Recommendations for a free setup?

Hi all,
My situation is that my paid AV suite (TMIS07)has become incredibly buggy, and I'm looking for a temporary replacement. My license (which cost AU$100) doesn't expire until April, and I cannot really afford to buy another at the moment.
The only free AV options I'm aware of are AVG free, and Avira free, I have no experience of either. Can anyone recommend any others? What are the pros and cons of the various free AV's?
I'm also looking for a free firewall with outbound app control.
any suggestions or opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, argus

 

for free AV theres also avast and aol active virus shield (based on kav).

note: the following is just my experience/opinion

antivir classic

pros: high detection rates, light, fast scanning

cons: nag screen, iffy update servers, occasional false positives (from heuristics)

avast

pros: good detection rates, many shields, skins

cons: standard shield lacks heuristics

aol avs

pros: high detection rates

cons: its AOL, one year only

avg av

pros: light, very compatible

cons: average detection rates

*******************************

for a free firewall u can try comodo.

 

Here is what I use.....

Active Protection:
AV - AntiVir Personal Edition Classic
Firewall - Hardware with a custom rule set; Comodo rule based firewall
SpywareBlaster active protection
IE 7 with custom security settings
McAfee SiteAdvisor

On Demand Protection:
Adaware Se Personal
A - Squared Free (backup only)
SuperAntiSpyware (backup only)

You don't need that many back up programs, but I test free programs out, that's why I have 3.

 

I think for time being you can use Avast Home 4.7(AV),Comodo Firewall 2.3(FW),Windows Defender/Spyware Terminator for AS...

 

Comodo would be a good choice for a FW.

 

avg 7.5,

its free, with good better heuristics now and a better detection, and yes ... its free.

 

If you use Firefox, get NoScript and CookieSafe. Maybe even Adblock and Mcafee SiteAdvisor. Or Opera.

Comodo Firewall
SandboxIE or GeSWall
Avast! or Antivir

 

I agree with those that recommend the Comodo firewall. It certainly is a great product. If you would rather try something else than AVG AV and Spyware Terminator, plus if you can get a few bucks together, I would check out the following -

Trend Micro, free after mail in rebate although you have to pay $6.13 shipping. Plus the offer is only good through Dec 17th

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832286002

Zone Alarm Internet Security, $10.99 after instant rebate, plus $4.99 shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832728002

Also, F-Secure still offers a six month free evaluation of its antivirus product, although this may be only for their 2006 version. Still it is an exceptional AV.

http://esd.element5.com/demoreg.html?productid=544842&languageid=1

Personally I would go with the F-Secure evaluation and maybe add Comodo firewall and either Windows Defender or Spyware Terminator with the Clam AV not activated. I am not aware of any conflicts in this assemblage. But if there is one I am sure someone will post about it.

 

If you want something simple to use then avg combined with comodo is a good option.

 

AntiVir would be a good choice.
Pros:
It has the best detection of the free programs.
Simple to use.
Cons:
Updates can be harder to get when a large update is released.

While I don't use Avast,I have installed it for family members and haven't had any complaints about it's use or performance.

Try these two for starters and see which one you like best.

 

The setup that I'll recommend will provide good protection with minimal aggravation:

Anti-virus: Avast Home - Thorough protection, good detection rates, a real workhorse. It's been on my wife's home machine for months doing its thing automatically, has nabbed several of her "mistakes".

Anti-spyware: Spyware Terminator - The latest release in particular is stable, offers extensive protection, contains optional HIPS. I really like this a lot.

Firewall: Comodo Personal Firewall - I'm sure this will be echoed by many posters, and for good reason. It's a very effective piece of security software that does its job very well. If outbound protection is your concern, Comodo is your firewall.

