i need a free antivirus

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by jmonge, Sep 17, 2008.

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  1. Saraceno

    Saraceno Registered Member

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    Avira or Avast.

    The free edition of Avira is very light-weight, while Avast is still light-weight, but might have the web scanning you're wanting.

    Avira free will alert you when you download a file and try to execute the file.

    Avast will alert you while you're browsing on a web page. Depends which one you prefer, both have the same result of blocking the dangerous file.
     
  2. Halo326

    Halo326 Registered Member

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    Dont forget that Avira free comes with alot of negatives. Slower update servers. Upgrade nag screen. No web shield. For free I always install Avast.
     
  3. doktornotor

    doktornotor Registered Member

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    - You can kill the nag screen in about 5 seconds once and forever via secpol.msc
    - No idea what are people doing with the updates, I simply set the schedule to invisible and when it updates then it updates. If you have no better things to do than to watch updates downloading then yeah, slower update servers must be a horrible negative. :rolleyes:
    - Wrt those webshields, they usually cause more problems than good. I love those arguments about "no need to wait for infected files to download when webshield can block them on the spot". Yeah, apparently those webshields are the first working example of artificial intelligence with paranormal skills, they sniff the bad download miles away without downloading a single byte of data. :p
     
  4. Hiker

    Hiker Registered Member

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    I used elitekiller's suggestion for the nag screen. I got some grief elsewhere, about it being a free program, it's how they make money, etc. but, my feelings were if I couldn't kill it, I would have uninstalled the software. At least now I can use it, and recommend it. it's an excellent program.

    I have six scheduled updates, one every 4 hours. I've had them set to both invisible and minimized.
     
  5. EASTER

    EASTER Registered Member

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    I second AVAST! I used it before and it's reasonably dependable. Avira has a very popular following of it's own but i never bothered to try it because AVAST! is proven itself to me to be very reliable plus stable on a XP Pro 512Mb that i use most. And it's my personal AV of choice when it comes to free. but you'll need to try and determine your own results in order to arrive at your choice of one.

    EASTER
     
  6. Escalader

    Escalader Registered Member

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    Hello:

    http://www.av-comparatives.org/

    Contains current and past reports on AV's some free, some not free.

    On their recent published On Demand Test

    the following AV's are rated as Advanced +,

    AntiVir Premium
    AntiiVirus Kit (AVK)
    Avast Professional
    AVG
    Kaspersky AV
    Norton AV
    TrustPort AV

    Now the thing is these + ones tend to have more false positives (FP) that means it thinks it found a parasite but the AV is WRONG! If the unwitting user deletes the FP bad results MAY occur even BSOD if it is a key part of the OS. It happens daily!

    So what to do? Avoid the high FP products or get one where the FP's are quarentined by default NOT deleted. Or have your OS image handy ready to recover at an instant.

    Best to read / study the comparatives first then select.

    I prefer to select an AV with the best real time filtering performance so I am waiting for the next report on that!
     
  7. sarad

    sarad Registered Member

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    secpol.msc is not in Vista Basic and Home Premium. Any suggestions?
     
  8. doktornotor

    doktornotor Registered Member

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  9. hex_614

    hex_614 Registered Member

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    for a complete free antivirus + antispyware i would recommend three

    avg 8.0 free
    avast 4.8 home edition
    rising antivirus free

    because avira 8.1 free is only antivirus, does not include antispyware.
     
  10. jmonge

    jmonge Registered Member

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    thanks for the advice
    what about SpyWare Terminator beta(hips)plus avira free?
     
  11. Arup

    Arup Guest

    ST works fine alongside Avira free, so does Windows Defender.
     
  12. icr

    icr Registered Member

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    AVG and avast are the two best free AV use one of them with zonealarm firewall free edition.:D :D :D
     
  13. hex_614

    hex_614 Registered Member

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    yes avira + windows defender works great. both are free.
     
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