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

Originally Posted by Elmer

All AV programs can, to more or lesser degrees, cause issues.

This is my list of Saints n Sinners after being involved in BSOD's for over two years and is not comprehensive by any means.

The Saintly
Microsoft Security Essentials

The Good
Kaspersky
ESet

The Not So Good
Avast
Panda
Trend Micro

The Bad
AVG
Avira
McAfee
Spyware Terminator
Symantec Norton
PC Tools
Zone Alarm (Firewall)

Is that list in relation to how likely they are to cause issues or in relation to their quality as anti-virus software?

I've also had my problems with MSE, it was during depending on it that I caught the nastiest infection of my computing life. And MSE was updated daily, right before it's scheduled scan.

Since then, I've used first ESET NOD32, then ESET Smart Security 5, along with MBAM Pro. What one doesn't intercept, the other does. That's what I want, is known malware laden pages to be prevented form opening to begin with, not a cleanup attempt after the fact, with 15+ pages open.

And I'm not totally knocking MSE, in fact I'm beta testing the newest version that I got yesterday on XP Mode, as well as beta testing ESET Smart Security 6 on an extra Windows 7 Pro install. But out of the two, I can say, ESET 6 is far more polished than the next MSE is & has caught 2 potential threats to my OS.

Drew, you've stated that you're an IT man. Are you serving home customers (as someone we both know does), or are you serving professional/corporate users? It would seem strange that a business who handles potentially millions of dollars per year (or even month), as well as confidential customer/client info, to be depending on free security software. If there were a breakdown in security, these companies would have a lot of explaining to their customer base. I mean, for a business, it's a tax write off anyway, my landlord owns a local furniture store & a carpet/flooring business, as well as owns a few rentals.

The back office in the furniture store is the main office to all. I don't know all of the details, but they spend over $200 monthly for security software (sold & managed by a local IT woman) to safeguard their finances, customer data, tax data, everything. This does include 24/7 non-stop backup software to a NAS device for total computer backup, to which she can respond in an emergency, if needed, to recover.

I suppose one can manage a business with Windows Defender/MSE & Windows Backup, but I'd be leery of it, not to mention having someone on hand to constantly manage this task. The cost of that extra employee would pay for a qualified IT professional to provide & manage quality security/backup programs to meet the needs of the company.

Free may cut it at first, but if the business becomes successful, it won't for long.

Cat

Elmer,

Great list! You should have included Norton w/ The Bad.

PS: "The Saintly", lol, that's very good, I like that.

Cheers,
Drew

Elmer, show us the data that supports your ranking. Btw, you left out the program that is usually ranked the highest: G-Data.

hey all, i am just going to say that i am glad that MSE has finally fixed their MPKSL problem. i have tried most of the free antivirus software and have liked some and hated others.all the horror stories that alot of people have posted. any virus that i ever caught was due to my own stupidity.most free antivirus that i have used has done what it says, BASIC protection. i believe it was stated in an earlier post COMMON SENSE and some form of antivirus freeware or paid. i am back with MSE just because for me it works.just my opinion. poorguy

Has the bug with AVG have been fixed for 64bit?
Currently I am using comodo, but it has a lot of false positives.

Save yourself wondering about any of that or anything like that... just use MSE & the world will be good

I recommend this quite seriously; it's way better (& problem-free) than both of those others, you mention, put together.

Microsoft Security Essentials - Free Antivirus for Windows

Cheers,
Drew

I just like having another client on standby just in case, I already have essentials installed thank you.
Not being paranoid, more or less cautious and I am not entirely trustworthy of Microsofts directly availible softwares.
Old habits are hard to break you know, having an alternative on standby is not a bad idea.

I've debated about the best antivirus / security program[s] on many Forums, and nowhere has a definite solution been found. I don't believe there is a definite solution, because it's really a battlefield, and situations vary. In antivirus program tests the Victors change, from test to test, from year to year. It's a bit like politics - whom can you trust? I've taken the rather phlegmatic view Choose the one you like. Sincerely, I don't think the main question is which program you have, the main issue is that you have a program.

And BSOD... will we ever get free of them? Linux has them too. It's not a Windows problem, it's a computer problem.

Originally Posted by Titanic

And BSOD... will we ever get free of them? Linux has them too. It's not a Windows problem, it's a computer problem.

Linux never has had many crashes for me like that though (but that hinges on what you do with it), windows however I have seen bluescreen for no reason even if the hardware is fine.
And this includes 7