USC distributes Trend Micro now. It works fine from what Iāve experienced with the lab machines I work with.
My mother uses AVG with no complaints. (And if she did have complaints, trust me, Iād know. ;))
For all you AVG users out thereā¦
A month or so back, my mcafee expired so I installed and ran AVG and it came up with 0 problems. Now one of the files I have on my computer is a āvirusā (all virus software seems to think itās a virus). AVG didnāt detect it at all, I ran an updates, rescanned and all that jazz still didnāt find it (even tough mcafee had detected it every time I scanned). Then I downloaded and installed Avira AntiVir and it found it along with 3 real viruses. So maybe if I were you Iād rethink using AVG.
/end story
http://www.av-comparatives.org/index.html?http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/overview.html
The above link basically shows you the different anti-virus softwares that are most popular, and it displays their performance over the years (a gray-ish color meaning itās below everything, then ratings standard, advanced, advanced+) (itās also a comprehensive form of the PDF [which was only one segment of a year] I posted earlier).
If you looking for a anti virus and willing to pay a pretty penny I would strongly recommend Kaspersky and as I said before if you want to go free, Avira AntiVir is what Iām pushing for.
For the last year or two, Norton has included an anti-spyware feature. In my experience, it isnāt as good as standalone applications, but Symantec certainly doesnāt market it that way.
I always recommend Firefox, AVG, Spybot, AdAware, ClamAV and Thunderbird first, as they are free solutions, and people often hate paying for software/subscriptions. But if they are looking for even more security, and want to pay more, then Iāll recommend commercial anti-virus applications (Except Norton and Microsoft Live).
But mostly, I try to teach them common sense. Only use Firefox (or Safari, Opera, or Camino) to browse the Internet, and NEVER use Internet Explorer unless absolutely necessary. Donāt use Outlook, ever. Always look at the link in the status bar before you click on it; if you cannot see an address there, be cautious before you click on it. Donāt download stuff from āsketchyā websites. Always scan anything downloaded from the Internet for viruses before you open the file.
If they are looking to purchase a new computer, then I usually recommend that they purchase a Mac Mini. For $600, you can get a computer that just works, is much less at risk of being infected by viruses, and comes with the most amazing āfreeā software Iāve ever seen: iLife. While this may not be the best solution for everyone, for a large number of [especially full or partial computer-illiterate] people this will solve almost all of their problems.
(Silly people. They think I recommend Macs so they wonāt have any computer problems. Little do they know, I recommend them so that I donāt ever have to fix their computer ever again. :p)
Thereās an easy way to fix the problem with computer-illiterate people, LimeWire, and more viruses than you can shake a stick at. Go into their firewall and disable LimeWire from accessing the Internet. Even if they reinstall LimeWire, itāll still be blocked from accessing the Internet. 
Norton AV for home use (as opposed to Symantec AV for corporate use) is a particularly badly-coded, inefficient and generally annoying product. Itās on my destroy-at-all-costs list. Iām not sure about the latest edition, but past instances used an Internet Explorer window to render the menus (meaning if IE was broken due to spyware, NAV wouldnāt work), and installed Windows shell extensions which added no value to the user interface, other than (effectively) a Norton banner ad in every window.
Also, Iāve become disenfranchised with the latest version of McAfee AV, ever since it started displaying popup ads for its own upgrade (only $49.95!). Thatās unacceptable behaviour, and itās earned itself a place on the list too.
Iāve used AVG Free on Windows 2000 and XP, without issue, and Kaspersky seems to have a good reputation, though Iāve only used their online service.
On a more abstract level, consider the ramifications of the subscription model of software distribution. Do you really want the producers of this software to conclude that people are willing to pay per-month/per-year for anti-virus service? If not, donāt buy software which uses that sales model. Personally, I liked the way they used to provide free upgrades in perpetuity (or until they stopped supporting that version, some years later), and Iām reasonably willing to spend my money in a way that reinforces that behaviour.
The never-use-IE, never-use-Outlook advice is really not helpful. Those programs have had holes in the past, and will continue to do so in the future, but the holes are usually patched very quickly, and are usually minor. People need to learn to keep their software patchedāthis goes for everything, not just IE and Outlook. As a functional matter, for business use, Outlook 2007 with Exchange 2007 is by far the best e-mail client in existence. And IE 7 is quite competitive with public-release builds of other offerings. By contrast, safe web browsing is always a good idea, and the rest of that advice is right on.
