Best Freeware Anti Virus

After stonecats post on 360 a while back, I ran it for a while. But, I ditched it as I noticed the same drag on performance he is talking about. I don't do much free anymore (how tough is it to scrape up $20/year?) but we've all got the customer who knows free av is out there and don't want to pay. For them I go with avast.
 
I been using 360 Internet Security for my friends and family and they haven't had any issues. Mostly desktop computers as well. It gets the job done but when it comes to client I recommend a paid version usually ESET or Kapersky.
 
MobileTechie said:
Now Avira has got rid of those annoying splash screens pushing the paid version at you it's an attractive option. Seems to do well in tests, pretty quiet and not a resource hog.
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i have put 1000s of avira on client pcs over the last 3 years. Few come back with reinfect and those are for the most part user error. they go to a torrent or some other shady site.
 
noone said it so far but i gotta say i think comodo internet security premium is the best free anti virus. has a ton a features that are nice for techs. the only downside to it is if you enable all the features it might confuse a novice user. but it is very customize-able so that the customer doesnt feel confused about the program.
 
I gave that one a couple of tries two years ago. I found their update servers for the free ones were painfully slow.....it's like, the free versions for the whole world had to share an old update server that was hosted on dial up!

And then AV-Comparatives included their product in an antivirus comparison..and the results weren't so good. That itself wasn't bad, but the president of Comodo pulled some amazingly childish attacks against AV-Comparatives and the publish results. He even tried legally preventing the results from being published.

I was shocked...back years ago I actually liked their software firewall.
 
I'm kind of surprised by all the love for free avast. I've had it wreck clients machines before. BSOD, Black screen of death as well. Not to mention all the popups that can't be completely disabled. Oh and in the last year or so many people were unable to "renew" their free protection without jumping through hoops.

I'm going to give avira free a try on a win 7 virtual machine. I have a new client that I will be putting Bitdefender total security on their 3 main systems and something free on one "extra" machine. My licenses are for 3 pcs for 2 years so they don't want to spend the extra money for just one machine that is hardly used.
 
Think bitdefender has a free option also. I will say I see what you mean on avast about them trying to push you to a paid one after the first year. Doesn't AVG do this also? As far as avast though, usually turning on silent/gaming mode turns off a lot of notifications I think. For what it is, the protection of Avast free seems pretty decent. I run that plus mbam pro on my gaming box at home, they seem to do the job ok.
 
cole31 said:
noone said it so far but i gotta say i think comodo internet security premium is the best free anti virus. has a ton a features that are nice for techs. the only downside to it is if you enable all the features it might confuse a novice user. but it is very customize-able so that the customer doesnt feel confused about the program.
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I'm with you there. I run CIS Premium + MBAM Pro on my personal boxes. BUT it's too much for most of my clients. I install CIS only for the somewhat tech savvy clients who insist on free AV. Downside is the crap they try to let you install with it. A couple of uncheckies prevents that of course. The others get Avira. Been meaning to look into Bitdefender free. Will do soon!

Top of the list are Kaspersky + MBAM Pro. Rock solid and worth it.
 
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So I wanted to take a look at Bitdefender Free but the official link redirects to their landing page. I was able to reach the link through Google cache though. Liked it, not blown away by it. Avira it is.

Are they discontinuing Bitdefender free or...? I also tried a third party download but got a 30 day trial of a paid version. Didn't take more time to 'investigate' though. Anyone else having trouble to reach the official Bitdefender free URL?
 
No problems with the free Avast in 11 years of putting it on customer machines. Not so impressed with the paid version though, occasionally kills the network, so I steer people away from it.
 
I have finally settled on Avast Free after trying just about everything else. Either the others were too resource heavy or didn't have enough configurability.

What I did notice is you have to turn off a lot of stuff in Avast to make it less annoying to the customer (sounds, grimefighter, remote support, participation options, offers, even turned off the animated icon so the customer doesn't freak out when they see it moving.)
 
NYJimbo said:
What I did notice is you have to turn off a lot of stuff in Avast to make it less annoying to the customer (sounds, grimefighter, remote support, participation options, offers, even turned off the animated icon so the customer doesn't freak out when they see it moving.)
Click to expand...

This is the big reason why I don't use Avast. It is effective, but obnoxious. Who thought it was a good idea to have antivirus software speak by default every time it updates the database?
 
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