Anti-virus suggestions.

I've used Sophos for a number of years with no major problems.

I have been using Symantec for 4 years but it has recently let me down on two occasions. We are switching to CA this year. CA was able to find and clean the infections Symantec missed, and the enterprise Pest Patrol is pretty cool from what I have seen so far.

and have been using for about 4-5 years now. Overall I would rate it around 8-9 and have been very happy with it. The only minor negative technical issue is the management console reporting feature. I've set it up to email alerts to me, so I know real-time scanning is stopping the occasional virus, but the reporting shows no evidence of any activity. To be fair, I really haven't looked into it since I already know all activity, might be misconfiguration on my part. The other thing I would say is the self-help via web leaves a little to be desired. I've found Symantec's knowledgebase to be more useful, but then again I needed it much more when I used to have to work with NAV/SAV.

Hi there,

I have a lot of experience with AntiVirus software.

Currently we are using McDonalds (err, i mean McAffe) AntiVirus. I think it is a 4/10. It gets some of the viruses, and has a lot of extra non-antivirus features related with it, the reporting feature sucks because it is not as intuitive as it should be. The thing that sucks the most is that it can't piclup most of the new viruses.

In the past though I have used Norton AntiVirus corp. And I always had problems with it, and realized it didn't get anything either! NAV was a piece of crap, and I lost interest in it... So well, better no antivirus than NAV haha.

I started working for a computer consulting company, and they did antivirus shopping. We had tried everything there including Panada Antivirus (which caught less than what McAfee gets now), NAV2004 (which at the time was a major improvement vs. the older crap NAVs but it still is crap), CA's E-Trust A/V (which sucked because it wouldn't get a lot of the viruses and was a pain in the butt to manage), Kaspersky AntiVirus (we didn't sell any network versions of it though) and my personal favourite, F-Secure.

OK.... So, what you wanted was a rating:
CA E-Trust : 6/10
Kaspersky A/V 5: 8/10 (i have also loaded up the network version, but it wasn't as easy and functional as F-Secure)
F-Secure AntiVirus : 10/10 (hey i have to have a basis for something!)

F-Secure A/V policy management console kicks butt! It is almost like Active Directory,plus you can push the installs and the whole bit. The only thing it doesn't do is install automatically when a computer is turned on. F-Secure issues 2-3 updates PER DAY to combat viruses.

On the workstation side, I recommend F-Secure Client Security. It has all the features of both a Network A/V and a standalone A/V. Also, F-Secure offers software for Terminal Servers/Citrix, Linux servers, exchange and a ton of other things. It's all manageable from a single management console, and works like a charm. Plus the reporting is amazing, and it is so intuitive. The best part though is that F-Secure utilizes Kaspersky's AntiVirus engine, so it works REALLY WELL.

Check it out: http://www.f-secure.com

Just realised I've been ranting for ages, so I've put ETrust and Kaspersky at the top for you...

ETrust - we're using it now - against my better judgement. One positive thing I can say about it - extremely cheap - if it's a toss up between eTrust on all machines, and something else on just a few - go eTrust all the way.
On the other hand - it's had more exploitable security flaws than any other anti-virus package - one was released like today regarding one of their two AV engines that allows remote code execution (to be fair to them, they'd patched it and sent out the upgrade on May the 3rd, but still) - as well as that, a few months back, their licensing program had a flaw that allowed some kind of exploit (I forget which). The licensing prog doesn't get auto updated, so we had to go round to every machine and manually update it - dernit!
The interface is totally awful - like it's been designed by 5 year olds for 5 year olds (although the centralised management part is slightly better). It doesn't really pick up as many viruses as I'd like, but we're still talking easily 99.9%
The Exchange plug-in is extremely frustrating as well - yes, it removes the viruses, but there's no way to stop the rest of the pointless message to flow through into your user's inbox. So they get flooded with emails with attached messages telling them that a virus has been removed.
It's almost as annoying as getting a virus in the first place, and exactly as annoying as getting spam...
As I say, it does have the good points that it's remarkably cheap - the same cost for clients and servers - plugs in to Exchange for the standard price. I think you can even get it bundled with a personal Firewall or Anti-spyware now... Though I'm not sure.
It is definitely the bottom end of the market in terms of anti-virus, but most vendors are pretty good at catching viruses these days. Someone should get them to talk to the anti-spyware lot really...;)
I'd give them 4/10 - they're naf but you get what you pay for (get a different AV for your Exchange server and it moves up to 6/10)...

Kaspersky - expensive, but thorough. I don't know about enterprise level, cos I haven't used it for that - as I recall, when I was researching it myself, I don't think it was supposed to have a terribly good interface for centralised management, which was important for me. It's supposed to be particularly good at catching viruses, but like I say we're talking 99.99% for most vendors anyway, so...
On the downside, I actually took it off my machine at home, because it crucified the performance whenever it was running... But I'm not really too qualified on it to judge... I'd probably give it about 7/10...

I used to use McAfee - and found it powerful and configurable (especially with the EPO)... Times have changed now, and I hear it's not all it used to be - and it's annoying as hell now, because it tries to take over from the Windows Security manager, and basically tells you that unless you have all the McAfee products installed, your machine is at risk.
Personally, I find it a bit like Real Player and Quick Time in that respect (incidentally Google Alternative Quick Time/ Alternative Real Player - for versions of those codecs that don't try to take over your computer...)

So currently I'd guess around 6/10 (due to brand loyalty as much as anything)...

Can't stand Norton - similar issues as McAfee, but slower, and fundamentally more annoying.
When trying to install a licensed copy from 2003 on a machine it took literally about 6 reboots before it was happy that it'd downloaded everything it needed - ridiculous design...
Annoyingly, the speed of the scans are terrible - it just seems to want to hog the processor...
Worse still, for an application that sometimes ships with "cleansweep" - that helps you ensure that your un/installs go ok - it is ludicrously hard to remove from a system - it's got it's claws in your operating system, and it's not giving up without a fight... Plus I've seen it absolutely crucify a computer to the point of total OS reinstall when being uninstalled and replaced with eTrust. To be fair, that was the fault of the person who did the installs in the wrong order, but still...
1/10 - I hate it with a passion!

I really like Trend Micro - they have a fully integrated and extremely powerful package - depending on how far you want to go with them, you can block the viruses at the "virus scan" wall before the gateway, at the gateway, whilst traversing the network and at the desktops... It's pretty full on - if you have an unlimited security budget (like everyone does, right?) go for Trend Micro... 8/10 - extremely expensive (probably out of the realms of most budgets) but fully impressive.

Sophos is great - functional, powerful (especially the Exchange plug-in) but really expensive - something like ?150 per server seat...

If you've a need for anti-spam and anti-virus at your email there's always the option of getting a cheap old computer, and setting it up as a linux mail forwarder to your main email server. Install clamAV and Spam Assassin on it - it'll certainly reduce your spam and email-borne viruses no end - for free too! I have to admit, I haven't tried it myself, but am in the middle of trying to pursuade the powers that be to give me a PC to set it up on...

Can't think of any others I've tried...

On a similar note - has anyone tried any enterprise level anti-spyware yet?

I've been using eTrust AV in 100's of my accounts for over 4 years. It is simple to deploy and configure. It uses policies similar to AD. It is a set it and forget it application. Not to mention is cheaper than most competitors. Daily Signature updates as well seal the deal for me.