Can You Trust Free Antivirus Software?

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I think you're correct. The trade-off is you have to deal with the complexity. That's not a problem for us security software geeks, but in my experience the average user can't handle it. Part of what they are paying for when they buy an "all in one" product is the simplicity - no program conflicts, one update engine for all components, etc.

 

The old adage "you get what you pay for" doesn't hold up with software. A lot of the free software is just as good or better than the equivalent payware. There's no correlation between quality and price. That includes AVs and other security software. I haven't run an AV in years, but I do install one on most of the PCs I service, usually Avira/AntiVir. It's done very well on all of them.

I've only been infected by a virus once. That was when I was using a payware AV, Norton. The AV crashed on a malicious webpage. The freeware AV I replaced it with held up to the same page. You can trust the pay versions to remind you early and often about renewing though.

That's how it's supposed to work. That said, there's been more than a few instances where an update to a security suite was messed up and ended up disabling or crashing the whole package, leaving the user completely vulnerable.

 

ummm....let me try one more time....i mean that excellent freebies like mbam,sas,cureit can be trusted and recommended when it comes to cleaning infected pc's but quality free security software like avira free,mse, avast home can't be trusted for realtime protection now that is amusing.....

 

It is also worth remembering that in the Retrospective/Proactive Test of AV Comparatives Avira, Microsoft One Care, Avg and Avast did better than Norton.

So instead of criticising other products, it would be better for Symantec to improve its own product.

 

Elapsed, I doubt that many (any?) Chief Marketing Officers within either free or paid anti-virus vendors would agree with this assertion. While it is the case that a user can sometimes layer two or more anti-virus products on a single PC, most users seem to select only one solution -- i.e., the size of the market is basically constant. Therefore, every PC that uses Product X is a lost sale/opportunity for Product Y. As a result, direct competition exists (which, by the way, is very healthy for the industry in total).

Consider, for example, the recent commentary by Symantec (see here), noted by Vik.

Elapsed, I have seen no evidence that this is true. While there exists some sharing of anti-virus signatures among vendors, the algorithms for heuristic detection and the data which enables in-the-cloud reputation analyses are proprietary to each vendor and are not shared. The latter components are capital intensive investments, and I do not envision that the business model of the free anti-virus solutions will be able to generate the resources to advance research and development efforts in this rapidly evolving field.

Two additional points:

• Even when signatures are shared among anti-virus vendors, timing is critical. A free anti-virus vendor that receives and processes signatures shared by a paid anti-virus vendor is at a competitive disadvantage, due to the gap between the malware detection and the deployment of the signature to the userbase.
• Not only are the advanced detection capabilities different between free and paid anti-virus products, they are also different among paid anti-virus products, too.

 

Smage, I dislike ‘competitive attacks’ when done by any vendor, and Symantec is no exception. Yet, Symantec is doing the market a service by questioning ‘common wisdom’ about free anti-virus products:

“People tell me, oh well look I use free antivirus because it is free and it protects me from everything in those areas, but when you compare that with what’s really going on in the threat landscape, there is a very, very big gap between what antivirus does and the threats that are being delivered today.”

Source: Symantec: it’s dangerous to rely on free antivirus​

 

I think I'm wording this incorrectly, but nearly all vendors use a free product as a means of advertising a paid for product, even Microsoft themselves state they don't plan on directly competing with other products.

Sure we can all say free product X is better than paid product Y. Why? Free product X uses the same detection as paid product X. That's why. I've already stated in my previous post, nearly all vendors with the exception of a select few like AVG, use the exact same technology for detection in their products.

Feel free to explain how lies and propaganda fit into my statement.

You seem to misinterpret my post, yet again. I never mentioned any form of sharing between vendors, you assumed that. I explain what I mean by exact same signatures in my previous sentence.

 

Symantec is questioning 'common wisdom' for the sake of marketing their product. The whole goal of their argument is to convince consumers to buy their product, it is as simple as that.

 

Hi Pleonasm,

If Symantec considers AV as being the last line of defense and recommends using a suite to be protected, then why is Norton 2009 antivirus still available as a standalone product?
http://www.symantec.com/norton/antivirus
If it cares so much about its customers, it should set the example and discontinue the standalone version of the AV.

