any thoughts about Avira Free?

But then what would Mouse makers do..... with us clicking less buttons wearing less mice out... they would go bankrupt! save Logitec save it I tell ya.

 

Lol, I don't know. I have enough high dollar mice too! I even tried that omni mouse thing with a script language built into it. I think it is an evil conspiracy against us. Click Click Click, allow allow allow. Now, why is that girl dancing and shagging on my desktop? Uh? Maybe I should have read the 12th pop-up that said something about ip 22.192.18.2 on port 8080 inbound. DOH!

 

I was a minimalist when i used w98se for over 7 years ,with 392 meg of ram.Now i do have a multi core processor with 4 gig of ram ,i actually enjoy the eye candy,although being tight fisted ,i do wonder why i purchased that extra ram when im only using 1.5 gig as i feel im actually wasting 2.5 gig.Even so i have tested avs recently that cause "hesitation" and lag when "exploring" or browsing which i put down to intensive processor caused by the av.That is still my idea of bloat.I dont see any features in current avast that could be considered bloat unless your used to fprot for dos. in terms of functionality or cpu hogging.I would consider the nagscreen as unnecessary bloat considering that avira already knows it can be blocked by the discerning,or ignored by the rest.
ellison

 

I came from the exact same place, only it started on 486 era and win311/dos. I have 4gb of ram, and want to use as little as possible. I have that much ram now for vmWare more than anything. Some games will suck up the ram as well. And regarding the lag 'exploring', I know just what you mean. I found that with many apps, not just AV. TF IMO is bad about that, and some other hips too. True you have to really look for it with todays machines, but sometimes it is more noticable than others. If I did not run the likes of vmWare and new games, maybe I would not worry. I just don't like having to 'disable' things to do other things. So I keep trying different combinations to achieve that 'lite' feeling of 'strong' security. If there is such a thing. Perhaps I will put Avast and AVG on a vm box again.

On a side note, does anyone know if there is a free AV that will go on a 2k Adv Server box? ClamWin does, but I would more prefer a resident than scanner.

Sul.

 

Sadly Clamwin does not have detection or removal rates worth diddly squat.

 

I think Rising AV would work on a 2k Adv Server box. But I'm not sure if you would consider it bloat.

Ice

 

lol, fortunately for me that is a server, so I don't ever have to look at it. I might try that out and see how much bloat it has

Thanks for the idea. I had not even thought about Rising.

Sul.

 

Just a update avira had a big update yesterday. if you have tried it you may want to revisit it the performance update is insane.

 

I tried the newest versions of AVG and Avast. Also tried Rising, F-prot, F-Secure, Kaspersky,Comodo and PCTools.

To each his own, but IMO Avira is much more simplistic, easier to navigate, and definately SEEMS lighter than the rest on resource usage and the general feel of how it runs.

All vmWare stuff mind you. But I do have 2gb allotted to the vm box with fast raid array and multicore cpu. Can't see how it is much different than real life

Sul.

 

sully my only concern with it is that it doesn't scan emails. Most of my clients use their email OE alot to keep in touch with family and friends. If it doesn't scan emails it is missing a big part of its protection.

robin

 

Actually, Avira will scan any files d/l from the email itself which is as good as saying it scans emails.

 

Yea, that is a pickle there with OE and emails. I use it to access my hotmail account, but I went into the prefs and set it to not open attachments, view all in text format and not preview pane. So I have to dbl click each email to view it's contents.

Avira does a good job IMO with it's guard of detecting, but emails can be troublesome for sure. Have you thought about implementing some of the Sandboxie email situations posted around here?

Sul.

 

avira is definetly not easier to use or lighter then f-prot but it sure is a gem. Wlill change back in a minut or so though

 

Uh, which version of f-prot you talking about? I used the old dos one a lot. And I think it was version 3 or 4 that was still in use up till a few months ago. About a year ago mabye (maybe 2?) they came out with v6.

If you are saying that the new v6 is lighter than avira I would say, no. Easier to use, possibly. But it consumed in a vmWare box I believe it was 40+meg and quite a few cpu cycles.

Interesting too that the max mem usage for Avira is actually pretty high, like I have seen 80mb. However, after bootup or a scan, it falls back down to about 8mb between the 2 processes. Total cpu time for 4 hours uptime is 14seconds between the 2 processes.

Sorry, in my vm boxes F-prot is not as light as that. It does, as always has for me, really yell at you if it even comes near a bad file. I always like that part of it.

Sul.

 

Try outside vm.

 

Disabling the nag is really simple in Vista. Computer>C>Program Files>Avira (Folder)>avnotify.exe>Traverse Folder>Deny for all users listed. Make sure you have administration rights. Safe mode is not necessary!
I edit! So I did an update before a boot and indeed there wasn't a nag. I then rebooted to make sure the change stayed by looking at the file. I now cannot open avnotify.exe. I even setup an Administrator account, which appeared to be almost like safe mode, to no avail. I didn't actually try safe mode. The fix worked though because there is still no nag. But I have two questions. Number one, how did I ever open that file originally? Remember, I was not in safe mode. Number two, can I not access now because of the "Deny" setting? If I really wanted the nag back (for what?) I'd try safe mode or just uninstall/reinstall Avira. Opinions appreciated!

