a couple of questions regarding free AVs :)

hi, i'm looking for a very newbie friendly AV. in the past i used AVG because i personally found the GUI the easiest to understand of all the free AVs.

i don't follow AV development closely, but am i right in thinking AntiVir and Avast are better then AVG when taking everything into consideration? - detection rates, simple GUI and easy of use (this is important because it's for a newbie), updates etc, etc.

my favourite is AntiVir, but i haven't used it for over a year and i know a new version has been released since then. the download speed with this connection is around 30KB/sec which i think is just about fast enough if updating is as slow as the past.

any help picking an AV will be appreciated, thanks

 

AVG is the simplest to use tho i find teh GUI ugly and its detection is the lowest of teh three.

i prefer antivir for it great detection rates and light resource usage. the classic (free) version does have two issues tho:

1. the free servers are slower, so getting updates wont be as quick
2. avnotify.exe reminds u about antivir premium and it cannot be easily disabled

avast also offers good detection rates, it updates well, and it has many modules but its a bit slower.

 

Aloha Helen. Welcome to our midst.

The three freebies are AVG, AntiVir-PE, & Avast! You can see how they rank, based on actual testing, by clicking on "Comparatives" at THIS link.

The best route is to try all three and then make your choice according to whichever of them suits your computer & also seems *friendliest* to you.

By the way, if you like having a friendly & helpful community of fellow users, that is a big plus in favor of Avast. The Avast forum is just about as good as a support forum can get.

 

The one minus of Avira is the lack of scanning incoming POP3 mail. I believe this is correct, but some do not think that this is a problem. It is without a doubt the best at detection.

I have not understood how Avira offsets the lack of email scanning, and still is secure.
Help?

Thanks,
Jerry

 

I doesn't really matter if the mail is scanned during the receiving process, as it will be scanned apon file access - so you will be protected. While it is nice to have email contents scanned before access it isn't absolutely necessary.

 

If I understand, an infected email could be downloaded on your computer, but when it was opened Avira would identify and take action at that point. Acordingly it would not infect your system.

Is that correct?

Thanks,
Jerry

 

In theory that is the way it should work.

 

Yes, that is correct for most AV scanners. However, there have been cases in the past where real-time monitors were not able to pick some samples that were detected in On-Demand scan. Now this does not happen much though.

 

hi, everyone Helen won't move from the sofa so i'm (iceni60) typing this out for her

she's going to try out AntiVir first. is this the correct link? we're going to get this one -
Windows (98/ME/NT/2000/XP) - AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic

http://www.free-av.com/antivirus/allinonen.html

thanks for the help

i'm hoping Helen will start posting abit more, we posted as an unregistered member awhile ago under the same name - helen321

 

Yes helen321, we can always use more input here so start posting a bit more. You might actually like it http://www.cheesebuerger.de/images/more/bigs/c043.gif

 

Hello. Dragged myself off the sofa to do this. It isn,t Iceni typing. Thanks so much for your help. when i requested stuff before you were all really helpful too. I know very little but am able to learn, ( i think). so will probably be on again with some request. i just need to find out how to get here again from my mentor! thanks.x

helen

 

Well here is my two cents worth.

I have Avast installed -
* it updates frequently & automatically
* Detections are based on heuristics , so I believe.
* A viral email is tagged as such in the subject line. This is great as it identified viral mail from known contacts.
* I am protected when downloading or even doing & copy & paste off the internet and sending it. Alerts will hit the screen, loud & clear.
* It uses a tad more resources than AVG.
* Good support forums are available.
* Does not conflict with my other software installed but will advise you of conflicts if you try to run a secondary antivirus program actively along side of it.
* Best of all is that sexy voice "your database has been updated"!

I give Avast high marks as it has not failed me since I had it installed.

 

For a free and simple AV, I would recommend Avast! or AntiVir. Both are quite good.

