New job!

[Chavo]

Almost all of the 'free' alternatives online are much less sophisticated and generate lots of false positives.

Free anti-virus is tricky, because it takes a ton of maintenance.  But there are decent free ones. 

AVG is the only good free one I have found.

[deadly7]

Horseshit.  I've used Symantec Antivirus for several years at my university.  We recently switched to Trend Antivirus (for whatever reasons) and Symantec was 10x better.  Trend won't pick up everything that Symantec does and it almost never successfully cleans a file.  Not once when I used Symantec was it unable to either delete, clean, or delete on the next reboot a file.  I've never had it not detect a virus, are you sure it was a virus and not a bad piece of malware/spyware?  The other big name, McAfee Antivirus is even worse than Trend.  Once you install it, its a huge resource hog and good luck trying to uninstall it.

My dad uses Symantec at Boeing and anytime they have a problem that Symantec AV doesn't recognize, they send them a report (I don't know what all it entails).  Symantec is obligated by contract to respond with a fix within 24 hours.  Neither Trend or McAfee will make such a contract with Boeing...seems pretty obvious why.

Almost all of the 'free' alternatives online are much less sophisticated and generate lots of false positives.

What Trend suite did your dad/did you use?  When did your dad use Trend?  They've come a long way in the last few years in terms of product and cleaning ability.  Trend Micro's Internet Security suite is, by far, the best I've used.

[Newby]

I've found Kaspersky to be a much better anti-virus in my experience. It's a resource hog like hell, but eh? It never ONCE missed a file.

I do not like Symantec. It could never find viruses in my experiences. I guess I was just unlucky?

[Skywing]

I've found Kaspersky to be a much better anti-virus in my experience. It's a resource hog like hell, but eh? It never ONCE missed a file.

Installing Kaspersky is tantamount to putting up a sign that says "please own my box, I have a giant privilege escalation vulnerability installed".

Look at any of the major AV software packages, such as Kaspersky, and you'll begin to understand why Microsoft deployed PatchGuard.

[Chavo]

What Trend suite did your dad/did you use?  When did your dad use Trend?  They've come a long way in the last few years in terms of product and cleaning ability.  Trend Micro's Internet Security suite is, by far, the best I've used.

I use it, not my dad.  It is their Corporate Suite, OfficeScan.

@Newby: One of the qualities of a 'good' AV program is the ability to watch a system without affecting its performance.  If you want complete security without regard for performance, just turn your computer off.  If you really never got any results from Symantec you probably f'd up the install somehow.

[Newby]

Installing Kaspersky is tantamount to putting up a sign that says "please own my box, I have a giant privilege escalation vulnerability installed".

Seems like an interesting read...