After a free trial put on by someong fixing our internet, we have decided to pay for Panda ANTIVIRUS - before we send off the order could anyone here say whether Panda is ACTUALLY any good (I've experienced no problems yet) or if Norton or McAfee are much better

Thanks  I have a client who is currently having serious difficulties with Panda. Whether or not there are any software issues we just don't know as it cannot be used.
He signed up to a 3 year subscription contract for Platinum 2005 iirc just over a year ago.
After major hardware problems, a complete reinstallation of the OS was necessary. The Panda installation went well but when he tried to update definitions etc it simply would not budge.
After some 6 weeks and multiple emails, Pandas singular reply was that as they no longer offer 2005, his prepaid 3 year subscription is invalid! If he wants updates, he must pay for 2006!
I believe the matter is now in the hands of UK consumer law experts.

The best AV solution on the consumer market is from Kaspersky Labs. A full "internet security package" is in the final days of very exhaustive beta testing sessions and is due for public release at any time. If you can afford to wait and Kaspersky pricing is competitive, it may be the one to go for.Panda isn't a really good anti-virus program. If you want free antiviruses which work wonders.. trying downloading AVG Free from Download.com it packs a really good punch for a free program either that or pay for a antivirus program like Kaspersky and that will get the jump done. I recommend the internet security package from Kaspersky.. It includes the antivirus program, anti-hacker, and anti-spam. Good luck on finding a really well program.whatever you do don't get norton. get kaspersky adn if you do, when and if it picks up anyhting it'll scare the crap outta you! When it finds a virus it screams like *censored*.......turn your sound down when you scan.Norton makes a loud sound when it finds a virus? Are you serious?  :-? I knew McAfee did, but Norton...

Flameno KASPERSKY scares the crap out of youIve had Mcafee on here for a year, and it always notified when a virus would try to slip onto my computer.RE Norton: Norton is okay if you have freeware scanners and the like to go with it, but it won't do enough on its own. I have norton, got it free with my motherboard, so heck, I'm using it. I USE the following regularly:

Norton SystemWorks (AntiVirus, Firewall, and Internet Security in one)
Ad-Aware SE Personal
SpywareBlaster
HijackThis

I also keep saved in case of emergency:

AboutBuster
SpyBot
CCleaner

There's probably more. There's really nothing stopping you from getting all these minus Norton plus another AntiVirus and having a steel-reinforced computer. At least, I know I'm clean. Check to see if your Internet SERVICE PROVIDER provides any Anti-Virus/Anti-Hacker protection.

Common services that have protection:

Quest
MSN
Yahoo
Comcast
Verizon\


EDIT: A year ago (or so) I made a HUGE mistake. I installed more than one AV scanner (because Norton is a *censored* head and does not like being removed from computers) and my computer would not start.
If for some reason this happens to you, start your computer in Safe Mode and uninstall the AV scanner that you no longer want to fix the problem.
Also: avast! is an excellent FREE virus scanner. Its just not good at removing Adware/spyware.
And McAfee and Symantec do not remove all adware and spyware.avast! Now that is great, i got it free with my laptop. I would recomend it easy, it recently won best anti virus beating off the likes of Norton, Mcafee and avg, with many more! More can be read here:

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_wins_sc_award.html

Anyway back to the subject it really is a great scanner, for me its very quick and does a great job. Very easy to use and for the one i have which i think has been payed for comes with many cool features. Like a P2P sheild, have no idea wahts that is but lets face it, it sounds cool. You can also have something called VRDB which helps to repair files that were infected during loss from a virus, but you do have to create a database. May take up alot of space on hard drive not sure. If you do happen to get a virus on your system it tells you all you need to know about it and the best action to take, this can also be found on their website. There are also many more features. If your intrested i have posted a link for their homepage.

www.avast.com

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