I switched to Kaspersky Internet Security a few years ago after I became annoyed when the ZoneAlarm product (which used the Kaspersky AV engine) reduced in functionality BEFORE the subscription had expired as a means of persuading me to renew. (Of course, that had the opposite effect: I had been planning to renew, but changed my mind as a result.)

KIS served me well. Several friends also switched to it on my recommendation.

But KIS 2011 was an absolute disaster on my XP SP3 PC. There were various performance problems - it was becoming like the Norton product of old, where it seemed the entire purpose of the PC was to run Norton and there was no capacity left to run any applications. Every time I tried to use Visual Studio 2008, one version of KIS 2011 caused a blue screen.

I did not renew my subscription to KIS and have been using MS Security Essentials since the turn of the year, with the Comodo free firewall. No issues so far. Well pleased. And they are free.

JPL

After suffering KIS2011 when looking at its interactions with tbbmeter and getting the same number of crashes and poor responses from IE/Chrome when KIS was running I gave up on it.

To me the thing driving the need for faster machines and more memory is AV and firewalls,

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

To me the thing driving the need for faster machines and more memory is AV and firewalls,

I would agree up to a point, but imo it is the bloatware of many operating systems which is causing AV apps to slow things down. See this thread:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/windows/f/3973311-h...

Now the learned people in Microsoft's community claim that the winsxs folder contains 'links' and not files, in that they are not really there, and said HDD space is not really being taken up. Regardless of that claim, my HDD reports it, Windows reports and if I fill my hard drive, I will bet that WIndows will panic when the free space reaches a crucial point due to winsxs.

Additionally, 1/3 to 1/2 of my full AV scans are winsxs, so if there's nothing there, why does it take so long to scan? AV software could seriously do with not scanning anything in the real-time scans, if it hasn't been accessed in any manner since the last full scan. Viri can't just transfer from cluster to cluster without entering the memory or drive cache, so as long as these areas are being protected, there should be little chance of viri propagating. Why endlessly scan dormant areas?

In reply to a post by spranglebolt:

I've been running Kaspersky Internet Security for two years quite contentedly and have no desire to change.

I'm running it too never having used it before.

I was using NOD32 but fancied a change.

I like the virtual keyboard which is supposed to be safer than typing passwords in through the keyboard !?

I don't know how much it is to renew the licence but I probably will renew it if it isn't too expensive which for me means more than £35 for an annual licence.

2011 upgrade works fine for me.

Sent PM

It's expensive to renew KIS online at their website, you can get a disc etc from an online web-store e.g. amazon

As long as the licence hasn't expired you can upgrade once i.e. KIS 2010 can be upgraded to KIS 2011.

It might be possible to get a cheap version of KIS 2009 and upgrade it to KIS 2011.

I've had KIS for many years and as long as you put things in the trusted zone you will have no problems.
Renew your Licence at software4students best price around.

iechyd da

Renew your Licence at software4students best price around.

Are you sure?

Let us have a look at amazon versus S4S re. the 1 PC, 1 Year Subscription (PC) as an example.

Go for the 2009/2010 versions. The code is still useable for 2011 and you'll find much better deals. The 3 and 5 user packs are usually even better value and start at under a tenner.