paying for it and downloading the defs.
so she sits with an out of date antivirus for a few years in the hope that it offers some kind of protection...
which is worse than having no av at all imo.

don't get me started on corporates which have bloated av software, plus all of their vpn, security and other startup trinkets.
crikey, a buddy of mine literally takes 18 minutes to start his laptop.

no wonder people think mac is faster.
nobody's developed all this carp for mac yet.
but it's coming, like the borg :twisted:
 
rpm said:
Hi Antonf

Jan based his article on this report: http://www.passmark.com/ftp/totalprotectionsuites-feb2011.pdf

Do you have a another source which is more accurate? If so, please post it here and I will pass it on to Jan for a follow-on article.
Click to expand...
@rpm, you miss the point. Vodacom commissioned research that showed them to be the best in whatever it was - I didn't bother to read the article. Symantec commissioned research that showed them to be the fastest, bestest, whatever. My point is taking a journalist on a freebie to London and getting him to publish that article is an advertorial. Period.
 
There is no way that Norton....ah its paid for. I guess we all know that know that Norton is shyte.

MSE FTW.
 
I'm also calling BS on this. The only 2 products that ever came from Norton that was worthwhile was Norton Disk Doctor and Norton Commander. And yes, I am talking about the Dos versions.
 
Why isn't AVIRA a choice?

rpm said:
Hi Antonf

Jan based his article on this report: http://www.passmark.com/ftp/totalprotectionsuites-feb2011.pdf

Do you have a another source which is more accurate? If so, please post it here and I will pass it on to Jan for a follow-on article.
Click to expand...

AV-Comparitives has been quite consistent over time.

Their last report was for 2010, done in December and last updated in Jan.
http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/summary/summary2010.pdf

They rated F-Secure the highest overall, and give a quick breakdown on page 9 between different categories.
Interestingly their overall list looks like this:
Gold: F-Secure, Symantec
Silver: Avira
Bronze: Kaspersky

They don't even list Symantec under 'Overall Performance (Low System Impact)'
 
Antonf said:
@rpm, you miss the point. Vodacom commissioned research that showed them to be the best in whatever it was - I didn't bother to read the article. Symantec commissioned research that showed them to be the fastest, bestest, whatever. My point is taking a journalist on a freebie to London and getting him to publish that article is an advertorial. Period.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't call it an advertorial, but the results could be biased.

Symantec probably uses those exact same or similar scripts when testing their system, so it's optimised for those cases already which might not give a huge gain, but potentially enough to take it from #3 to #1 for instance.
 
ruan567 said:
I'm also calling BS on this. The only 2 products that ever came from Norton that was worthwhile was Norton Disk Doctor and Norton Commander. And yes, I am talking about the Dos versions.
Click to expand...

You forgot about Norton Ghost.
 
If Norton conducted the test, they obviously knew which viruses they would throw at the pc and make sure their virus definitions cater for all of them.

Microsoft Security Essentials is actually brilliant with detecting out-in-the-wild viruses, which are the ones that you should really worry about.
 
kingrob said:
You forgot about Norton Ghost.
Click to expand...

+1

I don't believe these ratings and never will, they will always be biased. What i do believe is, that MSE was made by Microsoft and who knows Windows better than Microsoft???

And thats why i will stick to MSE when it comes to a safe, secure, light system.
My 2nd choice would obviously be Kaspersky...
 
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