Anti Virus with with low false positive rate

[Mr Jt (Gog is king)]

So i used norton for many years but this constant pop ups and the control it had over my system made me nuts. I bought malewarebytes and its a decent tool but it also has a bit of a false postive problem. Today i bought bitdefender because i heard a lot of good things about it. Is it the best when it comes to a reduction of false positives?

[plat]

Kaspersky and ESET were tied in the last quarter for the lowest false positives (actually 0 it seems). Then cam BitDefender with 2.

I'm neither for nor against Antivirus in general. But being human, I make mistakes, and a security product had my back more than once.

If anything, a security software give you a placebo "warn and safe" feeling. And anyone can use a browser filter even if you're good as gold online.

A security product that still around had its domain taken over by bad actors. It has the "https" header and the original name of the product, as well as first page search results. BD Traffic light blocks it (by user report). So what works for you may not apply to the next person.

[Mr Jt (Gog is king)]

Eset is on my check list. It looks like it has a very little chance for false positives

[Slav Mcgopnik]

Just use a good ad-blocker (like UBlock Origin), maybe an anti-script, and then you should be fine.

Windows Defender is good enough to cover antivirus needs for the most part, if you really need more punch, just quickly download Malwarebytes, run a free scan, then toss it.

Smart browsing habits and good use of addons is far more important for virus safety than any antivirus is.

[A&A]

Anti-virus? I forgot they existed!

[Bad 💀 Motha]

MalwareBytes will deem any app that has the ability to connect to an online server and fetch ads a risk. What is referred to as PUP. Potentially Unwanted Program.

First do a full system scan of all drives; with scan for root kits enabled but make sure it is not set to auto quarantine or auto delete found threats. Then review the found threats yourself. If let's say it calls out Auslogics Disk Defrag or Piriform CCleaner as a PUP, there is nothing to be alarmed about just for a PUP. Most freeware apps that can fetch online ads will be labeled as a PUP. As long as you know that app is safe and was installed from the official source (not a 3rd party source where the app could have been re-uploaded with embedded malware) then you should be OK.if you question a EXE or DLL file, you can simply Google the file name and get further details on what exactly it is and pertains to.

When something like MalwareBytes deems a known trusted app as a PUP, you can have that and it's files added to an Ignore/Exceptions list so it doesn't keep flagging the same stuff over and over again.

First thing I do with such apps, even Defender is add all the root game client folders (such as for Steam and Uplay) to the Exclusions listing. This skips that folder and all its subfolders from any scans what so ever. This greatly reduces ram and disk usages.

[Chris]

Malewarebytes is good but compared to eset its not worth it. It has a higher false positive rate and lacks in features.

[plat]

Malwarebytes I would use as a free on-demand scanner in rare cases or if I have nothing better to do. It's improved in effectiveness over the past couple of years but I can think of better things to buy with the cash.

I've become more reliant on uBlock Origin--with tips from advanced users and various additional block-lists from filter lists dot com, I've achieved an effective content blocking system that doesn't affect browsing speed or stability. And it's free, no subs like AdGuard but uses many of the same lists.

If you can do with less versus more and be just as protected, that's ideal.

[PopinFRESH]

ESET is one of the most widely used malware tools in enterprise systems across Windows, Linux, and macOS. Highly reputable and they’ve consistently had a very low false-positive rate. As well they rapidly address false-positives.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

ESET Free Online AV Scanner is also good if you need a free backup as well.

[emoticorpse]

He could just answer his own question by taking his "false positive files" and running then through virustotal and seeing which antivirus companies have flagged them.

[Mr Jt (Gog is king)]

Well for example if literally all vendors say the file is save but a couple of for example *alibaba*(yes that’s a vendor) says it’s malicious well than it’s safe. The main exe from vampire bloodlines is flagged by 20 something vendors i think lol. Usually if the important ones like nort,kasp,avast,bitdefender etc say it’s safe than it’s safe but they could still be wrong

[Mr Jt (Gog is king)]

Eset has the best false positive rating. Plat provided that source

[plat]

You cannot expect 100% from any product 24/7. You can play it safer with going with a strong mainstream security product, which you did.

Sometimes BD does better, sometimes Kaspersky, sometimes ESET. They are all extremely competitive with one another.

Whatever works. I just would not go without any security on the system at all.

[Mr Jt (Gog is king)]

In summary eset is best in false positives and that’s what i was looking for. The sub for bitdefender was 24 bucks so not that deep meanwhile i also have malewarebytes pro and norton. Norton has so many pop ups and ads it’s horrible. It also deletes stuff all the time just because it wasn’t downloaded much. I know you can turn it off but for example if you tell norton to not delete it again he does it again. Even when i clean deinstalled it with the Norton tool i was getting ads. I had to delete some files in the user folder.

Bitdefender for example flags the escape from tarkov launcher and the files from it in the appdata folder as well

Malewarwbytes flags adguard and the unofficial bloodlines patch.

Eset said everything is fine

[SinCanDory]

Mr Jt (Gog is king)님이 먼저 게시:

So i used norton for many years but this constant pop ups and the control it had over my system made me nuts. I bought malewarebytes and its a decent tool but it also has a bit of a false postive problem. Today i bought bitdefender because i heard a lot of good things about it. Is it the best when it comes to a reduction of false positives?

I'm using Bitdefender for years with my wife now. Both for our pcs and phones. Never had issue with false positives.