Ms essentials here to. It just works. 

Folks,
     I don't really have a horse in this race but.........



     Microsoft's SE has just very recently lost it's rating from the top AV rating group: http://www.guru3d.com/new...curity_essentials.html

     I personally have had multiple customers get really nasty viruses that just skated right past the MS product and all of Symantec's offerings as well.  Check out AVAST for a free AV and NOD32 is rated one of the best and is a great buy for 40 bucks.


     In practice, I never ran AV on my DAW.  Though, I'm pretty meticulous about what gets installed and ran on the box.

Interesting Guitardood. So bit defender back on top. ZoneAlarm not too bad either..
Nothing in the list though about performance and footprint, no benchmarks....

http://www.av-test.org/en...windows-7/sepoct-2012/

http://www.av-comparatives.org/

Bob Bone

Just FYI, ESET is the NOD32 I mentioned above.  Take a look at the performance/detection ratios.

Also there is a site, www.virscan.org, where you can upload a virus file and have it scanned by most of the relevant AV software.  I use these types of tests in conjunction with the aforementioned reports to help decide what to recommend to computer clients.

Being a programmer, I always bear in mind that most of the heuristic algorithms can easily be beaten by a good programmer who is bent on hosing your computer and is not using a virus-kit borne virus that has a known footprint.

Some platitudes:    "Best defense is a good offense" - Adage
                             "The only winning move is not to play" - Joshua
                             "No Warez in Therez!" - A Nerdly Associate


-----------------
Guitardood


Soundclick: http://www.soundclick.com/ChuckFletcher
My Site: http://www.musicpreview.com

Beepster


Yes... which AV? Microsoft Security Essentials is free, is supposedly top notch in protection and is considered a resource light AV so it's great for DAWs. Cake support recommended it to me for my DAW (I knew about it but have been an Avast user for years) and I've never had a problem with leaving it enabled while working.

Absolutely agree!
Microsoft Security Essentials is FREE and its one of the BEST Virus program with low impact out there..
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/security-essentials-download
 

 
 
MSE is one of the simplest and easiest to use anti-malware tools around. It's quick, unobtrusive and works without slowing your PC down.
Malware is caught quickly, and the default actions work well for most users.
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/software/utilities/anti-malware-software/microsoft-security-essentials-640587/review

Another +1 for MSE. Been using it since upgrading my DAW and laptop to win7 a few years ago and never had any issues. 

jackasspenguin


I'm running the MacAfee suite that's free with the AT&T Uverse subscription. I don't see anyway to disable it in it's control panel. I'm not sure if I need to but I have had X2 crash several times. I don't use this pc on the internet much but I do visit the forums and moderately trusted sites.

Would it be best to disable the internet connection while using X2? That seems to be the easiest thing to do. I'm really the only person using this computer. Is disabling the UAC worth messing with?

1.  I don't disable wireless or internet most of the time when using X1 or X2.  If I have clients recording, then I often do, though only as a "belt & braces" kind of thing, as I've had no problems at other times.
 
2.  I have not found it necessary to disable UAC.  It should not cause any problems.  Don't always listen to people who say it's only there to stop numpties causing havoc.  It is a useful safegaurd, and shouldn't cause any problems, so leave it alone IMO.

If you buy a PC with Mcaffee or Norton or any of the other craptastic bloatware trial AVs immediately go to CNET (after creating your initial system image of course) and download CCleaner and remove them. Then install Avast or MSE... as well as Malwarebytes and SpyBot S&D.

@matt... I've never had to go back into sttings to turn off the Avast warnings after the first time I do it. I do however keep the visual pop up alerts active so I know that it hasn't forsaken me. 

Nb McAffee used to supply a clean removal utility as a download ?

Yep they may claim that Beepster but unfortunately I've had to remove them from PCs where they have conflicted with each other on 3 or 4 occasions (to be specific antivirus and anti malware  real time scanning will most likely conflict sooner or later when different vendors are used, and I've seen antivirus products detect valid malware scanners as a virus).

Yeah of course ccCleaner is not an antivirus or anti malware tool and I've got this installed myself.

Cheers..

Oh and there is a warning on Spybot saying that Mcaffee will likely show up as a virusy thingamadoodle. I've actually never gotten any hits while running any of my AVs but I don't tread too many uncharted waters and use script/adblockers when surfing. 

jackasspenguin


I'm running the MacAfee suite that's free with the AT&T Uverse subscription. I don't see anyway to disable it in it's control panel. I'm not sure if I need to but I have had X2 crash several times. I don't use this pc on the internet much but I do visit the forums and moderately trusted sites.

Would it be best to disable the internet connection while using X2? That seems to be the easiest thing to do. I'm really the only person using this computer. Is disabling the UAC worth messing with?

I also have the McAfee that "comes with the machine".  Before running X2, I unplug the network cable and open the McAfee control panel and turn off "real time scanning" It asks when to turn it on again and I check "next time I boot my machine" This seems to keep McAfee from interfering  with X2 and prevents the "background" talk between every other program on the computer that is scheduled to "check for updates" in the background.

VERY few crashes or freezes.

Best,
Rob

CakeAlexS


It's definitely a good idea to have more than one AV on your computer, but only run one in real time and use the other(s) to run periodic system scans.


Until you find a virus and then real time scan locks up the manual scan, losing control over the cleanup process (or file lockout) .... Good luck with that idea.

Not if you take the extra 30 seconds to disconnect from the Internet and disable real time before you scan. I can tell you've been in IT hell. ;-) 

It's down to how often that virus signature database gets updated, the virus engine gets updated, the cleanup engine is updated, and well it is done. In addition how effective with internal testing and performance. So earlier in the thread MSE was shown to be shown to be a little less effective nowadays, that could be down to more viruses or slower turnaround times e.g. one less developer working the project (being moved to windows phone dept :-) ) and competition!