Is Avast free good enough to run as only AV?

[cktellah]

Hello,

I writing to ask if anyone knows if Avast home free version is a good enough AV to run as your main and only AV? I am looking for a good free AV to run in place of NAV which is now expiring.

If you don't think Avast is good enough, can you recommend another free AV that you think is better? Thanks very much.

[SwordOfSecurity]

avast is great running by itself as ur primary AV.. i personally love it (using it right now) however it may require some slight configurations to get what you want. btw NAV is horrible and i'd personally say avast is better than it...nav is just a huge resource hog with several problems and cheap ways to get u to buy it more often..

[trickyricky]

I have Avast installed at the moment and it does its job nicely. When I occasionally do a second on-demand scan with one of the online scanners, they never pick up anything which Avast has missed. So it can't be doing too badly on its own.

[sosaiso]

I personally think of Avast as a resource hog as well, but it does a good job for the price. If you're truly paranoid, you might try Bitdefenders free ondemand scanner Bitdefender 8.

http://www.bitdefender.com/site/Main/view/Download-Free-Products.html

[RejZoR]

Define "resource hog" please...

[Arup]

If Avast is a resource hog, I guess that would make Anti Vir, Nod and KAV equivalent of a pregnant elephant.

With all its modules, Avast runs lighter than most,as for the question regarding if Avast is good enough for standalone, I alogn with many other friends of mine have been running it for two years and none of us have got infected by anything, we do periodic scans with other AV like KAV, Nod etc so we do keep Avast in check.

[RejZoR]

Yeah but equaling lots of features and settings with bloated is not the same.
Memory wise is also far from being resource hog. Even though there are quiet few processes if you use all providers (3 are always present,others as installed), but they are named similar so they are listed together (not like Norton which uses processes named with weird names so they are scattered over Task Manager and they can't even be ordered in any way).

[JerryM]

I have used it, and know several others who do also, and I am not aware of a single infection. I have a friend and also my daughter who has used it as the only AV for at least 2 years. I intended to use it on my second computer until I learned that I could use the license for BD 9.0 on the second computer.

I would not feel unsecure with Avast free. I do and would use a second on demand only scanner such as Bit Defender free.
Since I have BD I run an on-line scan from Jotti's weekly. Nothing has ever found an infection.

Go with it if you want a free AV, and it will protect you.

Jerry

[sosaiso]

Actually I find Avast heavier on my system than NOD32. With Avast I have a approx 31-32 second longer bootup time than I do with either NOD32 or etrust. Guess it's what's best for each person's computer. :T

[SwordOfSecurity]

well i personally think avast doesnt use that much resources for the great protection it gives, although it does use quite a bit. however, when i said resource hog, i meant something more like Norton, etc. since they tend to take up a lot of resources just to run several processes which are not very efficient imo. other free ones out there that use up less memory usually use less since they don't provide protection as thorough as avast's.

[sosaiso]

I agree. I find Avast to be one of the "lighter" AV's. But I find it deceptive to say that something is truly "light" when it really isn't. Although lighter than others, not really "light" in the sense. Though I admit I used the term resource hog incorrectly. I was just thinking about my 20 or so mb of RAM being used for something else other than work.

[ErikAlbert]

Avast is pretty good according my readings.
Is Avast enough ? In theory NO, but if you practice discipline on the internet Avast will do. I used AVG during six months and KAV/NOD32 didn't find anything either.
If you don't have any discipline, one AV scanner won't be enough.
If you would ask if Spybot is enough as AS scanner, I would certainly say NO.
But AV scanners are more mature, than AS scanners.

[TAP]

-{ Quote: "Avast is pretty good according my readings.
Is Avast enough ? In theory NO, but if you practice discipline on the internet Avast will do. I used AVG during six months and KAV/NOD32 didn't find anything either.
If you don't have any discipline, one AV scanner won't be enough.
If you would ask if Spybot is enough as AS scanner, I would certainly say NO.
But AV scanners are more mature, than AS scanners." }-


I totally agree with you, no AVs that perfect or catch every malware in the world.

Practice good discipline on the internet is your first or last line of defence, I just go to somewhere, download something, send it to VirusTotal and I get the result as you see, some well-known AVs such as avast!, BitDefender, eTrust and Sophos miss it.

[SwordOfSecurity]

i'd have to agree with all of you in how one AV is not enough. as much as i love avast, i have several other things backing me up, including a firewall, an active real-time AS and several manual-scanning programs specializing in trojans & spyware. however, avast does provide some solid protection, so it is a good start in the dangerous world of the internet.

[YeOldeStonecat]

-{ Quote: "If Avast is a resource hog, I guess that would make Anti Vir, Nod and KAV equivalent of a pregnant elephant.

With all its modules, Avast runs lighter than most,as for the question regarding if Avast is good enough for standalone, I alogn with many other friends of mine have been running it for two years and none of us have got infected by anything, we do periodic scans with other AV like KAV, Nod etc so we do keep Avast in check." }-


Disagree...I'm always installing NOD and Avast on rigs of various horsepower. While Avast is one of the better, if not best, "free" antivirus programs as far as combined detection of viruses/worms, as well as ad/spyware...it is one of the "heavier" antivirus programs around. By heavier, I mean...install it, and the system is notably slower. Regardless of the system specs, a PIV with a gig of RAM, to PIIIs, or that rare ancient Pentium II I must suffer through working on. I even get end user comments on how much slower their computers feel with it. I see it all the time...all_the_time...it's not like I've just installed Avast once or twice and that's the impression I got on it, I've installed in probably over a hundred times.

