I use avast.com and recommend it to all my friends. It's free, it works, it's good enough. I don't get paid to say this so: Download it here.
Background reading avout this trend.
He is right about the integrated part, except that suites are an even more gruesome performance drain. But the issue he brings up is the perfect argument that should make you take a serious look at VIPRE Enterprise. I have had an independent performance benchmark lab do some tests and will lift the veil on one of these parameters: File Write, Open and Close Time (in Sec). Here is a comparison with a few popular stand-alone AV products that are used a lot in the enterprise, compared to our -combined- antivirus + antimalware application. The second line here should catch your attention, it's the industry average! This benchmark was derived from Oli Warner's File I/O test at thepcspy.com (site linked below). This metric measures the amount of time required for the system to write a file, then open and close that file. Here are the times measured in a fresh benchmark last week:
http://www.wservernews.com/7LIJQ4/081006-Slows-Windows
| Norton Antivirus 2008 | 286.56 |
| Industry Average | 261.4 |
| ESET NOD32 Antivirus 3.0 | 102.17 |
| Kaspersky Antivirus 8 | 84.52 |
| Trend Micro Antivirus 2008 | 84.46 |
| Sunbelt VIPRE V3.1 | 51.92 |
I think David Peterson is right, don't buy Trend Micro antivirus software, or any other players, but have a look at VIPRE Enterprise instead, which is 5 times faster than the antivirus industry File I/O average. Sunbelt has a competitive upgrade program in place that will make you and your accountants really happy, so make sure you ask for a quote:
http://www.wservernews.com/7LIJQ4/081006-VIPRE-Enterprise
