"The Free Antivirus Thread"

[Xander]

Avast's Boot Scan is, by far, the reason that I'm keeping it as -the- free AV I'm willing to install. I absolutely can't believe more companies don't offer that feature.

 

[gunslinger]

havent noticed anything, its really light, but all i enable is the file, behavior, script and network shield, everything else not installed

The test computer I'm using is very old. I'm talking Dell 2400 Win XP and a gig of RAM old. On a modern machine I'm sure it wouldn't slow it down. Installing it on two of my virtual machines now.

 

[BillMoney]

I'm playing with bitdefender's free av on my bootcamp partition so far so good real quick to install

 

[compnet]

I liked avast.

Then one day I watched a movie and left the computer on. 3 in the morning rolls around and the female resident evil voice comes on at about 90% volume to tell me virus database has been updated. I don't care how good it is, that scared the crap out of me and I won't use it again......

 

[gunslinger]

I liked avast.

Then one day I watched a movie and left the computer on. 3 in the morning rolls around and the female resident evil voice comes on at about 90% volume to tell me virus database has been updated. I don't care how good it is, that scared the crap out of me and I won't use it again......

LMAO! That very same thing happened to my daughter about two days into me testing the AV on her computer. She said she actually fell out of bed.

 

[16k_zx81]

I'm playing with bitdefender's free av on my bootcamp partition so far so good real quick to install

yeah I was using that following a recommendation from YeOldStoneCat in another thread. Seemed to work pretty well on my machine, and comes with a superb pedigree. Would like to see some independent commentary and testing before recommending it to clients machines though. I am still not entirely clear what the situation is with proactive scanning, too. Anyone?

 

[Xander]

I liked avast.

Then one day I watched a movie and left the computer on. 3 in the morning rolls around and the female resident evil voice comes on at about 90% volume to tell me virus database has been updated. I don't care how good it is, that scared the crap out of me and I won't use it again......

That's why I first turn that off (really, it's the first setting I change). However, since they started allowing for exporting/importing of their options (including scheduled scans since there isn't a default one), I keep a saved config on my flash drive.

 

[Mendija's Repair]

You know, as much as AVG gets a bad reputation from a lot of people, I have not run into any problems with it so far. I recommend/install it on my clients computers if they don't want to pay for antivirus. I really think it comes down to how you set up the antivirus (schuduled updates, scans, what to search for, etc). I've personally used it on my own laptop for the past 3 years and have never gotten infected. Of course, a lot of it comes down to what the user does too.

 

[JustInspired]

I routinely remove AVG from customers' PCs. It's like giving the machines a RAM and CPU upgrade. Bear in mind we get a lot of underpowered, budget laptops and older desktops though.

 

[BillMoney]

yeah I was using that following a recommendation from YeOldStoneCat in another thread. Seemed to work pretty well on my machine, and comes with a superb pedigree. Would like to see some independent commentary and testing before recommending it to clients machines though. I am still not entirely clear what the situation is with proactive scanning, too. Anyone?

I'll let you know, planning on imaging the partition and then throwing some stuff at it to see how it handles

 

[TechLady]

That's why I first turn that off (really, it's the first setting I change). However, since they started allowing for exporting/importing of their options (including scheduled scans since there isn't a default one), I keep a saved config on my flash drive.

Yup, same here, literally first thing I remedy.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Bumping the thread, added 360Safe, Baidu, and CYSEC.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

As it stands now, since my prior free AV product, MSE has become rather weak in detection as Microsoft appears to be slowing down its support, Panda Cloud and BitDefenders free versions have become my two preferred ones.

 

[AndyM]

Great list

Andy

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Bump...added a couple more to the list.

 

[PCS]

I'm loving comodo av. You can run it in idiot mode and dose its thing simply or turn up the power and have it ask you what to do with every detection. Really like the sandbox for suspicious files

 

[gunslinger]

These days if a person is a real repeat offender I recommend a Mac or Linux. I have never seen either of these infected in over 12 years of working on computers. If they must run Windows I'm doing a combo of Avast/SpywareBlaster/AdBlock Plus. With these installed and regular updates to Windows, Flash, Java etc you actually have to try very hard to infect a Windows box. You have to go out of your way.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Spywareblaster? That still exists?

 

[gunslinger]

http://www.brightfort.com/sbdownload_setup.html


As of right now it protects against about 15,000 known bad items, it uses zero system resources and its free so why not?

 

[cypress]

I haven't tried that one out yet. Thanks