What anti-virus do you use?

[Prophecy]

Hey guys I'm currently using microsoft defender. Is it any good? what anti-virus software do you use?

[Levent]

my brain.

[Vivilacqua1]

Malwarebytes and Windows Defender.

[Vivilacqua1]

my brain.

And that.

[EliasNM]

I use the default one, apart from that I use MalwareBytes if needed.

[olback]

I have the payed version of Kaspersky. It's good and all but... I would never pay for it myself, a friend of mine gave it to me

[LancerBG]

Kaspersky. easy to use, light weight and catches anything I have thrown at it. It's on sale almost monthly for an avg of about 13 bucks and at frys they have rebates which makes it cost a penny very often. 

[DumbAsshole32]

.

[Leonard]

my brain.

So you are saying that you PC is riddled with malware right.......

 

[Kiyuubi]

I think we really need a sticky on this, or recommend software in general. This question is asked too much. This thread should be a sticky, but of course, should be audited for errors and such beforehand..

That aside:

For free AV you should either get Avira or Bitdefender. Bitdefender is more lightweight, but it doesn't give you many options in terms of control or how it works.

If you want a paid one then either Bitdefender or Kaspersky. I would probably go with Kaspersky just for the fact that their team has found a lot of security issues in the past. You can also check out AVTEST, a third-party company that rates AVs. (Bitdefender and Kaspersky are the top 2)

Do not get Avast!, as it is complete shit. Go to this link to find out why.

You will also want to scan your computer weekly, or whatever amount of time you are comfortable with, with Malwarebytes. Just to be clear, Malwarebytes is NOT an AV, nor should it be used like one. So do not run it along side your AV, only use it is a scanner. Make sure to not accept the trial it offers, and to disable it on startup.

[WindowsVistaUser12]

Here is an answer: https://www.av-test.org/en/

[Patrick3D]

None, virus-free since 1995. The only time I ever got a virus infection was when I was required to put a 3.5" floppy disk in a lab machine at college. It was the dedicated virus scanning system for the lab (we were all required to scan our disks before we could use a lab computer) and someone had infected it with the Michaelangelo virus which spread to everyone that scanned their disks. My experience has been that anti-virus software does not prevent infections, it only detects them after the fact. Which doesn't help since the first thing many viruses do is disable or break the anti-virus software. The only way to prevent infections is to be smarter about what you are clicking on and where you get your software.

 

When I'm cleaning other people's computers I use:

-MalwareBytes

-Hijackthis

-Autoruns

-Process Explorer

[Obysk]

Main gaming rig (X99) - AVG paid, AVG PC Tuneup, Spybot (will go to just Windows Defender and CCleaner when upgrade to Windows 10)

 

HTPC - Windows Defender and CCleaner

 

Laptop - Windows Defender and CCleaner