any thoughts about Avira Free?

Avira has stated.. I believe in this tread or in its own forums its working on hard figuring out what to do with the update server on the free side. they know its slow they know its a pain there just trying to deiced whether to update the Code so updates are smaller or add more servers.

 

From my experience of the daily work with malware I would say AVG has a much better detection than Avast, they are very fast with adding new detection. In fact, AVG very often detects when NOD and BD fail aswell. Actually, both NOD and BD dropped seriously in their detection rate of unknown/new malware in my opinion. My guess would be that the guy(s) responsible for the development of new heuristics/generics left the companies?!? Or it's just too much new malware? Wild guesses, indeed.
But then, I "only" look at malware that bypasses Aviras generic detection, so I can update it. Maybe on "normal" malware the detection situation is different.

 

I have never had any trouble with web guard blocking any site whatsoever.After all its just normal web traffic directed through proxy like many other avs,but again i wont use ZA.The problem you mentioned again seems to be linked with ZA and avast as you didnt have the problem with avira and ZA.
ellison

 

They've been working hard trying to decide for many years on that problem.I remember quite heated posts by wildman and countless others who were justified in their frustration of the update problems regarding the free.If i were cynical id say the reason the update servers were slow, is that its an incentive to purchase the premium,which was (still is?) part of the selling feature of the premium.
ellison

 

I have tried avira,in fact i had a premium license.I got fed up with the mail guard and (other guards ) intermittently not starting .I didnt like the way opening the v7 gui or help file brought my system to a standstill for 7 or 8 seconds either.Admittedly i was running w2000 p3 733 then with 392meg of ram,however that shouldnt have been a problem.I still see many posts where guards are not starting up (premium) ,so i m not sure anything has changed.That said i would recommend anyone trying avira.If it works fine for folks on their machines then its got to be worth having .Personally though i prefer the stability of avast on my own machine.
ellison

 

Avast Web shield and ZA are old adversaries, during install of either product you receive a warning about incompatibilities.

 

I don't know never had the problem of slow updates. I was on there trial version for 5 days before I bought it. other then that the product has ran Awesome on all my computers along with ZA so no complaints about ether one here.

When I had Avast on here ZA was not it was on a clean Install of windows XP SP3. I tryed some of the work around's that I found on Google. none worked finely gave up and moved to a better program. but then again this is my experience and everybody's is different.

For the hell of it I put it on my old P133 128 Meg Laptop running windows 2k... with a possessor hack.. in other words it cant see the real speed of my possessor. damn thing ran zippy I was quite surprised. it just goes to show that the software can be spanned over many systems.


Edit. was for all the posts I had to quote.... 1 Post ftw.

 

If you bought it after 5 days then i assume you have the premium version which doesnt have any server problems ,and never has.The free version always has.Perhaps version 8 is better than version 7 was ( i assume this is what you have installed on the w2k machine?).If so i might give it a go again for old times sake.
ellsion

 

Correct but I have tried it before.. I know about the slow updates.. my computer is on almost 24/7 I just tell it to update before I go to bed come back in the morning wall-a its done. there is easy ways around the slow updates in the end you cant beat its detection rate you cant find a better PROGRAM for free. this is all offed for free. keep that in mind there dishing out the bucks to run those free servers for you. and the nag screen is one of the easiest things I have ever seen to get around. so in the end who is winning you or them. there dishing out 5000$ + a month out on bandwidth or you paying nothing and getting free updates. just a thought.

 

Many of the complaints in the past about updates were made by those on dialup so i guess their machines wouldn't have been on 24/7.Im on broadband but dont want to leave the machine on when im not using it ,as it seems like a waste of electricity to my old head.I think there are better free all round av programs available ,but the "best" is that which works for you.Call me a conservative but when that umbrella changed from blue to red it just wasnt the same for me
ellison

 

If people are on dial up they should not be goining places that would get them virus's in the first place as it would prob take them a half hour to download it. anyways the comment about the umbrella made me smile!

 

The dial-ups should at least stay away from torrents *shakes fist at current torrent going 20kBs even with good seeds* It makes me want to take their telephone cord and wrap it around their....oh, Avira thread, um, sorry. Lol, in all serious I liked Avira when I had it, at least for the detection. My experience was that cleaning wasn't too hot, in fact I think it's been that way for a long time. I've had it on the system off and on for a couple of years I think.

 

The only thing that prevents me from reccomending it as free antivirus is it's removal rate. Luckily for avira users it seems that Avira is working on this.

 

Its removal rate is fine as demonstrated by all the tests done. Its superior detection rate keeps all the junk at bay so removal is rarely needed.

 

Avira PE Premium is not expensive to buy.
I think the updating (you can set it to any frequency you want) and the extra bells and whistles are worth the price.

 

Indeed, its a bargain for what it offers and you get an excellent anti spyware as well as web shield.

 

do you need the web shield though? when guard will catch things

 

I would rather it catch in in stream than when it enters my system so yes, web shield is a good thing, not quintessential but good if its there.

 

What tests?

 

Been repeated many times, suggest you take a look around and you will find the relevant tests or maybe not

 

well, whatever tests you can dig up,

sorry to say, but avira's real world removal rate is pretty close to zero - nada - nothing - i would say extinct aswell, but i dont believe they have ever worked on creating removal methods.

 

Hello Arup,
its easy to get better detection if you detect anything packed or double packed as malware. a monkey can do that.
to acually have a fantastic detection and removal rate for years takes alot of work. certain companies do this.
as i said above avira cheats by detecting anything packed or double packed as malware.

 

Based on.... , can you show any test to backup that statement.

 

Hate to say it, but he is right, for now. Avira is working at a feverish pace to fix this. I complained over a year ago about worthless AVs that could detect but not clean. It is like a dentist giving you a root canal and not filling the frigging hole. Aviras detection is tops and if they get their cleaning ability to match, they are home free.

 

all the vendors could add signatures like avira do, and create their protection the same way, Avira are not special.

their protection is very misleading, and Stefan knows this but hides from the truth.

he should (but never will) put his cards on the table, and tell some home truths.

if you were to ask companys like Drweb & Kaspersky why they do not emulate this 'method of protection' if it gets such good test results, im very sure.... both vendors will give a very similar reply to you.