Free AV: AntiVir vs. AVG

Which free anti-virus is better? I currently have AVG but I read that it sometimes gives false positives. Is AntiVir a good anti-virus program? Any help will be appreciated.

 

In my opinion for a free antivirus I believe that AVG is probably better. AVG is coming out with a new version7 of the free version look at the link for more inf. it should have more functionality than version 6

 

Hi mangotree....

I recently installed AVG free on a friend's PC.

It found 1 Trojan 0 viruses. [Remember, this is an AV not AT]
Now, this was on a fully UNprotected PC.

This guy has surfed for months, NO AV, NO Firewall... and that's all it reports?
Admittedly, he used it rarely, specific sites, as in like only around 1-2 hours per MONTH, lol.

I decide to double check so then do an ONLINE scan from Trend's Housecall and Symantec.
NO VIRUSES... wow... lol..

Then downloaded TDS, update, ran scan.
It found 1 trojan .exe and same trojan .dll living in C:/Program Files/own folder.
Deleted them fine, they were not running, no side effects.
Searched entire system for same files, none.

Needless to say, I was pretty impressed with AVG on that machine, and it did a very good job in that instance.

Cheers, TAS

 

Hi,

Personally I love AVG, I've used AVG 6 Free Edition on one of my computer for long time and it has served me well.

I'm now trying AVG 7 Free Edition (beta) and I'm very very impressed, it very light on resource and no slow down at all. AVG 7 Free Edition has incremental updates and its e-mail scanner can be used in Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Opera M2 and other e-mail clients.

I believe that AntiVir and avast! are better than AVG when it comes to overall detection rates (trojan and zoo malware) but that are not necessary for me and huge database doesn't mean it gives the better protection in the real-world situation. I just want my AVG 7 mainly focuses on ITW virus/worm and some necessary trojans/spyware.

I don't like avast's clumsy skins and its resident protection slows down my machine considerably and AntiVir doesn't has incremental updates. AVG 7 Free Edition (beta) runs very smoothly on my machine and it meets all my needs so in my opinion AVG 7 Free Edition (beta) is the best free anti-virus for me (the best paid AV is Kaspersky as AV/AT) IMHO.

 

I personally protect my 2 secondary PC's (IBMs with 2.4 Celerons and 640 MB RAM) on XP home with AVG - as well as my folks 2 PCS (one identical to my secondarys and one much older with Win98se as well as their Laptop with AVG. I also used AVG on my primary PC until I bought my NOD32. AVG has never failed me. I will not decry it as the best of AVs - I know better. As far as free goes - I think it's tops. I cannot complain - obviously - as nothing has slipped by and I use online scanners to double and triple check my machines periodically. I cannot comment too far on Avast. I almost tried it, but if I recall correctly the information it wanted to allow me to use a year of home/free Avast included my phone number, underwear size, and home address (exaggeration included to increase "shock" value"). Anyway - I really just thought Avast wanted too dang much info.

 

In this moment I can advice you to use the AntiVir Personal Edition.
This AV have a better detection rate, better configuration, but doesn't have incremental updates and email client scanner...
If you use a very old pc, the AVG Free could be better for your...

Besides this 2 AV's, you can try the avast! Home Edition that is a better AV...