Gizmo speaks the truth about them throttling your access, which is totally unacceptable in my book.

As far as using Norton, I'll just say - I'm sorry. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

I just recently downloaded and tried Norton, Bit Defender, ZoneAlarm, CA, McAffe and Kaspersky.

I went with the Kaspersky for two major reasons and I highly recommend it. The first reason is because it has a very small footprint on your machine. Everything is incorporated into 2 processes that take up about 2MB and 6MB in normal operation for a total of 8MB (i.e. a very small memory utiliztion) and expand to perhaps a total of 50MB when some kind of scan is in progress.

The second reason is that you can get free phone support during normal business hours from native english speakers that actually seem to know what they're talking about. Of course they do try and encourage you to use a lookup database and online chat but if you push you can easily talk to a real person right around the corner from me in Woburn, MA.

I highly recommend Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 but you can google Internet Security Reviews and check out the reviews from various magizines, PCWorld and PC Magazine are probably the most reputable, and then pretty much all of the companies allow you to download and try them out for at least 15 days if not a month. That's what I did to finalize on Kaspersky.

I use Avast. It works good, its free, and no problems so far

All of them? That's like asking for a virus

I purchased Kaspersky A/V this year, and am happy with it.

In the past I've pretty much tried them all (Trend, Norton, McAffe...).

I think you have to read the reviews almost every year, as they seem to trade top spots in the rankings... what was #1 this year may be #3 the next.

Since my computer is older and slower than I would like it to be (kinda like me), I usually go for the one that has the smallest "footprint" or is the least demanding on my system, resource-wise.

True, but were not all using torrents like you

Anyone of the perceived "top" products will do a fine job - its a quibble by mere degrees on which is better. As always the fine level of choice is individual perception of need versus their features. Just dont forget two timeless principles:

1. You get what you pay for, its free for a reason and not necessarily a good one.

2. The "number one" in anything always has a big fat luminous Bullseye painted on their Butt and many love to kick it. Get past that noise, and decide on value to you, not the volume of yelling from the herd of bullseye hunters that seem to prevail in many places these days.

Regards
Zy

I'm not sure that adage is true w.r.t. anti-virus programs any more, Zydor. The big two have been relying on name-brand recognition for a very long time, but without really innovating, or, frankly, doing all that great of a job at finding viruses.

I'm a computer technician, and I can't tell you how often we get machines that have MacAffee or Norton installed, but, at the same time, are just riddled with viruses. (Possibly because the people who install those programs seem to thing that they're protected, but never update the virus definitions or do a full scan.)

I use AVG, personally, and, while I find some things about it annoying as hell (stop force-updating when I'm playing a game, goddammit!) I think it's much better than the name-brands, and probably better. Some of the online scanners are also good, and can be useful for finding stuff that installed AV's cannot.

But, man, seriously, you should see some of the "protected" computers I have to fix sometimes... oy vey.

what is funny here is that sonofsailor posted with a title named internet security.. then asks for advice on getting a new internet service provider, goes on to say that they use norton (whom I wasn't aware provided internet service) and yet people are answering as though the question bananna poke radiator flatbread.

More than likely they were asking which internet security suite was the best, but that is definitely not what they asked.

to answer, any fo the internet security suites are equally good or bad depending on how you abuse them.. for example, if you click yes yo run the activex control that gets you free porn, or lets you cheat at games, or lets you into the leet site that has the hacks and cracks, then it isn't really the security suites fault when you get the virus/keylogger/spyware..

good luck to you, norton is as good as any of the others..

I agree, its nuts - some people buy the stuff and never update it, which is insane. I cant wrap my head around that mindset. Buying any anti-virus is almost better than nothing, but to buy one and not update beggars belief.

Regards
Zy

I am not saying norton is bad but its uses up so much space not to mention the start up time
if i use nod32/(cant remember name of firewall) or if i use zone alarm
i cut that same time by almost 3 minutes (I am not patient enough to watch my slow computer load a bloated anti virus)