WHICH is the best antivirus program for windows 7 which don't cause BSOD???

I can't justify recommending a free anti-virus.

Here is some additional information from organizations purported to be independent:

AV-TEST - The Independent IT-Security Institute: Nov/Dec 2011

In this summary for December 2011, MSE v2 got the lowest rating of 2 for Protection. While the top winners were:

6.0 BitDefender Internet Security 2012
6.0 BullGuard Internet Security 12.0
6.0 G Data: Internet Security 2012
6.0 Kaspersky Internet Security 2012

How the protection test worked:

AV-TEST - The Independent IT-Security Institute: Protection

In 2011, AV-Comparatives, an organization which conducts numerous independent lab-based anti-virus and anti-malware test. released its end of year summary. This data is in an encrypted PDF and can be found here: AV-Comparatives: Summary 2011 (PDF)

It requires Adobe Reader.

The winner for best product of the year was Kaspersky. Top rated products for 2011 were AVIRA, BitDefender, ESET, F-Secure, and Kaspersky. So, no, I don't agree that freeware anti-malware software really competes with the commercial solution at all. Putting a freeware anti-virus on an enterprise network of systems would be crazy. I'll tell you one thing, I dislike Symantec products with a passion, but their corporate products like Endpoint 12 do let you perform an enormous amount of centralized management of all clients on a Windows domain controller. It can function as a virus detection center for branch offices. So can most commercial anti-virus business deployment and management tools. When it comes to real results, and not the stuff you read about as hype, these are the programs that stop the malware and the viruses when your computer security is compromised. This compromise happens, primarily, through the exploitation of the user while they are browsing the web, or, when systems do not retain the latest Windows updates.

Looking at it honestly, no matter how much I want to say that Microsoft Security Essentials is the best solution - it is not. It works and runs fast and is designed to look nice. It plays great with the OS and HAL because it is Microsoft. It is the same reason Office runs super fast. But when you look at the real results, from the testing labs that don't have a vested interest in giving you a result that was paid for, you're going to keep seeing a trend. And that trend is that free anti-virus solutions don't compete at all with commercial solutions. If they did, no one would buy commercial AV or security suites.

Look, I can't in good conscience, say to a client, you know what's a lot better than Kaspersky? You know what is ten times better than ESET or BitDefender? Microsoft Security Essentials. I would be lying to them, to my knowledge. I couldn't even justify the cost differential - because when that inexperienced office user who knows how to do their job, but not necessarily use a computer that well, goes ahead and downloads a real virus, that ravages with real consequence -- I am putting an untold amount of data at risk. At one of my best clients, I would have been putting scanned images of multi-million dollar historic documents at risk, financial data at risk, bid sheets at risk, trade secrets at risk, and more.

So if you want to save a business a couple hundred dollars, and not even consider calling a sales rep. and requesting a bulk licensing discount, and go with MSE or AVG, you can do that. They could save thousands of dollars in software fees that they could probably write-off at the end of the year any way. But their network will not be safer whatsoever, and support incidents are going to increase tremendously. That is the plain truth. Whether in the public or private sector, I could never condone MSE as a solution, but in the smallest of offices.

MSE is a blessing, because finally millions of computer users will have a good reason to install an anti-virus package. Microsoft made one for free. The world may be that much safer from botnets, arbitrary code execution, worms, trojans, and viruses by a few percentage points. Microsoft deserves credit for that. But their products, just like AVG or the other free utilities that are mainstream, do not compete. McAfee isn't even on the list for these tests, so that tells me they are accurate. It's so bad it's not rated. Thank you for reading.

AV-Comparatives is a well known & respected, as well as unbiased, company who does "real life" testing of the products that they give awards for (& those who doesn't get awards). Not all AV providers are on this list for various reasons. The #1 reason is narrowing down the best choices for the consumer.

Recently, I believe it was last year, AV-Comparatives began using Windows 7 SP1 for their testing grounds. Previously, the company was using XP Pro SP3 for testing. Never did they use Vista, if they did, there were no reports of it.

The thing that I really like about the site, it does a breakdown of each product into a few categories so that we can understand the award process. Note that Avast (the free version) almost always have the fastest scan of any AV, year after year. Avast is awarded for that. But one cannot rely on "who's the fastest" alone. MSE has low amounts of false positives, once again, that cannot be a total basis on choosing an AV.

