There's a difference between free and paid. The speed of response.

There is no incentive for the free commmunity to provide rapid updates to cover new viruses (which appear more frequently than you may think !). The commercial guys have every incentive, if they are slow, people go to a competitor.

Kaspersky and F-Secure are rumored to be some of the quickest in the business.

F-Secure are good because they have multiple engines , and so more chance of finding stuff (one of their engines is Kapersky, funnily enough).

You have a valid point, but what about those companies that have both a paid-for and free version? If they have to provide fast updates / definitions for the paid-for versions, they obviously have them available for the free version too.

As far as I can tell, the differences between free and paid-for versions tend to be features and capabilities, rather than core performance and updating.

I am willing to be corrected, of course!

SD

That has to be true as a free version that did not trap a virus is hardly going to encourage people to buy the pro version.

Saab,

Interesting observation about the people who do both.

However I think you've answered it in your second paragraph. The nitty gritty (e.g. scan engine etc.) is likely to pretty much be a mirror copy of the free version, as is the case with Linux and it's kernel and core components.

What they will probably tag on for your money are a few extra bells and whistles, plus access to paid for technical support. But as you say, performance and update frequency are unlikely to change.

It's the same thing that's happening with Linux. Most of the platform very similar between free and paid. What you pay the vendors $$$ for is the 24x7 tech support and vendor developed business class features (e.g. clustering, management etc.).

Quite a good comparison table here and reasonably up to date (02 September 2008) :

Virus Bulletin : News - AV-Test release latest results

AVG showing response time of 4-6 hours vs Kapersky at <2 and F-Sec at 2-4 or <2 depending on product version.

Top tips for not getting viruses:

DO NOT use Internet Exploder, use FireFox
DO NOT use Outlook Express, use Thunderbird
NEVER double-click a file with a .exe, .bat, .cmd or .vbs extension unless you can 100% verify the source of said file
USE the Windows firewall
Set your Windows theme to look "different". Then you won't be fooled by fake dialogue boxes
Buy a Mac
Use Linux

This laptop (hers), runs XP, with built-in firewall, has McAfee and a public IP address. It sits on the kitchen worktop, is never switched off, and has never had any virus problems.

You can get the best AV in the world, but there's only so much it can do in the face of naive (stupid?) users who click everything in sight.

These aren't top tips, they're personal opinions. The biggest problem with emails, other than viruses in attachements, is allowing HTML emails to be rendered on receipt. That's applicable to Outlook, OE, Thunderbird and others. Disable rendering on receipt, and you're more secire, whatever your email client.

Trying Avast Home edition trial
Why did I thunk it were free?:uhoh:

Um, because it is?

It is free.
Are you referring to the "pro" version, above?

Better make sure you got the right download.
(It needs yearly registration, too, which does not involve the exchange of money, just an email address.)

Hey boys, not wishing to sound like a moderator, but if you're talking printers it might be a good idea to start a new thread (hint: other people who want to talk printers but not anti-virus might actually read your posts) . :ok:

Mixture, you want my job? :) Done when I had a spare moment. SD

No, they ARE top tips. I'm not going to bore with with if/why/what executes what by default and renders X without asking, but I manage a large corporate network supporting 50,000 (l)users. The majority use Lookout (sorry Outlook) and are locked down so they can't break anything no matter what they click, but a substantial number of mobile users who aren't connected to Exchange use standard POP/IMAP clients like OE and TB on laptops with admin access (so fairly akin to the average home user). The helpdesk calls related to infections from OE users when compared to TB users stands at 9:1. So don't tell me it's just a personal opinion; it's a fact.

Microsoft have traditionally put security way down the priority list. They're changing, thank God, but in a lot of instances (eg. Windows) they've gone so far down a particular road it makes it impossible to turn back. The Windows model of monolithic kernel and every single service running with system privileges is pure stupidity in the internet era... but as we know that's not the environment it was designed to run in. They can't go back; the break in backwards compatibility would kill their biggest customers. Apple were damn lucky to have got away with completely trashing their OS and moving to BSD; but due to the sheer size of MS they could never consider such an option. Windows 7, as it's known, it alleged to introduce big changes and break backwards compatibility. If that's true, they could fundamentally change Windows and make it something suitable for the internet age. But if they get it wrong, it could bury them.

Noone's perfect, but Firefox and Thunderbird are an infinitely better choice for general web and email than the Microsoft offerings.

Not wishing to drag this topic off-topic again, have sent you a PM Sir :p

And what fraction of your customer base uses each?

[I am a TB & Firefox user.]