Whenever I write about Symantec or McAfee - which is pretty often, it seems -- readers invariably engage in a lively discussion about which alternatives they would recommend. With security threats mounting on a daily basis, I thought it might be a good idea to both put those recommendations in one place and get a little more feedback from readers. So I'm starting my latest GripeLog poll to ask which of nine anti-virus vendors readers trust the most.
Another inspiration for this came from a reader who responded to my recent weblog item about Symantec support with his story of why his company stopped using McAfee. "We were a McAfee customer for perhaps ten years with maybe 2,000 licenses," the reader wrote. "It was a good relationship until about two years ago when they got nasty with us. We said fine and switched to Sophos. Sophos has provided us excellent support, sufficiently aggressive pricing that we now license 4-to-5 times that many systems, and an AV product that functions well enough that several nationally reported nasty virus events in the past year have been relative non events for us.
"What's this got to do with Symantec?" the reader anticipated the next question. "Just this: I believe the only way to reach these vendors is through their revenue streams. Yes, changing products at this level can be difficult, but when there are alternatives that will meet or exceed your needs, it is worth it. It was amazing with respect to our McAfee experience. When we called and told them we were canceling and switching vendors, I had a VP at the time falling all over himself to 'try and make it right by us.' I thanked him but the decision had been made at that point. Until we impact these abusive vendors -- be it bad support, bad licensing practices, etc. in a way that effects their proverbial bottom line, we'll continue to get lip service from them and no real change."
If there is to be change, people have to know what their choices are and how other customers have fared using them. So I've combed through reader posts and e-mails to find seven anti-virus vendors who readers recommend most frequently as alternatives. And, since McAfee and Symantec each still has its defenders, we of course must include them too. The list of nine consists of Computer Associates, F-Prot, Grisoft, Kaspersky, McAfee, Panda, Sophos, Symantec, and Trend Micro. No doubt there's some other good choices; let me know who they are and we'll get them on the list next time. And send along your nominations for best firewalls, anti-spam tools, etc., because we should do those, too.
Vote in the poll, see poll results, read or post a comment to this story here. And let's be careful out there.
5:44:47 PM 
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