- Both have fast updates, though I would say Avast is faster than AntiVir
- Avast! does not have heuristics (except for email scanning), while AntiVir has heuristics
- AntiVir has Premium Edition "nag" screens, no such thing with Avast!
- Avast! has email scanner, AntiVir does not (not much of a difference though)
- AntiVir and Avast! both have good support forums
- Avast has fast and stable update servers, AntiVir Free edition's updates can be *very* slow at times.

As such, I recommend Avast! over AntiVir if you want a no-nonsense AV, but both are pretty close anyway.

 

Firecat,

You should also add that AntiVir Free doesn't have detection for Adware/Spyware, and avast! have...

 

Not "nag screens" as such, but messages like this though:

 

According to the Avira site you're right, but concretely, Antivir free seems to detect a lot of spywares web-installers as trojan-downloader .

So the Premium version goes further on this spyware-detection point, but regarding prevention, I've the feeling the free version does a good work , despite of the supposed lack of spyware detection.

Cheers,

nicM

 

hi, when i left Helen had installed AntiVir and i'd updated Spybot to version 1.4 (the PC had been offline for awhile) i turned on the real-time scanner, i think it's still called Teatimer??

Helen doesn't use an email client she uses web-based email.

would it maybe be best to try using Avast instead of AntiVir and Teatimer? the two most important things are detection rates and ease of use - it has to be easy to use! i think it's very easy for most of us to forget how puzzling a popup about a registry value can be

i'm unsure exactly what teatimer does, i know it has registry protection

 

I love my AntiVir version 7, on Dial-up have done nearly 300 UpDates, 94% successful and three times this year, their servers have been overtaxed by large program updates. There are seperate versions now for Win9x/ME and WinXP/Win2k.

I came from nine years of Norton AV/PFW, a breath of fresh air with AVIRA. Also have ZA, SpyBot 1.3 SpywareBlaster, Ad-Aware and Ewido-micro.

PopUp is easy to prevent with security settings, AvNotify is also used for an automatic mini-IE connection to AVIRA's Virus info site, but I will use Firefox to go there.

One point on TeaTimer is to turn it off when uninstalling/installing Antivirus to allow the necessary registry modifications.

http://forums.spybot.info/forumdisplay.php?f=4

 

My experience was that AntiVir worked best for me. I tried both AVG and AntiVir. I never tried Avast so keep that in mind. Resource useage was an issue.

I also use web mail too. I also have a realtime Trojan Malware killer, BoClean as well as OutPost Firewall with realtime AntiSpyware, and a broadband connection. So you can see where based on my circumstances AntiVir was just fine for free AV. Manual updating was not a problem either.

But this is just my circumstances, you may need the more feature rich "sharper" (my words) Avast that I hear and read about.

If I only had free AV to use and none of the above other protections I would likely give Avast the first test run.

AVG the simple solution, but not the most secure imho.

 

How about Comodo?

Is anyone using it? Detection rates?

http://www.comodo.com

 

I would definetly go with AntiVir. Strong heuristics and good signature database.
Slow download servers unfortunately.

 

thanks for the help. i think we'll keep AntiVir (i really like AntiVir ) and Spybot. then get 1/2 other backup scanners to scan downloads.

 

Of the freebies...I suggest you take a look at eTrust
In the past, for the freebie jobs..I'd use AVG. But for over a year I've been disappointed in it...detection rates falling.
I then tried Avast...much better detection rates..but wow did it slow down systems, I got sick of the complaints from people about how slow it made their system.
I tried Antivir...but found its updating was...sluggish at best. Lightweight, great detection..but I'd often sit down at clients systems and find its updates were horrifyingly behind.

CAs eTrust..lightweight, updates work well, decent detection rates..and free 1 year licenses from Microsoft.

 

Good choice, I like it too .

But do not forget to to change default settings, particulary heuristics for the guard (win32 heuristics are not enabled by default), it would be a pity not to use it, they make a significant part of the job .

And maybe edit the update job ("repeat job if time has expired" option), or set the update reminder to 1 day, instead of 3 (in General, Security), this way you're sure she won't miss updates .

Cheers,

nicM