Can Anyone Suggest an Alternative to McAfee VirusScan Plus for Windows XP Running Under VMWare Fusion?

[RickToomey]

When I purchased my Apple iMac a little over a year ago, I also bought VMWare Fusion v2. Along with Fusion came a complimentary one-year subscription to McAfee VirusScan Plus. I have two OS X identities configured on the iMac (i'm running v10.6.2, by the way, "Snow Leopard"), and installed a separate instance of Fusion in each identity. I have a separate Windows XP SP3 VM running in both Fusion instances, and each of those XP instances is running a separate instance of McAfee. In both instances of Fusion, I installed McAfee simply by choosing the "Install McAfee VirusScan Plus" option from the Fusion "Virtual Machine" menu bar selection. (Also note that I completed a paid upgrade to my Fusion license in January, to v3.0.1.)

I called McAfee to find out what the licensing details and cost would be to renew and was told by the call center rep that I would have to purchase two McAfee renewals, one for each XP VM. Not wanting to pay the additional $$$ (I'd have been willing to buy one renewal, since it's only one physical computer), I'm shopping around for either a commercial or free antivirus/personal firewall replacement for VirusScan Plus. I suspect that the better choices are probably in the "not free" category, which is fine... I just want to find antivirus/personal firewall software with less restrictive licensing requirements. Any help/suggestions much appreciated.

[veej]

AVG has a free version:

http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage

[Narbat]

I'll second AVG. I use it on my home machines.

Depending on how you use the VM though, you likely don't need an anti-virus package at all. I'll probably be branded a heretic for saying it, but IMHO anti-virus is too big of a resource hog to bother with. At least the always-resident scan-as-you-go type of anti-virus is. Unless you're commonly browsing the web and downloading stuff within the VM, IMHO an anti-virus package isn't worth it. Personally, I do that kind of stuff on the Mac side. I almost never use a browser from within Windows; I simply don't have any need to. Even Windows is unlikely to get infected if you're barely connecting to the outside world.

Your usage may be completely different, of course. In that case, AVG should serve you quite well. (Though mind you, the free version is only licensed for personal use. You'll need to pay to legally use it on a work machine.)

[gwsat]

I have intentionally opted out of the McAfee download every time VMware has offered it bundled with a new version of Fusion. It is, indeed, a "resource hog" and you end up having to pay for it after awhile. I run Fusion in Unity mode and use only my OS X version of Google Chrome for Web surfing. The only time I use the Internet with any Windows apps is when I download financial data into Quicken from my bank and credit card company. Those, of course, are secure sites and would be about the least likely source for malware I can think of.

[RParker]

You want the BEST or you just want FREE? They are NOT the same thing.

Trend Micro makes the BEST AV product, period. I don't care what anyone says.

AVG, Avast, Panda, et. al.. are OK, but NOT as GOOD as Trend Micro Antivirus.

So they MIGHT do some things well, but not everything like Trend Micro, I can promise you that. Also running MORE than one Spyware is suggested. There is NO comprehensive Spyware product, they all do different things, but AntiVirus there is none better than Trend.

[sffan]

avira also offe a free version:

http://www.free-av.de/en/index.html

Ist uses less ressources (cpu/ram) than the mcafee

I used it on my old xp-pc for a long time without problem.

after the expiration of the bundled lic i'll will try/check it once again.

At the moment I don't know if there are any problems using inside a vm.

Regards

[ColoradoMarmot]

AVG 9 has serious issues with runaway disk activity on virtual machines (see many other threads), and there are some reports of those issues on physical machines as well. Definitely not recommended on Fusion.

Try microsoft security essentials. Disable the scans and restore points though - otherwise you'll have an every-growing VM.

[dp_fusion]

These people make an extremely popular AV tool for datacenters, running principally on mail servers to prevent malware from entering or leaving the enterprise via email. I've used it for years in production mail gateways. The same tool is now made available for Windows clients - the same signatures are available that the pro's use. And the price is hard to beat at free.

http://www.clamav.net/about/win32/

The Unix version of this tool runs perfectly well in OS X, too. Not that it has a lot to do in that OS.

[menostar]

It is a big error to think viruses mainly enter a system through email. Originally that's how they may enter the world around you but then they often spread via USB hard drives and memory keys.

I have cleaned many infected systems and must say that it is very involved. In most cases it is better to just start again from scratch and only clean the data that is needed.

AVG has never convinced me. It seems not to detect many of the nasties and seems to be easily attacked itself.

My prefered option now is the free version of AVIRA, it is not heavy on resources and its detection rate is excellent.

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/AntiVir-Personal-Edition-Download-6527.html

It is not the best in getting rid of the infection but very good in preventing it. However, my experience is based on working with Windows in the real world, I have no experience on how it performs with Fusion.

[Bigjohn_S]

I run Avast on 7 computers at home and 2 vms.

Even with kids and teenagers using some of them, it's been years since we had a virus (that was not intentionally introduced into a VM to observe its' behavior...)

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

I'm using Eset's Smart Security 4.0 now. It seems to run with a lot less overhead than McAfee did. It is a firewall and an antivirus program, which is a good thing in WinXP...

Sincerely, Neil

[Fortinbra]

You could also try Microsofts free antivirus software

Microsoft Security Essentials

It's what I'm running in all my Windows VMs.

Microsoft Security Essentials

[RickToomey]

Thanks very much... I am truly appreciative for all of the great suggestions

from everyone who answered my S.O.S. However, yours seemed to make the most

sense for my situation. I downloaded & installed Microsoft Security

Essentials. It's running fine in both VMs now. I'm going to use a

combination of the Security Essentials product and Windows Firewall for

awhile and gauge their effectiveness and resource utilization. I agree with

some of the other posts which mentioned the relatively low risk of infection

in a VM under OS X, so I think the combo of the two Microsoft apps should

work out well for us. Thanks again!

[golddiggie]

Give the Kaspersky products a try when you get the chance. You get to test them out for 30 days before deciding if you want to purchase them or not. They are not expensive either. I'm testing the Internet Security 2010 product on my main Windows 7 workstation, and it's running very nicely. I'm not having any excessive CPU cycles/usage, and memory usage is also in line with what I would expect. CPU usage rarely goes above 25% adn memory is at about 14% usage. I'm using several gadgets within Win7 to provide me with constant feedback on such things. I'm running the vCenter client, Outlook 2007, Firefox, etc without any performance hits. I was having a recurring issue with another AV product and Outlook 2007 causing it to become non-responsive for 15-30 seconds every few minutes. Since going to the Kaspersky product, that has stopped.

[Bigjohn_S]

The fact that the HOST is OS-X has very little to do with the fact that the VM's can or cannot get infected. -- just so you know.