It's the total picture that counts. And even then, AV-Comparatives encourages users to "try & see" approach, noting that many companies has free trial versions of the real product. The truth is, there's no "one size fits all" for security software. Each user has their own unique needs. Some wants total control of the product, some wants everything automated, and there's many users in between those extremes.

It's my opinion that the "best" AV is the one that the user will actually take the time to learn & use, that secures the user, and the user feels as such. It's also my opinion that it depends upon the needs of the user. Like Mike stated above, a free AV would not suffice for any serious business user, or one who has wealth & manages it online. No way would I trust millions of dollars in the hands of a "free" (of any brand) AV. And, as Mike also mentioned, even if the security solution cost several hundred dollars, it would be a tax write off anyway. The users tax liability would be reduced by a professional solution.

On the other hand, there's the casual user who reads web articles, makes forum posts, reads & writes emails, and does online banking/shopping. That user needs paid protection as well. By opening email accounts & banking/shopping, this user also needs a paid security solution. Many of these users are everyday working folks, who can't afford to take a chance of losing what resources they have.

Finally, the user who only reads web articles, does research for school, and visits forums, but does not disclose their identity at all on the net. These users may be just fine with a free AV, provided that the user runs it regularly (MSE does this for you). These users also needs from time to time use a free program, such as Malwarebytes, to fully scan their computer for serious malware. Also, there are several good free online scanners, such as the ESET Online Scanner, or F-Secure Online Scanner & others.

The bottom line as to choice depends heavily upon what the user does with their computer. Fortunately, there are choices for all users. There is no excuse NOT to run an AV. It's just a matter of finding the right one for you.

Cat

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Originally Posted by catilley1092

The truth is, there's no "one size fits all" for security software. Each user has their own unique needs. Some wants total control of the product, some wants everything automated, and there's many users in between those extremes.

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How right you are Cat. For every ten AVG / Norton I see in BSOD's and tell the OP to remove, and their problem is solved. I could probably find another forty that have never had a problem with either. Sadly (?) as soon as I see either of them in a dmp file, they gotta go!!

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Originally Posted by Elmer

Sadly (?) as soon as I see either of them in a dmp file, they gotta go!!

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There's nothing sad about that at all, both products are on a steep downhill slope (although Norton was never on much of one to start with).
http://www.av-comparatives.org/image...ummary2011.pdf This article says it all (or at least about detection rates).

MSE is good. I use Vipre on my server and it does a great job and doesn't bog down the network or the server. Don't waste your time or money on Symantec. It's the only one I've used that left an open door to Confliker, Red, and a few others. Yes, it was current at the time it took a holiday and allow every machine with it on them to get infected. The MSE machines didn't get infected; Our Domain Controller, running Vipre didn't either. Just the machines running Symantec.

Yes, worms will blow right by lovely Norton/Symantec. I recall, back in the day, many machines getting saser (sp?) that had good ole Norton.

Drew

Re: Symantec Endpoint (apparently Norton wanted his name back), I once had to block all sites across a dozen offices and prevent them from accessing anything but .org, .gov, .edu, or work-related websites. This was after reviewing logs of where people were going and why these systems were getting taken down. I had dealt with enough. I still had people calling me, asking me why they couldn't get on MySpace and that they needed it for work. I was going to create a white-list form of acceptable sites, but by the next day, the outrage of laziness grew so great that I was forced to turn the whole thing off. I kept the logging on for the incompetent admin that still works there.

Old Timer - "Sounds like a pi**ing contest to me. I won't play.

Once a PC is properly set up, it will run almost anything. Then it just amounts to a program that costs little or nothing and does what it's supposed to do, without hassling the user.

I run AVG 2012 Pro, and install the FREE version for all my customers and set it to get an update and run a scan, automatically every day. We all stay 100% virus free with never a BSOD, crash or freeze.
Any OS, right out of the box, without tuning, is just a car crash waiting to happen."

Well said! I haven't run nothing but run AVG w/ MSE for the past several years!

Please clarify the sentence below... as is, it makes no sense. Thanks.

"Well said! I haven't run nothing but run AVG w/ MSE for the past several years!"

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Originally Posted by Drew

Please clarify the sentence below... as is, it makes no sense. Thanks.

"Well said! I haven't run nothing but run AVG w/ MSE for the past several years!"

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lol - so much for College English, eh? lol OK - let's try this ........... I haven't ran nothing but MSE & AVG for the past several yrs w/ no issues at all! Hows that? :)