Free anti-virus programs: are they worth it?

Are you using a free anti-virus program?

  • Yes

    Votes: 164 79.6%

  • No

    Votes: 42 20.4%
  • Total voters
    206
Out of the free options avast is awesome.

As for paid for Nod32 is king.
 
Mallon’s comments regarding the tests was that they “do not take into account any of the new protection capabilities provided by technology delivered from the cloud – in fact the tests specifically disconnect all products from the cloud.”
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When did the Internet suddenly turn into "the cloud", I see someone let sales and marketing out of their cage again :) They use it, with little or no understanding of the difference.

I use Microsoft Security essentials, Clamwin and a very healthy dosage of common sense.
 
I use Norton Internet Security 2010. It is fast and has detected a couple of threats using its "cloud" based detection. I like it.

That said I have installed MSE and Threatfire on some machines recently. They seem to play well together. MSE provides strong signature based protection while Threatfire backs that up with some behavioural monitoring. Include something like the free version of Mcafee Siteadvisor and you are set ;)

It hacks me off when Symantec come out with their rubbish. Free anti virus software is fine.
 
i love Norton IS 2010. much better than the previous versions.. only bad thing its vrek expensive.
 
Norton's reputation has long gone down the drain, can't care if they're trying to fix its issues... Quite happy with NOD32 64bit!
 
And the reason why we will not extend Symantec's contract... because they don't care about the old pattern files to make Symantec look like a speed gain. Guess what, we are infected with the old viruses.
 
I dont have a problem with free AV, I have a problem with paid for AV that doesn't detect virii despite your repeated submission to them. It's happened to me more than once.
 
The graph on this page SAYS IT ALL:
http://www.virustotal.com/estadisticas.html

Red: Infected files which one or more antivirus engines failed to detect as a threat.
Blue: Infected files detected by all antivirus engines.

Red=41211
Blue=793

And most of the programs in the red category are pay for av engines.
 
WiT8litZ said:
Nod32 ftw
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Not free, but absolute best of paid AVs :cool:

Qwikslver said:
Out of the free options avast is awesome.

As for paid for Nod32 is king.
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+1

Free AVs do the trick.
Paid AV vendors are the creators of major infections, else how are they able to survive by selling their bloated, resource hungry packages? :eek:
 
I work with viruses on almost a daily basis. I use MSE on Win 7. Pc Cillin on 3 other PC's and Avast free version on another.

I had a pc with Avast on that was brought in today.

Avast detected some viruses but could not clean fake AV 09 and some other. The pc was so bogged down that I could hardly work with it. The customer ignorance regarding removing viruses definitely played a roll. I removed the hard drive and scanned it with MSE. Several baddies were found and cleaned.

I then scanned the same drive with paid for PC Cillin Internet security version.
2 instances of Autorun.ini were found and deleted.

Several issues still had to be sorted: blank device manager page, blank networking page, network adapter not being detected, unable to change option to show hidden files or folders, registry can't be accessed, error messages pop up, can't access msconfig, services.msc services disabled, etc

Ran Avast again on the pc and no further threats were detected.

The point is that just one AV scanner is not enough to detect all threats, free or paid for, not for a casual or reckless users anyhow.:erm:
 
RoMark said:
I work with viruses on almost a daily basis. I use MSE on Win 7. Pc Cillin on 3 other PC's and Avast free version on another.

I had a pc with Avast on that was brought in today.

Avast detected some viruses but could not clean fake AV 09 and some other. The pc was so bogged down that I could hardly work with it. The customer ignorance regarding removing viruses definitely played a roll. I removed the hard drive and scanned it with MSE. Several baddies were found and cleaned.

I then scanned the same drive with paid for PC Cillin Internet security version.
2 instances of Autorun.ini were found and deleted.

Several issues still had to be sorted: blank device manager page, blank networking page, network adapter not being detected, unable to change option to show hidden files or folders, registry can't be accessed, error messages pop up, can't access msconfig, services.msc services disabled, etc

Ran Avast again on the pc and no further threats were detected.

The point is that just one AV scanner is not enough to detect all threats, free or paid for, not for a casual or reckless users anyhow.:erm:
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"customer ignorance" Yep. Never mind viruses, it's the idiots who use pc's who are the problem.
 
In most cases, the free non-commercial version uses the same database as the paid version. So I use a free one & rely on common sense to cover the gaps.

Mostly I use linux though so its a non-issue to me.

James said:
A nice rootkit should change that attitude ;)
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For the paranoid there is always tripwire. Nobody bothers tough.
 
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