What's the best free AV?

avast! Home Edition all the way in the field of free AVs. I found AntiVir to be pretty good too,but it lacks mail scanner,so its useless compared to full featured avast! HE. AVG6 is so old now it doesn't deserve to be mentioned anymore. AVG7 is a total different story,but its not free

 

I agree with Firefighter about E-scan. Its ability to find hidden malware, is amazing. Recently it found a toolbar, deep, deep down in Firefox . Yes, Firefox. I thougt it was a false positive, but no, it was there . A toolbar from a screensaver i didn´t install, because it was bundled with Newnet. This must have sneeked out before installation, i suspect. E-scan is my first choice for a second opinion .

 

e scan catches spyware? Wow that's news to me. Didn't you scan with SpybotS&D or Adaware? ZEven Bazooka would scan for some that the other 2 wouldn't find.

 

Spysweeper and Adaware didn´t detect it. E-scan detected it as "Adv Ware Toolbar", but didn´t delete it. E-scan use the extended KAV signatures, i guess it includes some spyware . It also detects a lot of useless tools .

 

Cool Maybe I'll check it out.

 

A file, 2,300 kb. found somewere in Firefox´s profiles folder, carried the name of the screensaver. It didn´t do anything. I think it needed some other files to work. I deleted it whith supershredder. Why are you so interested in this, if i may ask ?

 

It was not over. My new F-Secure AV found this, in the same directory
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\default.uvi\Cache\3B3A07EBd01 Inficering: Exploit.HTML.Mht

 

That's the FF's cache folder. You must have picked up something while surfing.

F.

 

Yes, you are right. I didn´t notice, i am sleepy . This thing is designed to use a hole in explorer, to download malware. It didn´t work in Firefox, i guess.

 

For a free AV i would recommend avast antivirus home edition.

 

I wonder how the average home user is able to judge which is the best free AV? I mean apart from what is written in the magazines and tests, otherwise this topic is overdone.
I am sure my AV is the worst around because it didn't catch a whole lot of crap. But I am happy because there isn't any virus on my pc.
Ofcourse I checked that,
A more to the point question would be: How to setup your AV ('s) to keep your machine free from nasties?

 

Because of your claim that you found a toolbar deep deep down in Firefox.
It implied to me that the toolbar malware was somehow installed and running in Firefox.

AFAIK that isn't very likely, unless you found something new.

There are XPI installs that bundle IE hijackers, and host file redirects but what you wrote seem to imply something more than that.

But anyhow if it's in the cache that's nothing special. I found lots of JS.Scob.Trojan early this month too when Etrust was scanning.

Totally harmless to Firefox.

 

I wonder how the average Wilders member is able to judge which is the best free AV? I mean apart from what is written in these forums and on test sites, otherwise this topic is overdone.

 

Well the replies that I post about av programs here at wilders are backed by the experience of having used almost any antivirus program you can name. And there are a lot of members that inter change information on av programs that they have used with the other members. And with that knowledge and the info that they pick up in there own testing of these programs the members pick up a pretty good knowledge of the programs they use and have trialed and they don't hesitate to share that knowledge to anyone that is willing to listen and learn. The members at wilders are a collective of knowledge that is here to be shared with all people.

cheers bigc

 

So could the collective knowledge of Wilders tell me what's best?
Once informed, I can go tell all the magazines and reviews of the true ,correct answer and nobody need to waste time on debating this issue again.

 

Super AV Plus ... by Netsky Labs ... LOL Hands Down

Sorry ... couldn't resist

 

Well that is where the catch is, there is no one best antivirus. What there is are a collection of av programs that all work differently on every computer. That makes it impossible to pin it down to one single product. What is recomended is that you trial several antivirus programs to find the one that works best on your machine. There are enough av's out there so you should be able to find one that works fast smooth and virtually trouble free with minimum maintainace. And if you want to contact the magazines and reviewers and inform them of my answer to your question please knock yourself out. But they will still write there reviews and sell there magazines with out any regard to my opinions. Which doesn't bother me in the slightest.

regards
bigc

 

LOL ... Badguy.com

 

Oppps ... before I'm sued

My reference to badguy.com was not in reference to the actual site badguy.com (who knew it actual existed ... and a health site at that) ... it was only used in reference to the coined term; a reference malware sites. No offense intended to the owners of the said site.

~dog running from laywers~ LOL ~hiding out~

 

Exactly.

Again agreed. But if this is the recommended method (ie trying it yourself), what use is reading reviews, posts on forums such as this? EgEveryone can tell me that NOD is resource light, but if it brings my machine to a crawl, what use is it?

Unfortunately if I was running one of those reviews, I wouldn't print your answer either, since it's pretty much common sense.

People can give you advise for all they are worth but there is no substitute for trying them out yourself.

But then we come back to a full circle, since we then have to decide based on how own testing what is best. And this is the same problem faced by anyone Wilders member or mere mortals.

 

We are mortals, all we can do is offer our experience to possibly shorten the list of av's to try due to a wide knowledge base of av's that seem to work better that the average. In that way we might be of assistance in helping to point you in a direction where there are possibly the better choices in the av sector. But again the final choice is up to the user to choose one that works best for them. We are not miracle workers but we are able to give assistance through knowledge and experience. And in most instances that is suffeciant to solve most problems that arise.


bigc