Best free anti virus

Donts00tmesanta

Senior member
Feb 11, 2008
585
37
91
this does have everything to pc gaming since avs that are really light on the resource usage are best.

now that avg 8 is a hog anything else thats good?

Moved from PC Gaming to Security
-PC Gaming Moderator KeithTalent
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
20,984
3
0
Avast and AVG used to be very similar and the best two freeware FULL FEATURED anti-virus program IMHO. Now AVG has removed itself the full featured freeware list because its active prescanning of email expires after 30 days in its freeware version.

In comparing the best paid or freeware anti virus programs, Avast and AVG have never been in the top tier of AV's in terms of detection rates. And paid AV's like Kaspersky, NOD32, and the paid version of Avira only miss only about a 1/3 as many viruses as AVG and Avast and those results have been fairly consistent for the past five years or better. But still, in terms of detection rates, the freeware versions of AVG and Avast are still better than many other paid AV's.

I use the freeware version of Avira on my computer, it has a better detection rate than Avast or AVG, but I know full well it lacks active pre scanning of incoming emails. I neatly side step that issue by letting another computer catch our famdamilie's incoming E-mail, but if prescanning incoming email were a priority for me, I would have to do some serious reassessment of my AV choice.

 

jadinolf

Lifer
Oct 12, 1999
20,952
3
81
I can never say what is the best but in 2006 I gave up on the "N" word and now have avast! on 5 computers and I never looked back.
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
20,984
3
0
When we add freeware AV choices to the mix, we can no longer say you pays your money and makes your choices. But at any rate, you still take your chances, and choose wrong and its your computer that gets compromised and not mine. Which is all well and fine for me until I realize I too am taking my own risks.

But the somewhat predictable AV choices are now in somewhat of a state of flux. Not only has, AVG, IMHO, self destructed as a choice, a brand new freeware choice called rising is entering the competition. Although not up to Avast in my opinion, its still impressive to go from nowhere to competitive in the first year. So it bears watching at a minimum. The other new joker in the deck may be comodo, who plans a stand alone active antivirus called Cavs3 which may be released this month. Comodo already has something called Cavs2, but even comodo does not tout it as even competitive. But comodo seems to think cavs 3 is going to revolutionary with a totally new AV model, and given their programming team, it certainly bears watching.
 

jaredfs

Member
Jul 20, 2008
59
0
0
I'm a big fan of Avast. I let it install it's updates automatically and everything goes good.
 

montag451

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
4,587
0
0
Must say that today I uninstalled AVG8 and installed Antivir.
No problems at all (after disabling popup) so far. And even have 20MB RAM extra to waste.
 

montag451

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
4,587
0
0
Originally posted by: montag451
Must say that today I uninstalled AVG8 and installed Antivir.
No problems at all (after disabling popup) so far. And even have 20MB RAM extra to waste.

I take some of that back. It deleted all my recovery passwords softwares (luckily it was being run as user and couldn't delete the admin protected backups! phew )

Anyway - from now on 'exception filter' will be taken more seriously.
 

montag451

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
4,587
0
0
Hmmm,
Just uncompressed large rar file - Avira was scanning each file - usage went upto 210MB.
Don't mind that so much, but 5 minutes later and it hasn't released 165MB (avguard) that it doesn't need anymore.

Waited a couple of minutes. Still at 165MB RAM usage. Decide to go to HELP/SUPPORT. AVira almost crashes then recovers itself (well done Avira), then mem usage goes back down to a total of 20MB RAM again.
Will watch it closely for next few days.
 

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
57,677
7,902
126
Originally posted by: montag451
Originally posted by: montag451
Must say that today I uninstalled AVG8 and installed Antivir.
No problems at all (after disabling popup) so far. And even have 20MB RAM extra to waste.

I take some of that back. It deleted all my recovery passwords softwares (luckily it was being run as user and couldn't delete the admin protected backups! phew )

Anyway - from now on 'exception filter' will be taken more seriously.

I set it to do nothing on a positive hit, then review the logs later to see if anything looks suspicious. I have a bunch of system tools that get flagged as being infected, so I don't want Antivir taking any proactive action.
 

montag451

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
4,587
0
0
I'm with you on that one.

Mind you, I had roughly the same problem when i installed avg8.

That is probably the only way to make it scan to the end without flagging up every little bit of whinge.


 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,925
12,380
126
www.anyf.ca
Using avira on my xp machine and followed that guide a while back so it does not nag anymore, so its great. Also Using avast on my p2p VM which is win2k (was unable to get the popup to stop in win2k). Both seem like solid products.

Also email scanning is pointless. If you get an email with a virus and try to open it the onaccess scanner should catch it. To be safe though save it to your desktop then scan it.

I work at an internet help desk and I'm always disabling that for people since it screws up the email client at random. Like some people will call in say they can't get their email. I remote in with gotoassist, notice they got some AV error in the email client. Disable email part of AV, everything works.
 

Gamingphreek

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
11,679
0
81
What is wrong with AVG8 when you use the parameters to install without Linkscanner or any of that junk? Is there something I missed that it doesn't have anymore?
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,925
12,380
126
www.anyf.ca
Is it free anymore? It seems their updater kept trying to imply they are dropping the free version. That's one of the reasons I switched from it. That and they were just getting real nagy in general. Sucks how AV companies are so greedy. Security is something that should not cost anything.
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
20,984
3
0
Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
Is it free anymore? It seems their updater kept trying to imply they are dropping the free version. That's one of the reasons I switched from it. That and they were just getting real nagy in general. Sucks how AV companies are so greedy. Security is something that should not cost anything.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hardly think its a matter of greed, its very labor intensive to keep on top of the ever changing world of current threats, create new signatures, and have the server bandwidth to update users.

But in terms of free, I rather think microsoft windows should be footing the bill for most of this.
Because without virus protections, the half life of their OS would not be very long.

And if microsoft and other OS makers were held responsible for the damages, they would do a far better job of making their OS's bullet proof.

Vista is arguably much more secure, but for most people, me included, the bloat is not worth the upgrading. Since much of Win XP was written before the malware epidemic reached critical mass, I hope microsoft will make a genuine effort to fully rewrite XP in a more secure way.
 

Crusty

Lifer
Sep 30, 2001
12,684
2
81
Originally posted by: montag451
Hmmm,
Just uncompressed large rar file - Avira was scanning each file - usage went upto 210MB.
Don't mind that so much, but 5 minutes later and it hasn't released 165MB (avguard) that it doesn't need anymore.

Waited a couple of minutes. Still at 165MB RAM usage. Decide to go to HELP/SUPPORT. AVira almost crashes then recovers itself (well done Avira), then mem usage goes back down to a total of 20MB RAM again.
Will watch it closely for next few days.

That means nothing, the OS won't claim that memory back unless it needs it.
 
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