Free Antivirus with easiest update?

Currently there are 3 popular free AV -- AVG, Avst and Antivir.

Ignoring their protection level, I want to ask which one of these is easiest to update. Also do anyone of these has autoupdate function like paid antivirus programmes( i mean that they update in background and if you disconnect from internet, on your next connection to internet update will restart automatically from the same point) . I used AVG for sometime but its update is manual and many times disconnects that I hate.

Also all of these three do realtime scanning for whole of your system,or some are selective.

I will especially welcome the comments of actual users.

 

Re: Fee Antivirus with easiest update?

Easily, Avast. It has prolly one of the best updaters out of any antivirus free or paid.

 

Re: Fee Antivirus with easiest update?

Avast has the best update system of all three, being the most customisable and being reliable. The updates are the smallest of the three as well, sometimes only being in the region of 25k.

An excellent all-round performer, particularly considering it's free.

 

Re: Fee Antivirus with easiest update?

avast of course

 

Re: Fee Antivirus with easiest update?

Yep, avast! shines in this area

 

A V A S T

 

Re: Fee Antivirus with easiest update?

I agree!

I have used all three AVs and Avast is the best on updates.

 

ya avast

 

avast! Home Edition has one of the best update mechanism among free and paid AVs, it's extremely fast, full automatic, robust and much more reliabilty.

You don't have to do anything about the update module, just install the program, avast! updater will check/update as soon as your machine gets connected to the internet and it will permanently check/update every 4 hours by default as long as your machine gets connected and besides that, you can set it to check/update hourly.

I've noticed that sometimes the VPS file is just about 1.74 KB in size.

 

Regarding update, me too, I can only say Avast! (which does really deserve its exclamation mark! ); never failed, always quick.

Cheers,
nicM

 

Grisoft AVG Free.
Its the best Antivirus for dummies.
Easy installation, Automatic updates, configuarated for internet users with little experience.
Just download it and click on next a few times and its running without any problem.

 

Anybody has used the latest release of Antivir? how is the update fot it? Any better than before.

secondly, why is that updates for Avast are so small, may be means incomplete protection?

 

avast! uses so-called "incremental updates" not accumulate updates, so you can get full protection from avast!.

Incremental updates, with only new or missing data downloaded, thus reducing the transfer heavily. The typical size of a virus database updates are tens of KB; program updates typically are in the hundreds of KB range.

For more technical details, Alwil guy (vlk) can tell you more if he gets around here.

 

Incremental updating is now used by a majority of AV products (although avast was one of the first who had it, back in 1999 - bandwidth was expensive at these times...).

I can't say why the competitor's updates are typically bigger than avast's - maybe their "delta" algorithms are not so good. The updating system in avast is quite mature (as I said, it was first introduced about 7 years ago) and since then, we have changed/tweaked a number of its parameters to optimize its performance.

Also, we try to provide uninterrupted updating service even in "rush hours" - meaning that we have HUGE redundancy on our servers (bandwidth-wise). Currently, avast uses 46 dedicated updating servers (most of them connected directly to a backbone; at least 1GBit througput to the Internet) and we expect this number to double in the next 12 months.


Thanks
Vlk

 

I am on dial-up...and Avast updates is very fast. Its the first thing that immediately connects to net everytime I starts online and it finish its updates quick. Easy to configure and has lots of amazing features that you can discover as you go along using it.

 

I don't think AVG Free is suited for novice users, especially for careless people who don't have the particular interest about virus protection.

For example, AVG Free doesn't have the *real automatic updates* (as avast! home edition has), it only has the scheduled task to check/update once a day so if you miss you have to wait for 24 hours to check/update again or you have to manually check/update it periodically.

What if novice users don't know about this truth? what if it comes to an outbreak that Grisoft has to release the signature several times a day but AVG Free can do an automatic update only once a day and users don't do a manual update? are thay at high risk?

Besides that, AVG Free uses low priority update servers so it can be down periodically, what if the update servers down while AVG Free goes automatically update?

For AVG Free, if users do a manual check/update periodically via its AVG Control Center while they're online so it shouldn't be a problem about the updating.

I think the reliable update mechanism (gets updated as soon as possible when the signature released) is a *must have* for reliable protection.

 

The Avast settings are to compilcated for beginners.
The best protection against virusses is no Kazaa or Messengers and no free Mp3`s/screensavers/smileys etc.

 

I am using Avast 4.6 pro now...and I am VERY happy with it!!!!!!the updates are also very small and fast....not megs like antivir or some others that need to bring in a load of updates every day:-(

I mean did you EVER update Mcafee? Jeeee what a pain in the a** that is to update!!!

cheers,

Paradutch

 

Thats certanly not true. From my experience avast! 4.5 and above (especially avast! 4.6) is designed with "install and forget" idea in mind. Advanced users will prefer to tweak it out to perfection, but it will work the same with default settings which are nicely balanced. All that novice users have to do is to move the On-Access slider from Normal to High or vice versa.
Advanced users can use Customize button for advanced tweaks.
I don't think it could be any easier than this.

 

Many people will keep on downloading garbage because its free.
And press on inviting messages in their messenger.
And they keep on complaining about virusses and spyware.
And some friend or neighbour must help them clean their pc (again).
What you do with your pc and take some interest in the settings of your browser and program settings is even and sometimes more important then wich av is the best.

 

Re: Fee Antivirus with easiest update?

I would have to say Bitdefender updates more than Avast according to my own experience.

 

From one who has tried all the "free" protection programs, it's AVAST that wins the gold medal in this area. For a "free" repeat "free" product I think it would be hard to find one better.

Thanks
Wildman

 

Amen brother, I could not agree with you more!

Thanks
Wildman

 

This would be my thoughts too. HOWEVER, I have never tried avast so you must consider that when when reading my opinion.

 

Use avast! because it have one of the bests update engine out there, even better than the most paid AV's...