 

Tried F-prot on my test system. and from my view its in no way lighter tho this is on my system and not yours as it could differ. Memory and CPU were higher.. it seems to love CPU on my test bed.

 

Oh well who cares plenty of choices so...

 

I have read this thread with great interest as I have been running avast! Home (free) for years and am considering a switch to Avira. Recently, I had to upgrade my laptop to Vista Home Premium and the Web Shield component of avast! has been preventing Firefox and Internet Explorer from connecting to the net after a few hours of use. Disabling and re-enabling the component allows me to reconnect to the web but having to do this over and over again is becoming tedious.

At the moment, I am running avast! without the Web Shield enabled without problems and was considering seriously considering the move to Avira. However, there was a comment earlier in the thread regarding the lack of a web scanner (?) in Avira. Would I be gaining much in moving from avast! with the Web Shield disabled to Avira without an equivalent component (if this is, in fact, the case)? I'm not really sure I am comparing apples to apples here as I am not sure if what was described earlier as the lack of a "web scanner" in Avira is the equivalent of what avast! provides in it's Web Shield. Any help on this would be most appreciated.

FWIW: I am running Zone Alarm and Spybot Search and Destroy as well.

Thanks

 

Free avira doesnt have a web scanner (or dedicated mail scanner) ,however some do not think that important.If you choose avira instead of avast ,you would be making an equally good choice.However your reason for switching seems odd.I run vista premium and have no such problems that you describe regarding IE and firefox.It may be a conflict with ZA (probbably the most likely)...though i cant say because i wont use it.Have you tried uninstalling ZA?.If your running avast i personally wouldnt bother with spybot either,especially if you have teatimer enabled.Its just unnecessary and you would be more prone to the kind of conflicts that you seem to be experiencing.
ellison

 

Yes, with the help of the avast! forum (excellent support) I have tried almost everything. When Firefox refuses to connect, the quick solution is to right click the the avast! icon and stop/restart On-Access protection whereupon both Firefox and IE can reconnect to the network again. Further experimentation showed that disabling/enabling only the Web Shield provider solved the problem, and disabling the Web Shield permanently solved it permanently. It seems obvious that many Vista users do not experience this problem, but a search for Web Shield, avast! and Vista will show that quite a few have experienced it and few have confirmed solving it. Are you also running avast!?

I don't know if I can conclude from your post that what I am running now, insofar as the Web Shield and overall protection is concerned, is basically quite similar to what I would have by running Avira since it does not have the web scanner. The system runs beautifully and is very fast with the setup I mentioned above (with Web Shield disabled). I can see from the earlier posts that Avira seems to have an edge at the moment on certain things, but am still uncertain as to whether it is necessary to switch systems. I feel encouraged to do so by the enthusiasm of some of the experienced members of this forum.

Thanks for your help.

 

The only way you are going to know if you like avira is to try it.I have and i dont.The reason being that i find avast more stable and easy to get on with other programs.In your case though this is not true as it seems to be conflicting with something.Uninstall avast (and spybot) and try avira

 

Avira takes up ~7MB on my Vista machine with 42sec CPU over 12 hours. I only run the avguard process and run updates with preupd.exe and Windows Task Scheduler (avoiding the avnotify fiasco).

 

I have 5 Different computers Running ZA and Avira (recent switch) some computers stay up for months as one is a game server I host. Never had a problem with ZA killing the web. tho I did test Avast a month or so ago on a test bed computer and the damn web guard went nuts kept blocking normal websites for no reason. Avast I have seen to be buggy on some computers and not so on others just depends. if you want try Avira. I did and ended up buying 5 Lic for all computers in the house. I have found it to be a Good investment. sad part is I had Eset but with there recent problems it's just not worth it any longer.

 

In this family, and house, we have a total of 10 PCs (3 towers and 7 laptops), and up until a few weeks ago, all of us used AVG 7.5 Free. Given the footprint of AVG 8, I moved all PCs to either Avira or Avast! This PC has the least specs of any computer - an old 1GHz Itel PIII/512MB RAM (the max. this D815EPEA2 Intel MB can accept), and WinXP Pro. The best choice for this PC is Avira - no question, as I tried Avast! and it was a bit heavy.

I have no problem with Avira's splash screens, but in comparison to Avast!'s seamless update process, I do have a concern (problem?) with Avira's slow - as compared to either AVG 7.5 Free or Avast! - update process. I know the free version supposedly uses slower servers in Germany, but its update process is like molasses in January, especially compared to Avast! And, I don't mind Avast!'s verbal notice of the update.

During Avast!'s install, if you delete the skins option, you have a very simple and nice looking GUI - don't use the rinky-dink and dated media player look-alike. Avast! can be configured to be very light on resources - just don't install all of the scanner options.

As for Avira Free's lack of an e-mail scanner, I don't need it, as my ISP scans all outgoing and incoming e-mail.

If you have a low-power PC, go with Avira. If you have a modern Core 2 Duo or greater with megaRam, go with Avira or Avast! Either is an improvement in detection rates over AVG.