I totally agree that simply relying on a free AV is not enough given the rapid evolution of threats but this also applies to any AV whether free or paid. Is it possible to achieve decent protection solely by relying on a piad AV?

Symantec is trying to make people believe that if they uninstall their free AVs and install NIS all their security problems will be solved. This is totally wrong because no security suite whether free or paid can protect a user if he/she does not pay attention to security. Go to their support forum and you will see how many users running NIS have been infected. If Symantec really wants to protect its users, it has to educate them on the good security practices that they should adopt in order not to be infected.

Besides it is a shame that it is attacking itself to free AVs when NIS did worse than the so called "inferior" AVs in the proactive test of AV Comparatives!
Moreover there are many paid AVs out there which are not more effective than the free ones. There are even some paid AVs which do not even take part in AV Comparatives, yet they are still in business and users are still buying their products!

So I hope that users will become more security conscious with time and will get themselves a decent AV and firewall to protect their system. They may use a combination of free/paid products, NIS or any other paid suite but they should realise that they are also respomsible for their security.

Thanks

 

Starting such a thread might actually be a good idea !

I can recall the problems I've had in the past with McAfee and Panda.
McAfee has LOTS of issues, one in particular being a DAT update crippling the system, and McAfee's response being: you are infected OR you need to uninstall and reinstall the software. (This has nothing to do with false positives) If they say you are infected you can pay McAfee money for removing a non-existing infection !
As for Panda: it was preinstalled on my computer. It was almost impossible to get rid of it. (these days I might do better because I'm more knowledgeable)

 

Symantec isn't completely wrong:

Their suite is more than an AV.
I guess it has a firewall, a spam filter and more.

 

Sure you can trust Free AV... but if you have an issue don't complain. Make sure you stick with reputable ones how do you know.... well by coming here and other places like here.

IMHO free AV is a good deal for use while deciding or in process of getting pay AV, also we have the economically challenged....so Free AV has it's needed place. Without it things would be worse off for all, including the pay providers more infections running wild.

 

Best quote on the thread...

 

Elapsed, any miscommunication involves both a speaker and listener, so at least 50% of the confusion resides with me.

However, now I think that I understand your point: you’re comparing the free and the paid version of the same anti-virus product - right? (In contrast, I was speaking of comparing free Product X with paid Product Y.) Nonetheless, the “free” version of Product X is often a limited version of its paid counterpart (e.g., see here and here).

 

I can’t speak for Symantec, but the major distinction is that Norton AntiVirus allows a user to employ a firewall of the user’s choice; whereas, with Norton Internet Security, the firewall is integrated (see here).

A more up-to-date comparison is available here.

Please see the “How to Protect” series of informative content by Symantec here.

 

You can trust free antivirus programs, but expect it to be limited in its scope.

Most paid AV products are full-featured, complete with web/email scanner and firewall, NO nag-screens or toolbar installations.

As for me, I trust the most reputable free AV programs (namely the Big Three A's).
But I trust reputable paid AV programs even more.

 

Yup,I trust the free ones that I've used,and have been just as "protected" as the paid versions.

 

I think we need to put this in perspective. Norton (I'll use them as an example) does not just sell security software, they also sell a service. Their programs are almost completely automated. Norton products make decisions about what is considered malware and needs deleted, they have automatic updates and automatic scanning. Essentially Norton av and/or their security suite are ready to start protecting out of the box. This is where the Norton's of the world make their money and it is also a resource intensive capital venture. It takes a lot of money to have such a program run this way.

I have no doubt a person could put together a layered security suite from an assemblage of free products that is just as effective, if not more, than anything Norton can offer. But with the free programs there comes usually on demand scanning and on demand updates. Or the updates are not from the fast servers. Then there comes pop ups which require a user to make some sort of decision. These are not usually problems for those with some experience and working knowledge of computers and malware. But people acquiring a working knowledge of these things is the last things the Norton's of the world want. So they spread the FUD and claim to have the answer for everything.

 

i been testing comodo antivirus with D+ without the firewall and i set the heuristics on high and on access virus scaning and comodo is very stable,fast and catch alot of unknown/unclasified malware,i noticed only 1 Fp which i trusted any boddy tried this one?thanks