Best FREE Antivirus Software???

[mountaintree16]

I'm pretty sure its 100% in the background

[DarkSnakeKobra]

I'm currently running avira so that's good.

[mountaintree16]

I think what people mean is that the realtime protection is a bit different than it is on the paid version but it still protects of course!

[DarkSnakeKobra]

Aah, right you are there. The paid version has much more shields. The real-time protection should be 100% in the background in the free version for what it's limited to. I don't think they would short it less then what it says it does for free users. If so that's very bad marketing.

[mountaintree16]

It's a 100% of what it says it does as far as I know.

I've gotten it on 3 machines so far as I think you may have seen in the forum here, and all three users are happy with it, and like I said, I've personally seen it block stuff in realtime and a Mbam quick scan confirmed a clean machine on the one that had a rogue blocked

[DarkSnakeKobra]

Seems to work well. I haven't got infected or anything yet so it's a little hard to tell right now. But if it proves it's worth it, I may end up going for the paid version in the future.

[SpiderLover]

Avast, Microsoft Security Essentials, and Avira are among my favorites.

I like Avira for its great detection rates, same goes for MSE, and I like Avast for its good detection rates and boot-time scan.

[DarkSnakeKobra]

Same here. Avira has high detection rate. MSE has it's way with low resources. And avast has the wonderful boot scan. Hard to choose from really. I bounce back and forth as I can't make up my mind.

[YoKenny1]

2010 Anti Virus Poll

Which AntiVirus program do you use?

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23831451~viewpoll=1#poll23831451

I'll stay with avast! V5.

[MAM]

Who is the Tread starter ?

Whot is the opinon from that, about the Advices or Hints. ?!

MAM

[YoKenny1]

Who is the Tread starter ?

The thread starter is kim:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r23831451-2010-Anti-Virus-Poll <== you have to be a member to vote

Whot is the opinon from that, about the Advices or Hints. ?!

MAM

What is the opinion?

Currently:

avast! 76 (24.1%)

MSE 75 (23.8%)

AVG 27 (8.5%)

AntiVir/Avira 21 (6.6%)

[MAM]

And why he start, the poll here too ?

MAM

[noknojon]

I think what people mean is that the realtime protection is a bit different than it is on the paid version but it still protects of course!

That is the basic idea I was refering to - MSE acts like your fully paid versions of many A/V programs -

Thanks for putting it a bit better -

EDIT - Sorry YoKenny - even after writing all the passwords down I don't feel like adding more -

[Bluheart]

Now that I posted this to the wrong thread, I'll post it here too!

Great thread! It needs to be stickied for those that come behind!

At this time, I've been using avast! and have been fairly pleased with it. It did let slip past the Antivirus Live fake junk. I used AVG in the past and it let me down. I am now dead set against it, but that's just me.

I love the ease to use NOD32 but it is only a 30 day free trial as is Kaspersky but it's more complex to configure. If you ever find yourself buying and want a really good AV, either of those is the way to go.

[whatmeworry?]

Just thought I'd put in a good word for Microsoft Security Essentials. I never thought I'd want to use a Microsoft product (other than Windows), in spite of a number of very good reviews for MSE. I was happy with Avast Free 4.8, but when I upgraded to Avast 5, I ran into several serious problems, as did many other Avast users, and I finally bailed out and tried MSE. To my surprise, it seems to work well, doesn't slow down my system, and is not a resource hog. I've been intending to return to Avast once Avast 5 is really ready for prime time, but now I'm beginning to think perhaps I'll stay with MSE.

I might add that in addition to the antivirus program, I also use a firewall (Outpost Pro), MBAM Pro, and WinPatrol Plus. They all play nicely together after putting the appropriate MBAM exclusions into MSE.

[YoKenny1]

@ whatmeworry?

I do not see you having problems:

Call to action: problems after upgrading from v4.8 to 5.0?

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=55739.0

Have you updated to avast! V5.0.418?