 

Hi everyone, and thanks for all your advice
Whilst I'm still undecided about AV, I have gone ahead and installed Comodo, and I'm very impressed!
How long should I leave comodo in learning mode for the component control? Is the default network control ruleset adequate?
Thanks again everyone for your thoughts and opinions

 

Hi argus tuft.
I've used all three of the freeware AV's, they are all good, and I'd echo the opinions expressed above. I did get a bit annoyed with Avira's updates after a while, and now run Avast. It's been totally problem free, and has a good help forum, plus I like the "funky" interface. (This takes a little getting used to...is not that intuitive.)
You might want to also consider installing a hosts file. I recently installed http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm and update it using Hostsman: http://pwp.netcabo.pt/0413933601/abelhadigital/hostsman.html
Acts a bit like a bad site blocker. Also tends to prevent quite a lot of the ads in web pages displaying. Some don't like the result, I don't mind it.

 

Setup that works in my laptop with limited RAM, 448 MB.

Firefox 2.0 with Netcraft ToolBar
COMODO Free Firewall
Cyberhawk
AVG 7.5 Anti-Virus Free
AVG 7.5 Anti-Spyware (I have a licence to the payed version, but Free works too.)
SpywareBlaster

You don't need anything else in my mind.

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

These are the free setups that have been working fine on my laptop for almost 2 years

1. avast! Home Edition
2. Windows Firewall
3. Limited User Account
4. Online malware scanner or installed antispyware (e.g. Ad-aware, Spybot) from time to time

Yeah, it just works for me but maybe not for others.

 

Active Protection:
AV - AntiVir Personal Edition Classic (free)
Firewall - Comodo Firewall (free)
SpywareBlaster active protection (free)
Firefox (free)


On Demand Protection:
Adaware Se Personal (free)
Spybot Search and Destroy (free)
AVG Antispyware (free trial)
Comodo AntiVirus (because their firewall is so good I am happy to run it as a test on demand) no problems yet.

 

free, id say

avg 7.5
IE7

and use dr.web cure it on demand whenever you like, to be safe than sorry.

its just as safe as the above, not as many programs and it will run sweetly.

 

Not really as safe because your running IE7 rather than Firefox. And it would be a very good idea to have a backup AV, such as Bitdefender Free, as AVG just isn't that good at detection.

Trev

 

well i think IE7 is just as safe as the very buggy firefox,

and avg 7.5 has great detection actually, with the added ewido sigs.. and unlike most if not all free av's, it has real-time protection.

 

i would use dr web cure it as a backup av since you dont need to install it.
i have nothing against bitdefender and you could use eiether.
lodore

 

I've been thinking about this as I'm going to put some sort of free set-up on my girlfriends computer.

AVG (I like antivir better, but the nag screens..)

Prevx (remember, you don't have to pay until you need to use it)

Comodo Firewall

Of this group, all have some sort of active protection. Maybe an expert here can tell me if all four have different added value.

And there is also always...

Spybot w/ teatimer
SpywareBlaster
SpywareGuard

 

Hi everybody, and thanks for all the input
I put Avira in, updated it (first update seemed bigger than avira itself) then immediately rebooted into safe mode, to 'disable' the nag screen
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=148503&highlight=antivir popup
The next update avgnt.exe didn't restart itself afterwards and the icon dissapeared. a reboot fixed it... I guess /hope that's the update problem that everyone is referring to...
I don't really feel I can go to their forum and say "well ive disabled the nag screen, and now it stuffs up after updating"
Has anyone who hasn't disabled avnotify.exe encountered this problem, or is it Avira's revenge...
by the way, my pc runs so much faster it's like a new machine!
I'm also running spybot w/ teatimer + immunization, spyware terminator (rt + HIPS), spyware blaster, firefox w/ noscript + comodo firewall. I should be right now?
@ patrician re bitdefender free - is this just an on -demand scanner? like dr web cureit?
@ frank the perv, Is spyware guard still a 'supported' program? I installed it a while back, and at that stage it hadn't been updated in at least 18 months?
thanks, argus

 

Actually I think that you have to do this "trick" in safe mode about 2...4 times a year, depending on the upgrades to the "avnotify.exe" file.

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

Unfortunately, I think that AVIRA has already "fixed" this modifying trick by forcing to reinstall the original notify.exe again during updates.

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

i will second that avg has come leaps and bounds after acquiring ewido and their detection as close as 93-95%,which is quite good..