Best Free Antivirus Software
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Antivirus software provide a good layer of protection from a multitude of virus, trojan and rootkit threats. With the huge increase in malware, anti-viruses cannot fully keep up with all the viruses and other malware. This is why it's so important to use other security programs as well. Using more than one real-time antivirus can cause conflicts and uses much system resources, so in most cases it is recommended you only choose one antivirus software for real-time protection.
Avast! 4 Home Edition is my top pick for average users, although its funky media player style interface is not to everyone's taste. Avast is the least restricted product out of the three, with anti-rootkit and anti-spyware capabilities. It also has full real-time capabilities, including a web scanner, an e-mail scanner and IM and P2P protection. In my usage of it, Avast was fairly light on resources. Avast is also the only one out of these three to continue support for older Windows platforms. However, Avast has a relatively high rate of false postives. It also requires periodic re-registration, whereas AVG Free does not. The sharware version also includes a script blocker, PUSH updates and various other features.
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition has been continuously refined since it was initially released in 1991. The latest version makes further improvements to an already solid product. It now includes spyware, phishing, and email scam protection. Its detection rate is still very good. Regular automatic updates come quickly as before and, despite rumors, the new email scanning feature is not trial limited to 30 days. It has grown considerably in size, is heavy on resources and has very slow scan speeds. The automatic updates occasionally did not work on my computer. By default, it installs the AVG Security Toolbar with Yahoo search. Free and paid versions are available; the differences are that the free version has anti-rootkit disabled, provides Linkscanner Lite instead of Linkscanner Pro and has no technical support other than a free user forum.
Avira AntiVir Personal Edition is my top recommendation if you're looking for the best protection against viruses. It is very light on resources and the detection rate of viruses and rootkits is outstanding, however, there are some reservations. First, it does not include antispyware protection or e-mail scanning, they are only available in the paid version. The lack of an e-mail scanner means that AntiVir won't warn you of infected emails before you open them. However, should you open an infected email, AntiVir will still spring into action, so it doesn't mean that you're not protected from email-based infections. Second, AntiVir's updates are usually slower than Avast and AVG, and occasionally stops updating for short periods of time due to server problems. Although AntiVir has advertisements that appear with every update, these ads can be disabled. Finally, AntiVir Personal Edition Classic has a time-limited license. It is renewable, but be aware that you'll have to periodically go through the hoops. Neither Avast or AVG is as effective in detection of viruses as AntiVir, but both are more complete products, and less intrusive in use.
These are excellent free antivirus that provide a real alternative to the major antivirus software.
You can increase your protection if you run on demand scans with another antivirus. On demand scans can be run regularly to check for viruses and other malware that may have been missed by your main scanner. If you have a good preventive security strategy in place, however, the extra protection this offers is minimal.
AntiVir or Avast can be used as an on demand scanner by choosing custom install when you are installin the product and disabling the real-time. AVG can be used as an on demand scanner by disabling the the real-time protection.
Another good option for on demand scanning is BitDefender 10 Free Edition, the free version of the commercial BitDefender Antivirus. It has good detection rates, but because the free version lacks an email scanner and a resident virus guard, it's only suitable for use as an on-demand scanner, not as your main AV program. There are some other limitations as well. It has an annoying habit of detecting malware products that have been quarantined by other security products, and you can't exclude these areas from subsequent scans. The program itself is using an old version of the engine, so the detection is weaker. And it's only available with a one year non-renewable license.
Dr.Web CureIt! or the Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool can also be used as on demand scanners. Both of these are portable applications, and are also excellent for cleaning computers that are already infected with malware. However, they both require you downloading the whole file again if you want to update it. In recent tests, Dr.Web has not been scoring very high. Kaspersky AVP Tool uses version 7 of the Kaspersky engine, not the newer version 8, so the detection will be lower. Nevertheless, they are still good choices as a secondary on demand scanner.
Avast! 4 Home Edition
Website: www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
Download link: www.download.com/Avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10019223.html
Author: Alwil Software
Version: 4.8.1287
Date: November 18, 2008
Download file size: 27.69MB
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista
64 bit capable: Yes
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: Yes
Additional software required: None
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
Website: free.avg.com/ww.download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition
Download link: www.download.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html
Author: Grisoft
Version: 8.0.175
Date: October 21, 2008
Download file size:49.41MB
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: 2000/XP/Vista
64 bit capable: Yes
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: No
Additional software required: None
Avira AntiVir Personal Edition
Website: www.free-av.com/en/products/1/avira_antivir_personal__free_antivirus.html
Download link: www.download.com/Avira-AntiVir-Personal-Free-Antivirus/3000-2239_4-10322935.html
Author: Avira
Version: 8.2.0.334
Date: October 23, 2008
Download file size: 23.40MB
License: Free for personal use
Operating systems supported: 2000/XP/Vista
64 bit capable: Yes
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: German
Additional software required: None
BitDefender 10 Free Edition
Website: www.bitdefender.com/PRODUCT-14-en--BitDefender-Free-Edition.html
Download link: filehippo.com/download_bitdefender/
Author: SOFTWIN
Date: August 23, 2007
Version: 10
Download file size: 21.08MB
License: Free for one year, requires registration
Operating systems supported: 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista
64 bit capable: Yes
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: Yes
Additional software required: None
Dr.Web CureIt!
Website: www.freedrweb.com/cureit/
Download link: www.freedrweb.com/cureit/
Author: Dr.Web
Date: April 11, 2008
Version: 4.44
Download file size: ~11MB
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista/2003 Server
64 bit capable: Unknown
Portable version available: Program is portable - does not require installation
Other languages supported: Arabic, Armenian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Persian (Farsi), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
Additional software required: None
Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool
Website: avptool.virusinfo.info/en/
Download link: devbuilds.kaspersky-labs.com/devbuilds/AVPTool/
Author: Kaspersky
Date: April 11, 2008
Version: 7
Download file size: ~27MB
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: 2000/XP/Vista
64 bit capable: Unknown
Portable version available: Program is portable - does not require installation
Other languages supported: Unknown
Additional software required: None
Related Topics
- Best Free Adware/Spyware/Scumware Remover
- Best Free Trojan Scanner/Trojan Remover
- Best Free Rootkit Scanner/Remover
- Best Free Firewall
- Best Free Intrusion Prevention and Detection Utility for Home Use (HIPS)
- Gizmo's Guide to Securing Your PC
- How to Surf More Securely
- Best Free Browser Protection Utility
- Best Free Spam Filter for the Average User
- Best Free Spam Filter for the Experienced User
- JonathanT's Spyware Removal Guide
This software category is maintained by volunteer editor JonathanT. Registered site users can contact JonathanT by clicking here.
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How the hell can AVG & Avast be better than Avira ?
Hi
The only reason why AVG and Avast are mentioned ahead of Avira is they are more complete as compared to free Avira..free Avira doesn't include spyware protection and Email protection.. As far as detection rate is concerned Avira is still 1st choice..
Thanks..
Is it possible to install AVG so it only checks email and spyware?
uninstalled then reinstalled avira. now umbrella opens at start.
I think that Avira is the best one cos of its detection rate, it now seems to me that a lot of the paid antiviruses aren't as good as Avira for detecting viruses and such, what with the 98% detection rate, the only bad things about avira is that its really good for detecting and stopping viruses, but doesn't have many features, i don't really like AVG any more, because i installed it on three computers, and on all three is detected like 40000 files to be bad, and all three computers were perfectly healthy, so i think they were all false positives. Avast is alright, but its detection rate is something like 88%, so its a good all-rounder, but i prefer Avira for an antivirus. Id get the premium to support Avira, but my parents don't want to pay for antivirus (yeah, im only a teenager).
Get Comodo or Online Armor along with DriveSentry and Avira. All free for the take.
This one is simple: Bought and paid for antivirus is the best.
Thats your opinion, but you are so wrong about it. Free ones listed here are not anyway less than the paid ones.
Anupam Shriwatri, India
Just tried Avast after using Avira for several years. Gizmo's advice to rate Avira so highly for so long swayed me then. After having Avast one week it destroyed my computer. Took it in for servicing an the techs said Avast had detected several false positives that it removed causing several programs and the operating system not to work. I'm out $175.00 over this stupid Avast! The techs said all freeware like this is bad because there is no support after this sort of thing happens. Forget Avira, forget Avast, I'm going to purchase McAfee.
Why not buy Avira Premium / Security Suite ?
