What's the best free AntiVirus at the moment?

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Threepwood

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Obviously opinion is going to come into this, that's fine, but basically going to have to give up AVG 7.5 at the endo of this month. Apparently that's when free updates for 7.5 end.

So the other options are AVG 8 free, AVAST free, or Antivira free editions.

Don't know of any other free AV other than Comodo, which is in Beta AFAIK, so I don't think I really want to use that.

Has AVG gotten 8 up to scratch yet? I know they have sorted out a lot of kuk with their link scanner "feature", but when I used it I also noticed that it slowed down my PC very badly. Is it any lighter on resources now?

Otherwise it's AVAST, http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html, or Antivira, http://www.free-av.com/

What do you guys use?

If there's another free AV I've not mentioned please say so.
 
You could always install the latest 30day trial of each package,
start with Bitdefender, then Nod, then Kaspersky, then McAfee, then
finish of with NAV, then reformat and reinstall Windows and
begin again. :)
 
AVG 8 = Lots of False Positives, chewed bandwidth (supposedly been fixed)
Avast = Lots of False Positives, requires registration
BitDefender = requires registration, program sometimes fails to load on start-up
ClamWin = Not recognised by Windows Sub-system as a valid anti-virus app, shoddy interface.
Avira = lots of False Positives, Updating system is erratic.

Those are the ones I have tried. I am currently using the free McAfee that M-Web gives out, but I unloaded the firewall portion of it.
 
I've tried Avast and Avira, both are good but you'll need to try them for yourself to see which one will suit you, AVG8 has become bloated nagware IMO.

Another free scanner I'd recommend you try is clamwin.
 
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I'm keen on Avast; it does require free registration, but you can use a single key they send you on however many computers you want. Never had a false positive with it.
 
I have lost faith in AVG, despite using it for ages.

Tried Avira for month or so ... but those alarmist nag screens every day! Many people have said their family thought it meant an infection or hack attempt had already occurred. Sure, they have a right to promote their fee product, but that's just unusable

Currently trialling Avast. Seems good: flexible in configuration. No false positives so far.
 
Very happy with AVG Free 8.0, using it for ages, Had it running with Avast for more than a year together and only twice did Avast miss a threat that avast picked up.

Scan my system regulary with most online scanners and hardly ever find a threat let alone a serious one. Simply works well for a free anti virus.
 
I use Avast at home, have for years. We even started recommending it to business customers about 3 years ago when we decided that Norton wasn't up to standard any more. Never had any issues, nor any false positives. The registration isn't an issue for me and it is light on resources. I would really recommend trying it out for yourself.
 
Avast is great - would highly reccomend it.
 
I use Avast, despite the occasional false-positive. (All AV's have them anyway.)

I like it more than AVG, because you can switch it off. (When you're about to dig in a folder of known false-positives.)
 
Threepwood said:
Obviously opinion is going to come into this, that's fine, but basically going to have to give up AVG 7.5 at the endo of this month. Apparently that's when free updates for 7.5 end.
Click to expand...

Nope,the updates only end at the end of the year - the splash screen is wrong and outdated. Till then I'll stick with AVG 7.5 :D

V8.0 is a bit of a let-down :(
 
Avast has given me endless problems on numerous machines....I have stopped using or recommending it...I am running AVG 8 at the moment and seems fine.
 
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