Free anti-virus to replace AVG

For something as important and critical as viruses, I'd never use a free one. The only one I use is Eset's NOD32. I've installed a few free ones on relative's computers and they all end up getting infiltrated anyway.
 
Does the free antivirus software work well? I don't currently have antivirus, although my Trend Micro still does scans and stuff. I'm the one in a million who appreciates Vista, so should I get some.
Macs aren't as indestructable as they are hyped up to be. Two of ours have crashed, had to have the hard drived wiped and the OS reinstalled.
They are also extremely overpriced, and compatability...well...
If you REALLY must have a UNIX based operating system- go with Linux. Ubuntu will send you a free CD.
 
I've been using AVG for 3 years and I have not had a virus on my PC since. I use the free but I may upgrade to the full version.

www.grisoft.com
 
If you have a cable internet connection, your provider may supply virus protection for "free". I just recently discovered my own provider does so. Now that I am free from the RAM consuming shackles of Norton (although the latest edition was better than past ones) I may utilitze the service.
 
with at&t dsl you have norton anti virus and firewall provided in the price for service. I'm not a big fan of norton but it's better than nothing.
 
+1 FireFox NoScripts, it's an awesome addon for the best (imo) webbrowers.

I also use AVG
 
I googled around a little this morning for reviews of AVG 8.0. The first few reviews I found range from mildly annoying features that can't be turned off to avoid at any cost. A few didn't have any objection to it but the consensus seems to be pretty negative. So I guess I'm looking for a free alternative too.... :(
 
FWIW, I've been using AVG version 8 (free) without issues now on my laptop for several weeks. (XP Pro, SP3, all updates)

YMMV and all that.
 
Thanks, Elliot. I know dern well the impression I got from glancing over a few early reviews is skewed to the negative because people who hate it are much more motivated to get a review on the net immediately than people who think it's fine. Has anybody else here upgraded yet?
 
Coug,

The only thing I found was that AVG's anti-spyware setup which is apparently integral to the program, works differently (say) than Spybot, Spyware Blaster etc.

When running the first couple of scans I saw a few hundred "potential" alerts that were essentially the host definitions used by the other spyware programs to defeat these spyware issues.

Anyway, all I had to do was not send them to "quarantine" for later removal. (You can always remove something that has been quarantined and restore it if necessary.)

Other than that everything has been pretty straightforward for the most part.
 
bobofish said:
Antivir is my new toy, and seems to be working nicely. It'll give you a popup everytime it downloads an update, which is annoying, but it's still a good program.
Click to expand...

One thing you'll want to do, whenever it does an update, for the free version it gives a popup with stupid crap.

To disable it go to the program files -> avira -> avnotify.exe

right click it, go to properties then the "security" tab

Deny the file read, and read & execute permissions.

That will stop it from popping up when it updates.
 
jfindon said:
For something as important and critical as viruses, I'd never use a free one.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. I used to use AVG/Ewido, then it just kept getting chunkier and chunkier, slowing down my computer more and more. Then I switched over to Agnitum and NOD32. Agnitum is too good. It notifies you of too much, and it attacked my download of a Windows Service Pack and I had to reformat the whole computer. Now I'm using ZoneAlarm and loving it.

Those who haven't been attacked in years - ignorance is bliss. You'd be surprised how many random port scans hit your computer. The bad thing about free anti-malware programs is that they're usually "on-demand" only, i.e. you have to tell it to initiate its scan. If you pay for it, it's constantly protecting your computer.
 
I've used AVG for a number of years. It started giving me problems with release of 8.0 (I think ) and I stopped using it. I recently when with Avira and have been happy so far. The pop-up is annoying, but not that bad, and is easy to disable as mentioned. I think other parts of the program use the avnotify.exe applet for displaying help and other reports so you may not want to disable it.

For firewall, I use Comodo. Not newbie friendly and it queries you about lots of things but it's good.
 
I have had good results with AVG, but I found their website difficult to navigate and use. When they brought out their identity theft feature they didn't make any mention about the icon that apears at the bottom of the screen in the tool bar. At first I thought the machine was hacked. AVG needs to make their website more clear and easier to use.

Otherwise, I have a paid subscription and it is working quietly in the background and its working.
 
UnknownVT said:
AntiVirus at ConsumerSearch -
AVG was the pick for freeware followed by AntiVir

Pricelessware 2007 -
chose AVG and Avast! (also F-Prot for DOS)
Click to expand...

Update for my computer is BitDefender. Last year I looked on the links provided above and found several reviews. At the time it was in the top three and is still in the top three today. http://www.2009softwarereviews.net/Default.aspx?Refer=GCO19&Keyword=review antivirus

The major reason I chose it over my cable companies free big name antivirus protection package (McAfee I think) is that BitDefender has a cool option to open up all your ports to an online game. (that might only make sense to an online gamer) As long as that feature is on, ports will barely work for email, websites, etc. but the game gets them all. That is important to help maintain a good framerate.
 
I too have been using AVG for years and have no problems. As to whether it's "as good as" some of the commercial items...It used to be the case that it consistently ranked superior to Norton and a couple of others, even the free version.

I haven't seen any head-to-head comparisons lately.

Seems to me that a firewall is far more important for most users than an antivirus program. Depends on how much stuff you download. If you're just surfing, playing games, and reading your e-mail....Most e-mail services have an automatic virus checker anyway.

I download a LOT of stuff. I admit it, I have been known to indulge in piracy...
AVG seems to work great. Scans are very quick; a typical 700mb movie file takes seconds.
 
On this particular computer I'm set up with AVG 8.5.something and Zone Alarm, both free versions. Haven't had a single problem yet.

My primary computer is running older versions of the same programs. Thumbs up from me.
 
I got the same message. It turns out that AVG 8.0 can no longer be updated because they released a new version, 8.5. Go Here and click "download now" on the left.
 
AVG Version 8 works flawlessly for me, just like all the earlier versions did!

The FireFox add-ons are great......... and free!
 
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