Comparing Anti-Virus

I have Used Both the Anti-virus that i have revewed and found tht AVG is far better than Nod 32. Avg has a free edition but Nod 32 doesnt and what your payin for isnt really much better than any of the free anti-virus currently on the internet.


Nod 32

Ease of Use:

ESET NOD32 Antivirus is a changed product. The base features are extremely simple and easy to use while still being effective. The redesigned interface includes a menu on the left with sub options on the right. Several options exist in the sub options to assist in "drilling down" to what you wish to do.

Effectiveness:
ESET NOD32 Antivirus is very effective in detecting and cleaning viruses from your computer. The on-demand scanner is fast and effective while still allowing you to do other things on your computer during the scan. The on-access scanner is almost behind the scenes compared to many other options out there. The only time you will notice what it is doing is when it detects a threat

Updates:
The standard update cycle for ESET NOD32 Antivirus is once a day if needed. They have the ability to "push" updates if there is a significant threat though

Feature Set:
Included with ESET NOD32 Antivirus are several layers of protection. Antivirus scanning includes integrated real time email protection, web access protection as well as a rootkit scanner and a spyware scanner

Ease of Installation:
Installing NOD32 Antivirus is very simple and posed no problems for us. The install took less than 5 minutes and required a quick restart of the testing computer.

Help/Support:
NOD32 Antivirus includes several support options included with your subscription. Included with these options are email support, a well stocked knowledge base and FAQ, as well as phone support available from 6AM-6PM Pacific time.

AVG

Ease of Use:

Though AVG Antivirus is mostly a hands off program, there may be some instances when you may need to configure some advanced options. For 99% of the population though, the default options will be more than sufficient.

Effectiveness:
AVG Antivirus is one of the most complete programs we have found to date. It includes many new options to make it one of the most effective virus scanners on the market.

Updates:
AVG Checks for updates every 4 hours by default. You can change this to any interval you wish. The updates section of AVG Antivirus also shows you which virus database version you have as well as when the last update was. It also tells you when the next update is scheduled.

Feature Set:
AVG Technologies, formerly Grisoft, has gone above and beyond with the new release of AVG Antivirus. Included with the virus scanner are a rootkit scanner, spyware scanner, an on-access scanner called Resident Shield, email scanner and a link scanning browser plugin.

Ease of Installation:
Installing AVG Antivirus 8 was easy and only took about 10 minutes including downloading the additional updates required after installation finished. We had no issues or errors during the install

Help/Support:
With the name change from Grisoft to AVG Technologies, the support site was updated and saw many improvements over the old design. Support offerings included with AVG Antivirus 8 are a FAQ, email support, phone based technical support as well as including a support section within the program itself.

Summary:

Version 8 of AVG Antivirus is a definite improvement over version 7.5. The scanning features have been sped up and the new interface is a clean and modern take on a time tested product.

Comparing Firewalls

A comparision of 2 popular firewalls is shown below

Zone alarm firewall- Systematically identifies hackers and blocks access attempts
Automatically makes your computer invisible to anyone on the Internet.

Comodo- The firewall itself is very robust and the just released version 3 includes a well designed intrusion detection system.

Most Firewalls are similar but some are more advanced than others

I use Zonealarm at home and find it easier to use compared to Comodo.