I've recently bought a netbook, Asus R105D with a 1.6GHz Atom processor and running Windows 7 starter. Lovely bit of kit, can be browsing in under a minute from a completely cold start.
However, my question concerns anti-virus options. It came with a trial version of Trend Micro Titanium. Before I rush off and make it paid-up, I've done a bit of googling and found other tools that seem to be recommended to various degrees, such as Panda Internet Security and Microsoft Security Essentials. As it's not my main machine, I don't need lots of configuration options just good reliable protection. I wondered what other people were using, and how they have found it? My main gripe with the Trend software is that, whatever I do, I can't get it to automatically kick up reliably when I boot the machine up, it does sometimes but not others. Anyone else had this problem with it? I know the config is correct, I've had lots of experience in setting up PCs!
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Microsoft Security Essentials on all three machines in this house and we never seem to have any problems.
Pat
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+1
Always Microsoft Security Essentials, according to the gospel by God Zero.
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>> +1
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>> Always Microsoft Security Essentials, according to the gospel by God Zero.
Specially on low powered netbooks.
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Meant to report back that I did install MSE on my netbook, and as suggested it seems to have minimal performance impact. It seems to work unobtrusively enough. Thanks!
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Bit late now, but for future reference quite a useful set of AV test results here for the vmost common AV progs!
windowssecrets.com/newsletter/is-your-free-av-tool-a-resource-pig/
scroll down slightly.
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MSE asks to be manually updated on my netbook, but I think that's because I don't use the netbook very often.
Used to use avast, but that also needed attention from time to time.
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If you don't use your netbook for several days Windows Action Centre will warn you to update the antivirus pretty soon after boot up as definitions are out of date. MSE generally looks once a day on its own for any updates if it's on long enough.
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Thirded. Does everything that the other free ones do, only without the incessant upgrade nagging and the feeling that something's got its foot on your machine's neck.
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Fourth'd (?)
I used to be a big fan of AVG Free, but it grew more and more bloated as time went on, and the last version I installed knocked the stuffing out of the machine's performance.
MSE seems to do everything needed, seems relatively lightweight, and as long as you're not using a hooky Windows license (perish the thought) and can pass the Validation Check, it's an absolute doddle to download and install.
Avast also used to be pretty good, but haven't used it in a couple of years. MSE has kind of rendered the alternatives pointless.
Last edited by: DP on Wed 29 Feb 12 at 15:03
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Avast! is still very good and also improved over the past year or so.
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Anti-virus for netbook - Pat
