good antivirus? scanner?

which is a good, free antivirus program recommended by everyone? is avast a good choice? what about scanners?

 

Avast is a very good AV, the best of the free ones IMO.

 

www.sophos.com

Sophos anti-virus

 

Not for home use AFAIK.

 

Yes, you can use it for home use. And there are many people, who use it for home use. It is working very well!

 

Yes it is possible for home use, but it may not be the best choice. (That might be what Madsen meant *while trying to avoid putting words into his mouth* )

Keeping up to date with Sophos' latest virus identity files and version numbers can be a little too much for most home users (unless you happen to also own a license for Sophos' Enterprise Manager as well). Some other things that might deter home users is that it has... No quarantine feature, depends heavily on its signatures (rarely using its heuristics, except for maybe macro virii), and has rather basic unpacking. Price is also very much a factor with Sophos as well.

Excels in many other areas though, but I tend to agree that it is more for business use.

Here is a nice white paper on the Sophos scanning engine http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/whitepapers/savdetection.html .

 

Take a look here for free Antivirus programs;

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/5430/s/antivir.html

EScan also has a free backup AV scanner;

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=12155

When you can save sufficient money try and upgrade to a commercial product which generally offers better protection than the free alternatives.

Try looking here at wilders for recommended AV software;

http://www.wilders.org/anti_viruses.htm

Good luck.

 

Or if you cant make your mind up from the above you could download the free e Trust v7 http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Collateral.asp?CID=41370
There is some readingon v7 http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=9672
Its a very good free anti virus.

 

It was, rerun2
Thanks for speaking more clear,than i did.

 

OK, the best free choice is
http://etrust-heva.www.conxion.com/v7/

It is all free!!!

 

For a FREE AV I highly recommend AntiVir Personal Edition, a download of only 3.7 MB. Download at...
http://www.free-av.com/

AVPE recently hired *new person* & the good changes are starting to show. Updates are now 4 or 5 weekly. The engine is much faster, also. The best is yet to come!

AVPE has a very active & friendly user's group forum, where you can get fast help from people who know what they are doing.
Forum is HERE

The scanner is fast. The GUI is easy to understand. Help Files are very clear & thorough, but seldom needed.

The real-time monitor causes no discernible slowdown on my ancient box [233 Mhz, 159 MB ram, WinME]. AVPE uses just 3% system resources & only 352K ram -- a VERY small footprint.

aloha.......bellgamin

 

bellgamin,
AVPE is well known of it false postives, I have a very bad experience with it
Kindly stay away of it..

 

This was very true in the *old days* but have you tested it lately?

AVPE's heuristic scanner has undergone substantial improvements of late. A high rate of false positives has been a thing of the past for several weeks now.

Also, there are even more & greater improvements to come. They have a heuristic scanner called AVLEXA now in the late beta testing stages. You can read more about it on the forum at...
THIS URL

Products do change -- sometimes for the better.

I do hope that you & others wil give AVPE another trial run -- it's to everyone's benefit if any antivirus program achieves major improvements, whether or not it's one that you yourself prefer to use as your own.

grace & peace to all........bellgamin

 

how AVPE doing in tests ?
Is it better than Avast4 or eTrust 7 promo?

 

It appears to be a product in transition, apparently perhaps due to the addition of a new employee. So it is a product that bears watching.

 

And who can that be lol
No doubt in my mind, that he will improve AVPE.