Best Free Antivirus?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bob Newman
  • Start date Start date
B

Bob Newman

Can anyone recommend a free antivirus checker? My Norton does not want to
start and I'm trying to play it safe.
 
Bob said:
Can anyone recommend a free antivirus checker? My Norton does not want to
start and I'm trying to play it safe.
Click to expand...


avast! 4 Home Edition


Overview :

avast! 4 Home Edition is a full-featured antivirus package designed
exclusively for home users. Features: ANTIVIRUS KERNEL: Almost 100%
detection - Outstanding performance - Reasonable memory requirements -
ICSA certified. USER INTERFACE: Memory test during the program startup
- Very intuitive Simple User Interface - Testing whole disks or
selected folders - Working with the scan results - actions with
infected files - Virus encyclopedia - Log Viewer - Various appearances
- skin support - Running from Explorer context menu - Antivirus
screen-saver. UPDATES: The system of incremental updates guarantees low
traffic - The updates can be completely automatic. RESIDENT PROTECTION:
Standard Shield protects the file system - Generic SMTP/POP3/IMAP4
scanner - Specific MS Outlook plugin - Heuristic analysis in e-mail
modules. REPAIRING: Limited capability of direct repair (especially
macroviruses) - Repairing files using automatically generated Virus
Recovery Database (VRDB).

Homepage: http://www.avast.com/

For related software, check out:
http://www.arjan.org/index.php?Security:Security


Kind regards,

_____
Arjan

E-mail: (e-mail address removed) (remove NOSPAM)
Homepage: Arjan.org's Absolute Freeware Links (http://www.arjan.org)
 
Bob said:
Thanks everyone. I've tried AVG, it looks like a keeper.
Click to expand...

yeah AVG is nice. it can even scan from MSDOS. there's also a free
trojan detector called a-squared (emisoft?).

i don't feel any of these are on-par with paid Kaspersky or NOD32, but
they are free. i personally am using AVG, Kaspersky trial, and F-prot
for DOS.

michael
 
did said:
Quoting Bob Newman [[email protected]], that posted to alt.comp.freeware on
Thu said:
Can anyone recommend a free antivirus checker? My Norton does not want to
start and I'm trying to play it safe.
Click to expand...

I like AntiVir.

[]s
Click to expand...

Me 2. Most configurable, least intrusive (doesn't require any background
processes to run at startup), smallest memory and resource use, updates
almost daily, etc, etc.
 
yeah AVG is nice. it can even scan from MSDOS. there's also a
free trojan detector called a-squared (emisoft?).
Click to expand...

Speaking personally, I am getting less and less comfortable with AVG
and I have used it for several years.

It failed to find potential viruses on several occassions recently
and I located them by simple Win Explorer searches.
 
Can anyone recommend a free antivirus checker? My Norton does not
want to start and I'm trying to play it safe.
Click to expand...

Ah, the can of worms opens...expect a lot of responses for the most
popular ones:

AVG
Avast!
Anti-Vir
F-Prot

All have pro's and con's. You will need to try them (one at time) and
see what you like. I have Anti-vir installed on my hard disk and F-Prot
on my Keychain USB drive. Nice combo.

--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
El Gee

Did you hear the one about the dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac?
He would stay up late every night and wonder if there was a dog.
Remove yourhat to reply ... but it
may take a while. Best to go to www (dot) mistergeek (dot) com and
reply from there.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
El said:
Ah, the can of worms opens...expect a lot of responses for the most
popular ones:

AVG
Avast!
Anti-Vir
F-Prot

All have pro's and con's. You will need to try them (one at time) and
see what you like. I have Anti-vir installed on my hard disk and F-Prot
on my Keychain USB drive. Nice combo.
Click to expand...

and i believe BitDefender has a free version for some OS. i personally
used the paid version trial and liked it. it still allows scanning past
the trial date, but the updates or auto-updates are off. there are also
some free scanners out there that don't do cleaning, but you can do that
manually.

AVG and NAV (free and paid respectively) couldn't detect Optix Pro and
Beast trojans when i tested them in 2003. i was a bit disappointed
since I used no cloaking of file and registry entry.

F-prot also looks like a good deal for PC techs. you could buy a 50
seat commercial license. often the free versions are only licensed for
non-commercial purposes (bartering tech services is a grey area).

i am skeptical of anti-vir since it's rarely mentioned on the antivirus
and virus groups. once i get my virus test box set up, i will post some
reviews.

michael
 
it boils down to how much file trading you do. if you do P2P a lot, you
should get Kaspersky or NOD32 or something. if you just surf the web
and have IE locked down well, then AVG or other freeware should suffice.
AVG of course is just a loss leader to advertise via signatures and to
encourage use of the Paid version.

i realize this a freeware group, but there are some things you can't
scrimp on.

michael
 
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