If they need performance and solid protection, NOD32 goes on (of course they'll have to pay)..and that same computer that was sluggish with Avast is now back to running as peppy as it can.

[jkio]

In my humble opinion Avast is the quite strange scanner indeed. Avast has mediocre detection rates and has no heuristics but it's rather slow in real-time scanner, causing a noticeable affect on system performance and also generate more false alarms (if you monitor its support forum then you'll see).

For free scanners, I personally think AVG free (and also AntiVir, eTrust EZ) are better than Avast home. AVG free is really light and unobtrusive even though it has no bells and whistles, I don't care about Avast home has more features, skins or a bit better of detection rates if it slows my system down.

[SwordOfSecurity]

-{ Quote: "In my humble opinion Avast is the quite strange scanner indeed. Avast has mediocre detection rates and has no heuristics but it's rather slow in real-time scanner, causing a noticeable affect on system performance and also generate more false alarms (if you monitor its support forum then you'll see).

For free scanners, I personally think AVG free (and also AntiVir, eTrust EZ) are better than Avast home. AVG free is really light and unobtrusive even though it has no bells and whistles, I don't care about Avast home has more features, skins or a bit better of detection rates if it slows my system down." }-

seems to me like you got most of your information wrong. its detection rates are around mediocre mostly due to the fact that it DOES have heuristics (BUT, it is limited only to the email scanner). also, i've never really noticed slow scanning in the real-time scanner (it just uses up memory because it has several shields). as for the numerous amounts of false alarms...well that is mostly a myth because i've never had nor heard any of those occuring a lot for avast. anyway, for me, avg free is fine as a quick scanner, but is horrible for protection (since all it does is scan files you are about to open). for me, avast is more of a complete free AV compared to ones like avg free (which are more like tools imo).

however, all AV's have their weaknesses and strengths and most of the free ones out there are not balanced in both, so keep that in mind. this is why its important to have more than an AV for protection (include things such as anti-trojans, antispyware, firewalls, etc. which can be manual for scanning or active in realtime)

[ErikAlbert]

According the av-comparatives of August and if you believe in numbers of course, KAV was the very best, but McAfee was the very best, where KAV was lesser good.
So you could say that the combination KAV and McAfee covers most kinds of viruses.
If you add NOD32 to this combination for its excellent heuristics, you are pretty good protected.
Nevertheless a quite expensive protection against viruses and you still need to invest in AS, AT, AK and Anti-Keyloggers are very expensive.

[Don Pelotas]

-{ Quote: "According the av-comparatives of August and if you believe in numbers of course, KAV was the very best, but McAfee was the very best, where KAV was lesser good.
So you could say that the combination KAV and McAfee covers most kinds of viruses.
If you add NOD32 to this combination for its excellent heuristics, you are pretty good protected.
Nevertheless a quite expensive protection against viruses and you still need to invest in AS, AT, AK and Anti-Keyloggers are very expensive." }-
I hope you're not suggesting that we should use: McAfee, Kaspersky & Nod32 along with an anti-trojan, anti-spyware & Anti-Keyloggers?

Not only would it be insanely expensive, but i'm not sure the pc could be used for much else than running these security programs...;D

For most users/surfers, an top AV, a hostfile and Spywareblaster should be enough if you clean your tracks with something like the free CCleaner, if you then add the "standard" Spybot + Ad-Aware or some type of behaviorbased detection, then.............the pc would actually run and could be used for what it is intended for.:)

[ErikAlbert]

-{ Quote: "I hope you're not suggesting that we should use: McAfee, Kaspersky & Nod32 along with an anti-trojan, anti-spyware & Anti-Keyloggers?

Not only would it be insanely expensive, but i'm not sure the pc could be used for much else than running these security programs...;D

For most users/surfers, an top AV, a hostfile and Spywareblaster should be enough if you clean your tracks with something like the free CCleaner, if you then add the "standard" Spybot + Ad-Aware or some type of behaviorbased detection, then.............the pc would actually run and could be used for what it is intended for.:)" }-
No it was just a theoretical observation, based on the av-comparatives of August.
Since almost everybody is complaining about resource hogs at Wilders, it wouldn't be a good solution.
It's more practical to believe in the message "Congratulations. No threats found." :)

[masqueofhastur]

I'm running Avast and Nod32 at the same time and not noticing any slow downs (P-M 735, 1GB RAM, 4200RPM HD), both Avast processes use ~7.5MB, both Nod32 processes use ~12.5MB. However, I only have Network Shield, P2P and IM engines active in Avast (which Nod32 doesn't specifically deal with), and everything except EMON active in Nod32.

[Chuck57]

I use only AVAST, and have for more than a year. Every so often, if I think of it, I'll run an online scan at some site. So far, nothing has ever been found with the online scans.

I think AVAST is more than good enough to use as your main and only antivirus scan. Nothing is perfect. No matter how good an antivirus or any other security program is, something might always get through. Safe surfing is the best defense.

[wildman]

:blink: Call me Mr. Paranoid, but after having to do a restore on my old machine three (3) times and the third one rendering the machine inoperable, I now have seven (7) security related products installed. I currently am using the Pro version of AVAST, and I have had absolutely no problems with it. I have in the past used every "free" product available, and in some way or another all have had their quirks. I think I may be infamous in regards to one certain product.

IMHO AVAST is a very good product for what it is.

Thanks
Wildman

[aigle]

Have a look at this.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,124163,pg,2,00.asp

[WSFuser]

-{ Quote: "Have a look at this.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,124163,pg,2,00.asp" }-
its been discussed earlier here (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=117813)