Best Free Anti-Virus Program?

[aniowachick]

Computer nerd here and only use avast

 

[YouDominateMe]

This is more than half the battle in my eyes. People with a bit of computer savvy have a pretty good idea of what is not a good idea to click. If you can avoid that type of thing and make sure to scan before opening something you downloaded, you'll knock most threats out of the park. I balance this savvy against someone like... my dad, or people at work who just click on eevvverything. Twice. And I want to cry.

You get what you pay for usually, but even with the most awesome protection money could pay for something could slip by. I'm confident enough in my own net habits not to need something more than AVG. But I'm a geek.


RuneBlade, I am one of those clickers and I have messed up so many computers with my bad web browsing habits… my whole family jokes about it..
So I have decided to only look at this site; it seems to be the only safe one for me.

 

[Biker_Type]

Computer nerd here and only use avast

+1, i'm not a computer nerd ; but several i know say avast is good & safe

 

[Mz_Cunningham]

Like a few others here, I use Avast! it's free and it works and doesn't mess up the rest of my computer

 

[Evan7403]

Free condoms from Planned Parenthood.

 

[SweetErika]

Have any of you current Avast users used a recent version of AVG Free?

And/Or why did you choose Avast over a recent/current version of AVG?

I'm just wondering if I should switch to Avast if people feel Avast is better than AVG.

 

[aniowachick]

Have any of you current Avast users used a recent version of AVG Free?

And/Or why did you choose Avast over a recent/current version of AVG?

I'm just wondering if I should switch to Avast if people feel Avast is better than AVG.

One of the people I worked with went to school extensivly for computers. He is the one who recommended Avast to me. I went directly from Pcillian to Avast. Before I used to have Norton. I had several viruses on Norton.


I have been using firefox and Avast for a few years now and have yet to get a virus

 

[airman2]

I've used most of the above (aside from the MS software).

I currently use AVG with no major concerns with it. I don't like the lack of ability of manually close it without forcing it .. sometimes I don't want to run a virus scanner. I actually do hate the GUI as well but thankfully I don't use that often.

I too like to use linux and it has gotten me out of a few pot holes in the past (failing devices, memory died, etc) but since I have it dual on my desktop it has really helped. I could see how many typical users wouldn't like the linux set up and being able to use cmd really helps.

On my netbook I'm using AVG as well. I don't really notice a performance drop in general on my netbook (decent model though) unless I'm running my simulation work (I normally use netbook for light applications but was in a bind once). I don't care enough to switch to AVG although I had no issues with it either. I was using NOD32 for a light weight unit but I don't think it has a free version. I don't think I have the MS firewall on and all of the MS warnings just irritate me so I got rid of them.

 

[warrior queen]

I moved away from AVG to Comodo.
Best thing I ever did.
Not one thing gets past this.
It does virus, malaware, spyware, everything. Is not a heavy user and is programmable for scans.
Hell, a box pops up to ask me about every new site, and I can view things in a 'sandbox' so if there's anything suspect on the site, Comodo can deal with it in a heartbeat, before it gets to my computer.

 

[Sir Victor]

I mostly use MSE since it is a decent MS product that is not a resource hog and it works well:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-anti-virus-software.htm

Another opinion:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/collection/5928/2011_free_av.html

Also, you can be sure that there will be no overlap with other MS built in antimalware features. Malware has gotten very complex. Read about root
kits, heuristics, etc:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antivirus_software#Heuristics

 

[silverwhisper]

erika, flasubm mentioned malwarebytes antimalware. the 2 network admins i know who run windows boxes use that along with avast for their own personal machines.

FYI: if you want to run malwarebytes in conjunction with AVG, you'll need to make registry edits, or at least you did when i first installed malwarebytes 1-2 years ago. i don't recall where to find the specific edits needed and don't know if it even is true for win7.

ed

 

[_Smilely_Guy_]

I run a duel boot with Linux as the main OS and Windows as the "Dammit I actually need Windows to complete this task" OS. I run MS Security Essentials on the Windows side. I like it better than avast, which is what I was running before.

But when at all possible I avoid the Windors side of my computer like it's a dirty whore.

 

[BiTodd]

check out panda

 

[JustaSCOUNDREL]

I like and use Super Anti Spyware for finding and deleting tracking cookies. It finds lots of things AVG doesn't.

Gibson Research has a free test of your firewall plus several other free things you can run from his site.

Mike

 

[dashd]

I've been running Linux for several years, so I haven't had to think about A-V protection. However, I recently started using my newer laptop a lot more, I'm not sure if I want to put Linux on it yet, and Windows 7 is telling me I need to install an A-V program (for some reason I thought protection was included in the Defender utility, but it looks like that's not the case).

Back in the day, I used to use AVG Free, but I see Microsoft Security Essentials is free, and there are probably some other free programs out there that I'm unaware of. I liked AVG well enough, except I can forget to run scans on a regular basis and I do download some things, so maybe I'd be better off with a program that's more automatic? I see Security Essentials runs in the background, yet I'm not sure how much of a resource hog it is, how hard it is to remove if I don't care for it, whether or not it'll bug me with pop-ups all the time, how much security it truly provides, etc.

So, I'd like to hear reviews from people who have used Security Essentials (especially on laptops/less powerful systems), especially regarding the above issues/concerns, and/or recommendations on which free A-V program will provide good protection without causing problems (e.g. we've NEVER had good luck with resource hogs like Norton and McAfee, so I definitely don't want a similar program).

Thanks in advance!

I'm a Linux user my self... running Linux Mint but also spend a lot a time repairing computers.

Choosing an anti-virus program is a lot like playing Russian Roulette. Which company is the one company that will find the new virus first which just happens to attack your pc... somtemes Norton, Sometimes Macafee sometimes AVG or Avast. On my office computer that happens to run WIndows I use AVG. My employer opened his e-mail and wham the virus got in. My son bought a new computer with Norton and loaned it out to a fellow marine... you guessed it got hit. I used run macafee when I used windows and viruses still got through. A lot of my tech friends swear by Kasperskey, but machines with kaspersky also hit. ESET the same.

With all that said i guess it depends on whether you want to pay for a program that will eventually fail you or go with a freebie that will eventually fail you. Paid programs offer more bells and whistles but at a higher cost financially, memory usage and speed. So first decide what protection you need. If you need the bells and whistles identity protection and other features, find the lowest priced paid program that has those features and buy it. If you just need basic protection go with a freebie and either AVG or Avast are probably equal.

For spyware, use Malwarebytes (http://www.malwarebytes.org) and Spy-bot search and destroy with its memory resident program tea timer. Ad-aware by LAva Soft also has a memory resident module and I find that generally you need to use any two of these to get truly satisfactory results.

 

[Paul_Chance]

Thumbs Up for MSE

On my PC's I use MSE exclusively. A couple of things I find raise it above the level of the various other programs out there:

-It is fully integrated with Windows.
-It is has a low resource cost.
-I've never had a security breach with it.
-It has never generated any false positives.

Good luck with your choice.

(I've got fifteen years experience in defending against hard-core computer intrustions in a corporate environment, where we use McAfee, and I still prefer MSE personally.)