I am using Avast, and i am quite happy with it. Saved me many times, and i didnt had any problems. If its giving a false positive, its on you to take care while deleting the particular file. Avast is one of the best out there.
I had Norton for many years, but it didnt prevent me. Same for NOD32. Both let the virus creep in the PC. I used AVG and Avira for sometime, both worked nice for me. AVG 8 is not so good... Avira has some update issues. Avast is working nicely for me.
Anupam Shriwatri, India
Nothing personal but did you know that you have to manually update Avast versions one at a time. The stupid thing continues to gather AV signatures but what good is that if you forget or don't know to update the "program" versions manually. Avast sends no warnings as to new program updates either, another fopah. The user interfaces are stupid and there are about 6 of those to confuse most users as to how to just scan the whole computer. The desktop icon is also different than the toolbar icon taking the user to yet another portion of this stupid program. The "car player interface" sucks too as I can't figure out what it even does. It seems to do nothing at all. Whoever designed this piece of crapware gets an A+ from me for genius or idiot required to operate it successfully. As the guy above mentioned this software has one of the highest false positive ratings of all the AV's on the planet. No wonder that guy allowed Avast to delete and damage his safe program files. It's as the guy above who's computer got wiped out said it's an expensive venture into the tech shop. I'll stick with Avira and the latent server problems for now.
Avast does tell you, when a new version is available. And you can update it online too. I have done it myself. About the interface, it depends on person to person. I also didnt like the interface first. But once u get used to it, its okay. Avast is great, and one of the best. Its certainly not crapware, as its saving many people's PCs out there.
Anupam Shriwatri, India
"Forget Avira I'm going to purchase McAfee" :D :D :D
McAfee Big Big Mistake If you do want to buy go Avira Premium or Avira security Suite
Gordon
You might as well want to know how to disable Avira splash screen: http://forum.avira.com/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&postID=348094&highlight...
does anybody know why the umbrella won't open on avira antivir. when i right click it has a check next to antivir guard enable but doesn't open. i don't know if this has been discussed before or not. to many pages to go through to find out. can't find the answer anywhere, hope you guys can help. thank you.
Better check the Antivir forum. It's a known problem, I've had it myself, but not recently. Are you using the latest build and definitions ? In my case I've had to unninstall and reinstall when upgrading to release 8.0. There are also known incompatibilities with Windows Defender, if you're using Vista, try disabling it.
everything is updated. using windows xp. have spyware terminator and comodo firewall.
I also use Comodo, maybe ST real-time protection is conflicting with Antivir.
anitivir ROCKS!!!
www.ak0n.tk
I've been using Antivir for a long time. Unfortunately my installation cannot get through updata. It always tried to download an file over 400M. It's very ridiculous. What's going on?
I ever used COMODO for serveral months, it gave me a good impression.
Now Comodo shipped their Internet Security (including firewall and Antivirus). It's looks very attractive. I searched for news on internet about it. The product got highly appraised(http://www.prweb.com/releases/Comodo/Internet_Security/prweb1534544.htm). Does anyone have some experience about it?
Do you have any suggestion?
I personally think the antivirus is too new. A moderator from their own forums have said that they hope Comodo AV to be around the same level as AntiVir, Kaspersky, etc in a year or so.
But according to remove-malware.com Comodo is awesome. And Comodo claims they are getting lots of real-world samples with their Comodo Instant Malware Analysis.
PCmag done a review on this
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2333811,00.asp
Has anyone tried prevx products? Prevx CSI seems to be their most popular. It uses a community approach to check if you're infected or not. scan only takes a couple of minutes, and they claim to have the largest spyware database, although this could just be advertizing hype. Any experts out there willing to try this program and report your findings? We'd all certainly benefit. www.prevx.com
thanks!
CSI is just a scanner, it doesn't remove any malware.
THREATFIRE
I've heard ThreatFire is pretty good.
Threatfire is more of a HIPS program. It's mentioned here: http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-hips.htm
Norton Internet Security 2009 Free for 90 days
http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/support/partner_download.jsp?id=...
Norton sucks. I used to use it. It is a painfully slow resource hog and has only gotten worse over time. the 2006 version took 5 minutes to update a singel daily virus definition, and during that time my computer grinded to a halt. I wouldn't use it even if it were free for life!
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