any thoughts about Avira Free?

I, myself, had issues with the updater in the new version.

 

Avira free is among the most used free AVs, being such during big updates Avira servers tend to get chocked on their free servers. Also the fact Avira frequently updates its engine leading to some occasional problems but still these are minor issues for a free AV with top notch scan engine. Also the server problems from my experience are region specific globally due to the time zone issue.

 

The bottom line Avira offers rock solid protection and its pretty hard to beat Free or paid.The Avira company/team no what there doing.

 

I think you failed to see my last post in the correct light. See my sig.

My self-esteem is very high because of Avira

 

That's why we shouldn't say it's not perfect but rather it's as near as perfect as can be.

 

I truly wish it wasn't then we don't have to deal with fanboyz hijacking any Avira thread.

 

Truly the best free Anti-Virus bar none. The update issue comes up maybe once every 4 months. If you update at night or very early in the morning EST, the updates go thru without a hitch. The splash screen can be overcome also. I have been using this Anti-Virus for over a year and I've tried all the rest. This is the one to beat. The only other AV I liked almost as much was AOL AVS. Which we all know what happend with that.

Ice

 

AOL AVS was KAV........

 

Yep..with a toolbar installed along with it...that's why I never tried it. (I might be wrong though...if it wasn't a toolbar than it was something else that impeded privacy)

 

My memory must be going but I don't remember a toolbar. I just never liked the AOL on the front screen. I would have preferred the KAV logo instead.

 

I have tried all the free ones over the years. I also used fprot a generation before because it was very small with decent detection and I could script the ftp updates and apply them over the lan. uber easy.

As for the free ones now, my beef with AVG was always it found it, but could do nothing with it. Avast was always way way too bloated for me. Good old Luke Filewalker at least told me of the issue and let me delete it or something. No on demand stuff here. I am talking guards. There was a day when you could easily block the notifier in Avira. Still can now, just have to put more effort into it.

I use it exclusively now on my machines and all my friends. I have my own updater. I could care less if it updates 1 time a week or 7 times a week. I could care less if there are 10 updates a day. As long as it updates when I want it to is good enough for me, and for free.

And so far, it does. It also picks up I would say over 90% of my collection of bad things. About the same as TF.

I have however read many many negative posts on updating issues. In many different forums.

If it were a bloated POS like so many others, I for one would not use it. I will live wth more FP and less detection rate before I let bloatware run on my machine. A couple extra security apps would be better than that.

Sul.

 

As far as wishing it wasn't,maybe you shall go to the ball.

Sometimes a single version change is all that stands between a lean mean fighting machine and
a bloated pig.

 

There have been version change, it just got better

 

Avast bloated?....you must mean because it has an email and web scanner?it runs as light as avira even with the web scanner and mail scanner running.Both of which can be uninstalled or disabled.

ellison

 

Avast is not bloated by any means but lately the web scanner has been showing some high mem usage but still, Avast never bogs the system down.

 

I am sooooo confused what you are ranting against Avast, Avira or AVG what.. the only MAIN AV I have ever found bloated and its not even free was older versions of Norton AV

 

I agree.
number "8" worked out much better for Avira than for some.
You know what really trips me?
The moaning about the splash screen!
One click and its gone. Just one click!
Now to me,that just does not justify complaints or a work-around.

A problem i had with AVAST is the giant list of files it cant scan because they are allgedly corrrupted.
I have enabled Avira extended logging just to check,and other than the page file and a few excluded files it has no problem scanning them.

 

Yep even in the free Avira, the notifier.exe can be blocked easily by a firewall.

 

Are you sure it runs as light as Avira?
The difference is not going to brake even a marginal system, performance wise,but I dont thank it runs as light.
Are you saying that any feature that can be opted out of, if not needed,
is not bloat?
I tend to agree.
If I downloaded email rather than using Gmail I might want a dedicated email scan feature.
If I used say XP firewall,the Webscanner they bill as a "light weight firewall" might be attractive.

That said there is still detection.
What good are all of the Shields and Guards you can write into a chunk of software if it cant detect what it is supposed to shield and guard you from?

 

Runs lighter than any av ive used apart from twister.I have used antivir in the past including the v7premium which was extremely buggy when it first appeared, though i guess its better now?.Avast detection is as good as any,and it doesn't suffer from update problems ,or nag screens that have to be suppressed.That said im sure antivir suits many people as does avg and avast.Isnt choice a wonderful thing?
ellsion

 

I would definately say avast is bloated. It has more going on than avira IMO. Bloat being a double edged sword here. There is bloat where it does too much and hogs resources needlessly so that it can be the swiss army knife, which avast does not do too bad on I reckon.

The other bloat is that it does everything you could ever want it to, and then some more for good measure. Bloated with non necessary items. That is avast. It is not straight forward.

So, I classify apps nowadays in the bloat category for those two reasons. I just want the app to do one thing well, not a dozen things half arsed. I am more of a modular peep I guess. I don't mind having 3 things running instead of 1, IF it is more concise and resource friendly.

All comes down to what each wants. I never said AVG or Avast are not good. I just consider them bloated for my needs. free after all.

Sul.

 

I think i can understand what you mean ,though not necessarily agree .For instance i thought antivir v 6 was superb,only to consider v7s change in GUI as unnecessary bloat.I remember that just opening the GUI and help files brought my 98se system to its knees.
ellison

 

with todays machines, this is really a silly discussion on bloat. Antivir uses roughly 10meg of ram (realtime) and Avast uses roughly 45meg of ram (realtime with all guards running). They both use very little cpu (realtime or scanning). Both are very good free solutions. I can't comment on AVG free because I have not used the new version and I'm not about to jump on the Rising bandwagon yet.

Ice

 

I agree.My interpretation of bloat is cpu hogging where explorer or browsing activity "hesitates" or lags.The ram usage is not important for me at all.
ellison

 

I am not ranting against any of them. The question was

So this is a Pro/Con to Avira vs AVG. I might as well throw Avast in there as well since they are the 3 big free ones.

Yes, the GUI on the newer Avasts (IMO) are full of bloated eye candy. I agree about Avira too. It used to be much simpler, but now that we all have new machines, eye candy prevails....

lol, just because I have 4 gigs of ram and a multi-core processor does not mean that I want bloat-ware. I do refer to the resource happy applications, but also more and more, the 'new' look. All the eyecandy. The 'mac' look that vista is trying so hard to get. Don't get me wrong, if it is quick and to the point, who cares what it looks like. But IMO often the more eye candy and glitz and glamour an application has, the less intuitive it seems to become.

But then again, I am a minimalist, so I would prefer it if every program came in a boxish shell with a very clean and 'minimal' amount of options. And if the program is so large that it has a lot of options, it had better be laid out really really well, or I would not use it. I click the mouse enough as it is. I answer too many pop-ups as it is. I think we need to put a stop to it as much as possible and consolidate option-happy applications to reduce the maddening effect that pop-ups have. lol.

Sul.