This battle seems to be what the user likes best. Kinda like the Mac vs. PC battle. Iāve Used Norton for years and havenāt had any problems with it at all. No viruses or anything. I normally run a scan with Adaware every month or so and it only picks up 3 or 4 items.
Some of the best advice offered so far has been safe internet surfing. Donāt click on stupid pop-up ads, or those links that people get in their profile on AIM saying crazy party pictures and stuff. Make sure to check in the status bar, or right click and show hyperlink (for AIM) to see where you are actually being sent.
Both are true and the last one is just hilarious. I would want to hide in the room and watch the person try to fix it just for fun. 
Hmmm,
AVG does inexplicably miss some infections every scan, and that is the reason I stopped using it. For the Price (and I know some of you wonāt agree), I think the ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite is (In my opinion) The best I have used.
I benchmarked AVG, Mcafee, and ZA by Scanning a machine that had a known number of infections with each of them. While AVG missed a couple of infections, ZA seemed flawless (at least as much so as Mcafee =P). ZoneAlarmās Malware remover has never failed me (as benchmarked against spybot S&D), and I have no complaints with the firewall, although I usually put my trust in My routerās.
Just a few thoughts,
-Cody C
I use AVG free editing. Itās a great program, runs on its own without you having to constantly monitor it. It also scans email. You can schedule it to do updates/scans when you arenāt using your pc so it doesnāt slow down your normal work.
I heard there was this really good software called Ubuntu.
Cāmon, someone had to say it.
True, but then the issue is usually PLBKAC*.
*Problem Lies Between Keyboard And Chair
I use whatever copy of software my dad bought for the year. Two years ago it was McAfee, last year it was Norton. I canāt say that Iāve got any complaints for either of them, however, I think the problem really lies with Windows.
[tangent]
probably 95% of the viruses that Iāve experienced have created complications with the registry (which completely mess the computer until the next reformat). One can imagine that all the hype about a more secure OS was created, and then the developers at MS kept banging their heads over the same problem: How can we determine whether something is a virus or not? Which of course gave them the idea, yes or no. If a Vista computer gets infected with some sort of virus, well, the it must be PLBKAC.
Perhaps if they made 3-4 different subsections of the registryā¦ the very low level stuff, which shouldnāt be modified, the mid level, trusted software, and then the last level, where anything can really edit. Then you can wipe as far down as it needsā¦
[/tangent]
Anyhow, the list of software applications that I use include Firefox, Pidgin, and SUPERā¦ using these I really never get any complications
Iām not too experienced in this field, but I use Windowās Defender for my XP box. It seems to actually do quite a good job, as well as being nice and non-intrusive on my CPU and RAM usage when Iām CADing.
I guess the guys who made Windowās are actually decent at keeping it secure.
Edit: But no software is a replacement for caution while browsing, and being smart before running programs of unknow origin.
On the topic of AV software, is it better to quarantine a detected file, or completely remove it (Delete the file)?
Basically, the point of quarantining a file is so that if it turns out that the file wasnāt a virus, and a piece of some software that you NEEDā¦ you can put it back. For the most part, this doesnāt happen. But itās just as safe to quarantine the file as opposed to deleting it, and then if you need it back, itās there.
Jacob
Very rarely, software that you install on your computer may come with things that show up as viruses/malware/etc when doing a scan. Although rare, by deleting these files you may be violating the user agreement that you clicked āI Agreeā to when you first installed it.
I once had this issue years ago (before the days of Firefox), when I was experimenting with Opera. Back then, Opera used to come with built-in advertising unless you paid a fee, and thus would come up in virus/malware scans. :-/
I am definitely a freeware guy myself. Spybot is probably the best spy/ virus protection I have seen.
Thereās a comparison of AV products on av-comparatives.org where they tested their performance against āunknownā threats. They used February defs and put them up against malware that have come out since.
Aviracame out on top, catching 71% of them, but with many false positives. NOD32 looks like the winner with 68% and very few false positives. AVG (which I have used till now) only found 8%. Guess Iāll be doing some home helpdesk work this weekendā¦
I use Nod32 for antivirus and Spybot: Search and Destroy for antispyware.
Nod32 is very nice, it doesnāt use much in the way of resources (As I type this, itās using about 23 MB of RAM) because itās not as bloated as, say, Norton.
Spybot: Search and Destroy has a nice thing called Resident which prompts you to allow or deny a change to important parts of the registry (such as startup) so if a program that shouldnāt be adding stuff to the registry is, you can block it from changing the registry.
Also: I had no spyware when I set Firefox to prompt every time a site wanted to set a cookie for a few months. However, it got annoying after a while.