Anti-Virus

The resources of the computer are only limited and it has been verified with different anti-virus and other applications:
http://tinyurl.com/kg46p

However, a lot also depends on how you set up the anti-virus functions. Many anti-virus applications allow you to select if all the files are going to be scanned, or files with certain extensions only.

The same with scanning files from network drives. If your server's anti-virus application has been set up correctly, you should not have to scan the files downloaded from the server. But talk about belts and suspenders, maybe you should.

One option you should try if it is available is to scan only files that have been modified. Anti-virus applications can also have features that heuristically check for new viruses, or use 'sandboxing'. I'd be very careful in leaving these settings in place, just in case.

If you are Norton then it will slow the computer down significantly. I am not sure if there is a corporate version but try NOD32, the URL is www.eset.com Certainly for an individual computer it has only a minor impact on speed

Any Norton/Symantec or McAfee antivirus products will slow the PC down signigicantly.

My suggestions:
AVG http://free.grisoft.com
BitDefender - http://www.bitdefender.com
NOD32 - http://ESET.com

FIRST, do NOT believe the hype from this publication about their "Top Ten Anti Virus" products!!! We have tested EVERY one of them and taken computers with EACH product to both MySpace and Facebook (the #1 &2 sources of virus contamination on domestic PC's during 2008), and ALL of them failed to block a SINGLE virus from getting onto their respective PC's!!!!!

The ONLY product that we as independant consultants have found that BLOCKS contamination is the Kapsersky Internet Security Suite (3 user license, $79.95).

We did notice a MINOR effect on system speed during search and undertaking offline bakcground tasks,and would advise at least 2 preferably 4GB of RAM, but to be frank, the trade off on possibly losing your ENTIRE computer to a contamination by using an inferior anti virus engine just so as to avoid any effect on speed is without logic!!!

And bear in mind, BLOCKING the malware from even getting onto your PC in the first place is more preferable than attempting to remove it afterwards with your anti virus software, and we have found NO product that comes ANYWHERE close to the Kaspersky offering in that respect, on both XP and Vista platforms.

We operate in an area where there are several hundred small to medium sized oil consultancies with 1-50 pc networks, and on installlation of this product on these networks, the companies have noticed a DRAMATIC drop in contamination and downtime as a result. It even comes with a "parental control" element that allows the administrator to block MySpace, FaceBook etc from being accessed by any other user!!!! And trust me, just about ALL of our Clients have made use of THAT capability!!

Sorry Tech Rpeublic, but you need to compare these products in the REAL world, and if you had your would have found what we, our Clients and several hundred independant consultants like us here in the USA have found; there is NOTHING out there yet to match the effectiveness and capabilities of the Kapsersky Internet Security 2009 suite!!!


Midland Computersweeper
midlandcomputersweeper@yahoo.com

You installed Symantec, thats a big no-no unless all the workstations are running quad cores and 4gm RAM.

Id try AVG Corporate Protection for best stability and performance.

I've installed it on about a dozen systems, some as slow as 850Mhz XP boxes. Works well.