Ask HN: Which is a better anti-virus, AVG or MacAfee?

1 points by techMAC ↗ HN
I need your quick response. Thanks!

8 comments

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I'm a longtime user of AVG Free editions, and based on this recently switched someone from Mcafee Paid to AVG Paid, mainly because they were experiencing persistent issues with mcshield.exe bringing the system to a grinding halt (even though Mcafee claims to have fixed this problem every year).

Before switching, I did some googling of forums to gauge community views. I ignored Norton, since my experience with that has been dismal, but in general the names that kept popping up were Mcafee, AVG and Kaspersky, with no clear winner on any particular front (viruses, malware, firewalling, identity theft protection, etc).

It would seem that for most intents and purposes, and unless you're after something highly specific, it's really a personal choice. Anecdotally Mcafee tends to be a resource hog, and while I've never used Kaspersky, I have friends who are unimpressed with it in a corporate setting. AVG has so far not disappointed me (and the feedback from my friend is that their machine is running great again).

AVG free works just fine.
microsoft security essentials is fine.
It might help to define "better". Are you most concerned with virus detection, system performance, or adware and bloatedness?
I'm more concerned with virus detection.