At Blizzard Computers we test and then use the same software and hardware on our own computers that we sell. We have tried numerous antivirus applications rarely finding a better performing or better value than CA antivirus until we started testing BitDefender Antivirus 2008. By the time we started selling and recommending this product they came out with a new version 2009. What a nightmare! We have given numerous refunds and sent the balance of our BitDefender 2009 stock back to the distributor for a credit. For now we highly recommend that you avoid upgrading from BitDefender AV 2008 to the disastrous 2009 version. It has mail sending issues with Microsoft Outlook where outgoing mail with attachments will stay in the outbox and continue to send over and over again. It never removes completely when you perform an uninstall, you have to download the Bitdefender uninstall tool or Windows Security Center will continue to tell you Bitdefender is not functioning properly. There is a noticeable performance decrease over version 2008 and plenty of issues where it just reports that it is not functioning or it won’t update. It also has an issue where Vista doesn’t recognize it as a valid antispyware application.
We were lucky that we had started testing AVG Network Edition for our business clients and since the release of AVG 8 it has proved to be an exceptional antivirus and antispyware application. For personal use you can’t really beat the free AVG antivirus since version 8 was released. For our business clients AVG Network Edition is very impressive with a minimal footprint and the remote administration utility is, in my opinion, superior and much easier to use than the equivalent Computer Associates remote administration application. Now AVG 8.5 has been released and you can imagine my hesitation to adopt an upgrade to a product we have just started selling and recommending after the nightmare that was BitDefender 2009. Good news! AVG 8.5 is working just as well as version 8 and it has some new antispyware features that should help prevent future spyware methods of infection. AVG continues to focus on minimal use of resources. We love Malwarebytes for spyware removal and we are excited that we have actually seen AVG 8.5 find some items that Malwarebytes had missed.
So, why did we quit using CA Antivirus? Well, mainly because it was an antivirus only. We would get customers complaining when they would get infected with spyware and we constantly found ourselves explaining that it wasn’t an antispyware application and that Windows Defender was the product that they were using that did not stop the spyware infection. We could not argue that CA AV did not stop the malware though. We do believe that in today’s security environment an antivirus program should be antimalware and include prevention and cure for both virus and spyware types of malware. Computer Associates wants you to pay extra for spyware protection. Their offering still seems to be the core application that was Pest Patrol. We were never impressed with Pest Patrol’s cleaning ability, its use of resources, or the user interface.
If you are infected with malware we highly recommend that you remove the product(s) that failed you, install AVG 8.5 and then install, update and scan your computer with Malwarebytes. Happy cleaning!