TOP RATED ANTIVIRUS

Common and leading antivirus vendors of today are Symantec, Mcafee, Computer Associates, and Trend Micro. These companies have market-leading presence in the United States. Microsoft, as well, have plans to become a key player in this market. Microsoft acquired intellectual property and technology from GeCad software in 2003, a company based in Bucharest, Romania. They also acquired Pelican Software, which had a behavior based security as well as Giant Company Software for spyware and Sybari Software, which manages virus, spam, and phishing filtering.

Lots of discussion has centered on whether Microsoft will come to own a dominant position in the antivirus market by simply bundling its technologies with its operating systems at no charge. This is a similar technique applied in other markets such as word processing and Internet browsers.

There are a number of antivirus vendors with great market presence in other countries that are beginning to become more widely known. These vendors include GriSoft out of the Czech Republic, Sophos in the united Kingdom, Panda Software out of Spain, Kaspersky in Russia, SoftWin in Romania, F-Secure in Finland, Norman in Norway, Arcabit in Poland, VirusBuster out of Hungary, and AhnLab in South Korea.

It is not clear where the industry is heading and everyone in this market faces a rapidly changing landscape. The amount of effort to find and provide fixes for viruses is staggering. Malicious programs are getting more complex and the number of them is increasing. Many companies may find themselves without the resources to match the efforts of those truly bent on creating havoc. Some virus companies are getting hundreds of new samples a day! Moreover, the new viruses are getting “smarter” in that they propagate themselves quickly and often hide themselves and are smart enough to move around in a system by renaming themselves in an effort to make it hard to remove.

AND THE TOP TEN..
10- AVG Free

One of the best of the free antivirus programs, AVGFree is designed to be very easy to use, and it is. Some users actually consider it a little too easy to use, however, and prefer something a little more customizable, like, say…

9- Avast! Home Edition

Avast’s website really pushes the Pro edition of this package, but the free home edition is, honestly, all you need. It offers a little more than AVG in the way of options and features. Of course… some say that Avast has a few too many bells and whistles without really being a full security program, and they recommend…

8- Avira AntiVir

Avira AntiVir may very well be the best of the free antivirus programs. It’s easy to use without being too dumbed down, and most importantly, it gets daily updates, if not several updates in a single day, ensuring the most up to date database of known viruses anywhere.

7- Panda

Panda offers a few security programs, and their antivirus is amongst some of the best bargain priced virus software. It gets regular updates and it gets the job done, with user friendliness to boot.

6- Kaspersky Anti-Virus

Kaspersky tends to get great reviews with just one little trifle- It can eat up a lot of memory. However, if you’re virus savvy and know how to reduce exposure, you should be able to keep the scanner from getting too busy, saving your RAM in the process.

5- G-Data Antivirus

G-Data is designed as a no nonsense virus killer. No bells and whistles, no fancy interface, just easy to use, automatic updates, a wide database of known viruses, and great results.

4- McAfee Security Center

Simply put, McAfee might well be the only security software you ever need to buy. It covers spam, viruses, Trojans, popups, you name it, and all in one, easy to use package.

3- Vipre Antivirus and Antispyware

Don’t forget, viruses aren’t all you have to worry about. Vipre isn’t quite a full package, but it does a great job against both viruses and spyware.

2- F Secure Anti Virus

F Secure is great when it comes to two things: User interface, and updates. It gets daily updates, and it’s easy to use, making for a great little virus killer.

1- ESET Nod32

ESET Nod32 is a great combo of firewall and virus scanner. It also defends against spyware, adware, spam, popups, and so on.