Antivirus for free?

[fin23]

Now that AVG appear to pulling the free support for AVG free, has anybody got any recommendations for free virus protection?


For home users?

cheers all

[tombott]

Avira

Avast

ClamAV

I've used all of these in the past, have no need now as I use Linux.
But I still use Avira on clients PC's.

[marcode]

you sure they are pulling the free version?

dont know how many times ive heard people say that cos they havent properly read the download screens.

[tombott]

you sure they are pulling the free version?

dont know how many times ive heard people say that cos they havent properly read the download screens.

Yeah I wondered the same Code, I have to say though Avira is much better than AVG anyway.

[Ashy]

http://free.avg.com/download-avg-ant...s-free-edition
Looks likes its still free to me

[Nikki]

i aint heard this. altho most recommend nod32

[tombott]

i aint heard this. altho most recommend nod32

Yes, but the last I heard its not 'legally' free either.

http://www.eset.com/

[Raptor]

where the fuck does he mention legal ?

get eset smart security and use nodlogin

job done

[tombott]

where the fuck does he mention legal ?

get eset smart security and use nodlogin

job done

Nowhere, but then again fin32 doesn't say that he /she wants pirated or cracked software either.

I presumed as fin23 was currently using AVG that legal free was the route they wanted to take.

[fin23]

thanks guys, It is for clients machines who dont know better tbh - It seems AVg are notifying users who have AVG 7.5 installed that its no longer supported and will no longer receive free updates, promptig users to 'buy' avg.

As ashey said, upgrading to the new AVG free cures the problem it seems.

Thanks for the links, i'll grab em all

Cheers all

[Over Carl]

I honestly would rather have no av at all rather than install avg.

[The Prodigy]

Free AV's are shit and considering AV is the most important piece of software on your computer it's paramount you use the best imho.
Just get a cracked version of NOD32 or use Symantec AntiVirus Corporate.v9.0.2.1000 Final.
Been using Nortons Corp. for over 5 years now and never had a single virus yet it has detected and deleted hundreds due to the dodgy sites and things I do on my rigs! lol

alx

[marcode]

AV is the most important piece of software on your computer

bull. shit. common sense trumps any POS av.

Been using Nortons Corp. for over 5 years now and never had a single virus

that's pretty specious reasoning considering i havent had AV for fucking years and never had any virii or trojans.

[tombott]

Free AV's are shit and considering AV is the most important piece of software on your computer it's paramount you use the best imho.
Just get a cracked version of NOD32 or use Symantec AntiVirus Corporate.v9.0.2.1000 Final.
Been using Nortons Corp. for over 5 years now and never had a single virus yet it has detected and deleted hundreds due to the dodgy sites and things I do on my rigs! lol

alx

What a load of crap.
I've not had a virus (virus no, spyware yes) in years, and use no AV on my Windows builds at home (running under virtuals).
Stupid people get viruses, simple as.

[ant3b]

I dont use AV im fine as marcode says .. but i do think anti-virus companies make the viruses'

[Mr.James]

avast! FTW!

I don't class avira as free... I class it as nag-ware because of it's annoying pop-up. If you're fine with that then go with avira... I did for a month before converting to avast.

detection rates as of feb 09 according to av-comparatives.org

1. G Data 99.8%
2. Avira 99.7%
3. McAfee2 99.1
4. Symantec 98.7%
5. Avast 98.2%
6. Bitdefender, eScan 98.0%
7. ESET Nod32 97.6%
8. Kaspersky, TrustPort 97.1%
9. F-Secure 93.4%
10. AVG 93&
11. Sophos 89.6%
12. Command 88.9%
13. Norman 87.8%
14. Microsoft 87.1%
15. Kingsoft 84.9%

I loathe installing antivirus programs but since I signed up to newsgroups it's a must because it's riddled with them.

The good bit about avast is that it's modular... don't bother with the module that scans every file when you read/write to it... just install the p2p/im/web scanners... that way your system doesn't slow down to a fuckin crawl.

and remember symantec is latin for 'system killer'

[Over Carl]

how does anyone know they have, really? considering the number of false positives/negatives and crap definitions.

but i do know ive never had any machine completely fucked (slowing, un-intended traffic/malicious activity) due to malware of any kind.

and its no thanks to av. on the other hand, i know plenty who are antivirused up the ying yang and still manage to fill their pc with total shite. so its human intuition and common sense that prevail in my experience.

Whilst I can see where both of you are coming from and agree to some extent, I thought I would jump in. I also had no av on a pc at home for many years (probably around 4 years without wiping windows). Pc was fine, just got really slow gradually in the way windows does over time. Wiped it, put avg on it, and within a week the pc was absolutelu useless due to popups.

Before I wiped it I took all of my hdd's into work from all the home pcs and slowly scanned them all. The drives from that pc did have two trojans, but those were both stored amongst thousands of other files backed up from older pcs that haven't been used for many years. I could be totally wrong, but the fact that I managed to avoid infection for years, then got infected as soon as I protected my pc makes me suspect something underhand.