Help choosing free AV

Hi all

I'd like some help choosing a free antivirus, for an 80yr old aunt.
She bought herself a laptop yesterday wich comes with Windows Vista Home Premium, and NIS wich trial expires in 60 days.

Norton is going to dissapear ASAP, but I need a good replacement.

The requirements are:
1.- should be very "silent". No pop-ups or warnings unless its critical.
2.- Good detection/removal
3.- Posibility of unatended removal/deleting
4.- Light on resources

I was thinking of Avast! Home, but perhaps there are better choices.

On top of that, I'm installing BOClean on that laptop. Windows firewall and Windows defender enabled.
She doesn't check bank accounts or any other sensitive information, so spyware is not so critical... monthly scans are more than enough.

Thanks

 

Install Avast.

 

I'd say avast! and the AOL McAfee suite are the only viable free products right now.

AVG lacks spyware detection, PC Tools and Comodo have inadequate detection rates, and Avira has its usual host of problems, especially for an 80-year-old lady.

 

Your choice is very limited then - Avast , Avira , AVG , Clam , the AOL McAfee . Sorry I am so direct but for a 80 years old lady the first step is the most important:

I am not sure if any of the free can be turned into "complete silence".
Paid will for sure do better job . The one you use have a silent mode . There are other products , too , which can be configured for silent protection.

Yes , Windows Firewall is very silent and effective . Windows Defender is not that good so you'd better disable it.

 

It's not that good, but leaving it on does no harm, and it does catch stuff every now and then. Just turn off the system hardening optios if you want less "noise".

 

I would use Avast for the antivirus.
I agree that Windows Defenders isn't very good.
I'd set her up with an on-demand free scanner like A-Squared or SAS for periodic scans.

 

Avast or Anti Vir which also comes with root kit detection but doesn't come with mail or web scanner like Avast does, AntiVir does have higher detection rates than Avast but both have their attributes so in the end the choice is yours.

 

Avast home,perfect choice for her

 

I've used both Avast and Avira free and if Avira free updated fine I would go with it. Use Avast and only enable the protections that you need for it. It's a very solid app. Avast free doesn't have an option to do scheduled scans, but if she uses a screen saver it can be set up to do the highly configurable scans then.

 

Hello,
I would not recommend avast! jukebox GUI to an 80-year old.
In that regard, AVG or Antivir.
Mrk

 

AVG. Trouble free with daily automatic updates and scans. It's set and forget. Combined with Windows firewall it's probably enough. I'm sure your aunt won't be delving into the dark side of the net browsing for cracks and porn! If leaving Defender enabled make sure you set it up to make it's own decisions because it may be quite "loud" for an 80yo.

 

Hi all

Thanks for the replies.

Actually I'm doing all the setup. If I remember correctly, when I had avast on my system, the only time I saw that "jukebox GUI" was when I wanted to perform on-demand scans, which I'll perform when I go visit her.

LOL You're right. She'll use the laptop mainly for mailing, write her memories and play card games. And some web-browsing, for which I'll install firefox and hide all IE icons.

Yes I know, and I would consider so if she were some kind of high risk or medium risk user.

Already planned so SAS is my weapon of choice.

After all your replies, I'm deciding between avast and avira. Will do some research today.
Thanks to all of you

 

Seems fairly simple to me, but then I'm not 80......yet

 

I have one question...
Is there a way to compare avira free with avast home?
Please, I'm not looking for a "this vs. that" discussion.
Is there a respectable comparative? Because I just saw that av-comparatives.org reviews avira premium and avast pro. Can I trust that results for the free versions?
Thanks

 

To the best of my knowledge the detection rates are the same from pro to premium, the premium has other features.
Feature comparison.
Doesn't mention detection rates, but I think if you look in their forums it is discussed that the scanning engine is the same.

 

I would say avast as well.
just turn off the skins for the scanner interface then its very staight forward.
tbh i dont like the skins for avast but without skins its fine.
i got my friend to install avast on his laptop with vista today and it runs fine.
lodore

 

That might not be what you're looking for, but that type of question does seem to invite discussion along those lines....

One point to keep in mind, ultimately you need to assess usability under the appropriate conditions - which means on the desired machine with their typical connection and an eye on how the target user will employ the application.

Given the scenario that you provided, comprehensive detection may not be the most critical attribute. Look beyond your aunt's computer. Does her ISP provide some level of email filtering already? Which email client will be installed? How will it be configured? Will the main account be set to limited? This is just scratching the surface.

For this user, does it make sense to run system scans on a scheduled basis? If so, what frequency? Daily? Monthly? Yearly? Never? Yes, I mean that last one seriously - this is where false positives often first appear.

Given the situation you described above, I'd recommend:

• Use whichever free AV requests the least user interaction, but provides a clear one step indication that it is current and running (say visual indicator in system tray). It may be a coin toss on this one.
• Main account is limited user, an admin account is available but not the primary logon account
• Automated scheduled daily clean of temp locations by CCLeaner using /AUTO command line
• Cheap NAT router in front of box if not already present

There are plenty of other equivalent approaches which follow quite different paths (e.g. typical AV + LU + virtualization) and would work as well.

Blue

 

Thanks blue...
I had completely forgot about CCleaner
Router is already on its way, wireless is a must...
As soon as I finish all the setup, main account becomes limited.
I think i'm going with avast for the moment.

Thanks to all for the replies and the help

 

This link may be helpful.

http://wiki.castlecops.com/AntiVirus_Comparison

 

I agree with lodore, just turn off the skins in Avast which makes things simpler. It was one of the first things I did. I already have a media player and I don't need my anti-virus pretending to be one .

Good luck

 

AV-Comparative's reports was indeed reliable!

My choice leans toward "Non-Mem" hoager as imperative, and if it includes speediness the better. Coz popular FREE AVs/MWs mentioned herein has the almost identical yardsticks build-in.

My "FREE" choices are...
AVIRA; clamAV; BitDefender, respectively.

I do tend to lean towards clamAV of late. Due to its robustness.

 

you chose the worst one

i know there is no 'best' but maybe there is a 'worst'

i know it all depends how it handles on your machine, but clamav is extremely poor compared to the others.

i would use Avast Home, with the odd on-demand from Drweb Cureit, and you could also use CCleaner to fix a few things on your computer too.

All free, and good protection

 

Vote for Avira here, personally.

 

Nod32 - if set right, it can be extremely hassle free

 

nod32 is not free.