Change log (incomplete list):

- stability improvements in the Behavior Shield

- improved compatibility with MBAM Pro (Windows XP)

- improvements in the rootkit scanner

- solved a vulnerability in AavmKer4.sys (Windows 2000/XP only) - special thanks to Tobias Klein

- ProAV + IS: solved a problem with Acrobat hanging when opening pdf files directly from IE

- firewall: low-level packet rules are back in the Expert settings

- improvements in the licensing engine

- new languages: Traditional Chinese, Swedish, Korean, Bulgarian, Hungarian. This makes the current number of supported languages 16

All users of the previous v5 builds are recommended to upgrade.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=55484.0

You can use Microsoft Security Essentials with another anti virus application but they will clash if you have its resident protection active at the same time as the anti virus application's resident protection.

[whatmeworry?]

I do not see you having problems:

Call to action: problems after upgrading from v4.8 to 5.0?

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=55739.0

Hi, YoKenny. No, I didn't respond to that thread since I had already completely removed Avast from my computer. Hence, I was unable to send Vlk the setup log he wanted.

For now, I think I'll leave MSE on my computer and give Avast more time to settle down. Version 5.0.418 seems pretty successful, but some people are still reporting problems, and I don't have any pressing need to switch from MSE.

I'm a little puzzled by your suggesting that I could use MSE with another antivirus as long as I don't have them both offering resident protection. Why would I want to do that? I'd want whatever AV I use to have its resident protection on, so I'd want only one AV program on my computer. Either MSE or Avast plus MBAM Pro should provide very good protection, not to mention my router, my software firewall (Outpost Pro), and WinPatrol Plus adding to that protection.

[DarkSnakeKobra]

I also use a firewall (Outpost Pro), MBAM Pro, and WinPatrol Plus. They all play nicely together after putting the appropriate MBAM exclusions into MSE.

Really? I have yet to see outpost work with MSE. That was the first combo I tried when switching from comodo and avast. It seemed to conflict. I use Online Armor now and haven't had a problem with it yet.

PS: When don't I have security conflicts? I have had very bad luck with them lately. I just uninstalled avira due to problems reinstalling MS Expression web 3. I had to force a shutdown and remove it in safe mode,as the scanner crashed. Went back to MSE as it's worked well.

[YoKenny1]

Interesting AV test on Wilders by TheIgster:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=265873

[whatmeworry?]

@Buttons - Well, all I can say is that I haven't had any problem with Outpost Pro conflicting with MSE. I did have a problem with Outpost Pro conflicting with early versions of Avast 5, which was one of the reasons I replaced Avast with MSE. I should add that I'm using these programs on my netbook, which runs Windows 7. (BTW, before I started using Outpost, I tried Online Armor, which I think I got for free on GAOTD or some similar site. I tried it on my WinXP Pro desktop and ran into serious problems--BSODs, system slowdown, etc. These same problems were reported by a number of other people. I bailed out of Online Armor and switched to Outpost and have been pleased. When I bought my netbook, I put Outpost on it as well. I'm not saying this to knock Online Armor, but simply to say that different computers respond differently.)

@YoKenny - I've seen lots of comparative tests and reviews, and the results for all the AVs vary widely from one to another. Thus far, I've been happy with MSE's performance. That doesn't mean I won't go back to Avast eventually, but I'm in no hurry.

[DarkSnakeKobra]

I'm not saying this to knock Online Armor, but simply to say that different computers respond differently.)

@YoKenny - I've seen lots of comparative tests and reviews, and the results for all the AVs vary widely from one to another. Thus far, I've been happy with MSE's performance. That doesn't mean I won't go back to Avast eventually, but I'm in no hurry.

Yeah tell me about it. Some security software works on my desktop, but when I put it on my laptop all chaos breaks loose! I'm also not in a big hurry for avast!. I like avast!, but not at the moment. I'll eventually go back to it, but after some time.