Good free anti virus
- Thread starter lRookiel
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I've been using Avast! for several years now and I'm pretty happy with it. My sister was using Avast! and she said she got infected once but I haven't had any problems for about 7 years now. There's a great option to have Avast! scanning while the screensaver is on as well.lRookiel said:
It's been a great program from XP to Windows 7. Just a word of warning. I suspect it's not the most efficient of programs, although it's the only anti-virus I've used other than Stinger, when was still a thing.lRookiel said:7 years huh? I think we have a winner already
Thanks :3
Before you get too heavily invested in it I have to tell you that it updates on its own and when it does, the app speaks to you and a pop-up window scrolls up from the bottom right*. It can be pretty jarring in the middle of the night if you're watching a movie or if you leave your speakers on while sleeping : /
*Yeah, I never turn on silent/gaming mode. It's a hassle to always have to remember every night.
I've seen Avast! on some older computers and it can slow them to a crawl so yeah I can attest to it being a resource hog (and certainly not immune to infection). Personally I've been a fan of Zonealarm for a long time...something got past it once years ago but I let it slide since it was only the one time and it wasn't a big issue. However more recently I've moved towards MSE since it's a bit faster and has less issues on Windows 8 (at least compared to the early Zonealarm beta for Windows 8 which was buggy enough to make me switch over). So far nothing has gotten past my MSE and I haven?t seen an infection on any computer running it (or Zonealarm for that matter) as of yet - and I work with computers so I've seen more than a few infections. Personally I'd go with one of those two and I certainly wouldn't pay for an alternative - I cringe when I see people running Norton...and I mostly see it when it's either missed an infection or has somehow buggered itself. Fucking Norton.
I have been using AVG for many years. It's gotten a little "heavier" over the years but I like its non intrusive manners (no sounds, no pop ups) and I think it's quite decent on its actual job, considering it's free of course. I also use ZoneAlarm firewall because I'm a bit paranoid and I do various scans with Ad-Aware without having it running in the background.
Personally I really like iObit Advance Systemcare is a pretty solid product. Both that and their anti-malware are free, but more advance and thorough settings needs you to upgrade the software. Its not that expensive if you decide to do that (I have upgraded to Advance Systemcare 6).
I use Avast, too. I like it so much I put it on my phone and got a corporate license for work. I recommend it to anyone that asks. AVG is good but it's been a while since I've looked at it. Last time I used it I couldn't stand the interface. This was many, many years ago though.
If you're using a Windows PC, I'd suggest just using Windows' default Microsoft Security Essentials. Since Win 7 it's actually been pretty good, and it scans much more efficiently than most AV programs.
While MSE was good for a long time, over the past few months it's been scoring really badly in tests. For that reason I recently moved over to AVG. Seems alright as far as I can tell, but I'm running a fairly powerful machine so couldn't comment for lower power rigs.Spud of Doom said:
I'd be interested in seeing these results, if you could send them in a PM perhaps. It there some site out there that tests AV programs repeatedly like that?number2301 said:
I was actually tipped off by lifehacker.com, but here's the direct link to the tests (Posted here cause I think it's probably of interest to people in general) - http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-7/novdec-2012/Spud of Doom said:
Had a quick look at those results myself and at least in that summarised form they are fairly skewed. Not in a biased way attempting to make particular ones look good, but in that the graph is far from a linear scale, and it seems to focus unrealistically so on zero-day threats which, while obviously an issue, aren't the most common things you're going to run into on the internet since by the time they're widespread their signatures are accounted for. It's not exactly the best detector out there but for me MSE more than makes up for it by being free, lightweight, low-nag and fairly capable for the most part. If all it means is I'm unprotected from a small fraction of a percent of signatures and an even smaller fraction of a percent of actual infections I'm gonna risk it rather than pay for some slow, invasive crap like Norton or Trend. I never really cared for AVG either...it's failed me too many times for me to go back, even if it's better now. I might go back to ZoneAlarm once I'm confident it's had enough time to work out the Windows 8 kinks.number2301 said:
