What's the best free antivirus programme?

Mad Bull

Hi guys, I just wanted a bit of advice on what free anti virus software I could install.??
Thanks

Tokyo

Avast or AVG would be at the top of my personal list...

PropJoe10

AVG is my favourite, does what it says on the tin and keeps the annoying popups to the minimum.

White Heart Loon

mike_ie wrote: »

Avast or AVG would be at the top of my personal list...

AVG was good about 4 years ago, it's now bloated and detection rates are crap. Avast and Avira are what I recommend these days of the free ones.

byte

Avast seems to be well regarded nowadays.

Got good review on PCPro for latest version too:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/software/387166/avast-free-antivirus-2014

I thought AVG had bettered itself in recent times, though I'm not sure, as I haven't used it in years, due to it becoming bloatware as White Heart Loon said.

yawhat!

Install Adblock as well on your browser if you havn't allready!

rolliepoley

I have been using Avira for a long time with no problems.

http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus

Boskowski

I simply put Microsoft Security Essentials on all my windows boxes and never had any issues

White Heart Loon

Boskowski wrote: »

I simply put Microsoft Security Essentials on all my windows boxes and never had any issues

It's detection rates are crap, have you ever had it pop up and warn you? Thought not

GarIT

Avast and Comodo are the only decent ones, you still won't get more than 90% protection with any free product unless you are an expert using Comodo.

Boskowski

White Heart Loon wrote: »

It's detection rates are crap, have you ever had it pop up and warn you? Thought not

True but that doesn't mean much. I had PCs since the beginning of PCs and I had 3 viruses in all these years.

P.S. I found the best free anti virus software is Linux.

percy212

Do not put avg on your computer. Its an octopus -and I am fairly sure that a combo of a windows update and an avg update corrupted my boot sector. Danger danger.

Molester Stallone

There's a reason you have to pay for antivirus software.
The free versions will be ok to a point, but any half way sophisticated spyware or malware is going to walz right through it. But, as has been said already, avira, comodo, avg & avast are all ok as freebies, with avg & comodo imo probably being slightly out In front

lucy1

Def AVG Free

GarIT

Molester Stallone wrote: »

avira, avg are all ok

Stop right there, letting in 50% of threats is not OK. What everyone needs is Norton internet security, it goes for €20 every now and again in argos.

If you are doing anything with money, banking or shopping, you absolutely need Norton.

GarIT

lucy1 wrote: »

Def AVG Free

AVG lets in about 50% of threats and has sent up computer breaking bugs in their updates 3 times in the last 5 years.

SilverScreen

Been using Avast for a few years now and it does the job nicely.

White Heart Loon

Molester Stallone wrote: »

There's a reason you have to pay for antivirus software.

Nonsense, the free ones are fine, but the best security is common sense. An adblocker is essential to.

TitianGerm

You can buy a cd key for Norton at www.g2a.com for €14.50. I've bought fifa 14 off them and the code was sent in 15 minutes and worked perfectly.

mobby

Avast for me too.

White Heart Loon

emmetkenny wrote: »

You can buy a cd key for Norton at www.g2a.com for €14.50. I've bought fifa 14 off them and the code was sent in 15 minutes and worked perfectly.

If you're going to buy one get Kaspersky or Nod32. There are plenty out there making a living from removing Norton, although it's not as bad as it used be. This thread is about free ones though

GarIT

White Heart Loon wrote: »

Nonsense, the free ones are fine, but the best security is common sense. An adblocker is essential to.

I have studied computer security and tested most security products and I can assure you they are not fine. Most free products offer less than 70% protection. To be fair the average user comes in contact with approx 5 pieces of malware each year but where shopping and banking is concerned I rather be properly protected.

GarIT

White Heart Loon wrote: »

If you're going to buy one get Kaspersky or Nod32. There are plenty out there making a living from removing Norton, although it's not as bad as it used be. This thread is about free ones though

Kaspersky is decent, detection rates have declined in the last few years. Nod 32 is useless, it has reasonable malware detection but that it's there are no extra security features. Norton has always had the best detection and prevention rates by far but a few years ago they released a string of terrible products. Norton antivirus is rubbish, Norton 360 offers no extra protection and will slow your computer down so much but Norton internet security is the best product out there by miles. The only thing that can compete with Norton is Comodo on paranoid mode with you being an expert and making all the decisions for yourself.

GarIT

emmetkenny wrote: »

You can buy a cd key for Norton at www.g2a.com for €14.50. I've bought fifa 14 off them and the code was sent in 15 minutes and worked perfectly.

Its only €9 for me. It's well worth it https://www.g2a.com/norton-internet-security-1pc-1-year-multilanguage-cd-key-1.html

alphabeat

bit defender free is very good , but if you do alot of banking / shopping etc , better off with linux

Molester Stallone

GarIT wrote: »

Stop right there, letting in 50% of threats is not OK. What everyone needs is Norton internet security, it goes for €20 every now and again in argos.

If you are doing anything with money, banking or shopping, you absolutely need Norton.

I presume you read my whole post where I stated that they are all going to be bypassed
You know as well as I do that people won't always pay for a net program.
You can advise them, explain the pitfalls & when they decline the benefit of your advice & knowledge just wait until they come back a few months later to pay you to remove the infections & then put a proper protection package onboard

Molester Stallone

White Heart Loon wrote: »

Nonsense, the free ones are fine, but the best security is common sense. An adblocker is essential to.

It's not nonsense, to suggest otherwise is incorrect. But, it keeps me employed, so I'm not too bothered

TimeToShine

Get Microsoft Security Essentials, Malwarebytes anti-malware and Ccleaner and
you'll almost definitely never run into any problems.

For visiting "dodgy" websites I strongly recommend Sandboxie; It's basically an isolated version of your browser that sandboxes and eliminates all information/data (including any viruses) the second you close the window.

GarIT

Molester Stallone wrote: »

I presume you read my whole post where I stated that they are all going to be bypassed
You know as well as I do that people won't always pay for a net program.
You can advise them, explain the pitfalls & when they decline the benefit of your advice & knowledge just wait until they come back a few months later to pay you to remove the infections & then put a proper protection package onboard

I don't disagree with your post, I'm just saying that avg and avira are not longer comparable to avast. Avast is the only reasonably good free security product left.

GarIT

TimeToShine wrote: »

Get Microsoft Security Essentials, Malwarebytes anti-malware and Ccleaner and
you'll almost definitely never run into any problems.

For visiting "dodgy" websites I strongly recommend Sandboxie; It's basically an isolated version of your browser that sandboxes and eliminates all information/data (including any viruses) the second you close the window.

You do know Microsoft have asked people not to use Security essentials as anything other than a backup to help your real antivirus? Malwarebytes will only help you if you scan with it regularly and Ccleaner won't do much for you at all.

When the person trying to get you to use their product has to say that it wont do what you want it to you know the product isn't good enough, whats worse is when the product is one of the best of all the free products.

Molester Stallone

GarIT wrote: »

I don't disagree with your post, I'm just saying that avg and avira are not longer comparable to avast. Avast is the only reasonably good free security product left.

Personally not a fan of avast, have seen it bypassed a little too easily at times. But I'm sure you have the same issue with avg

TimeToShine

GarIT wrote: »

You do know Microsoft have asked people not to use Security essentials as anything other than a backup to help your real antivirus? Malwarebytes will only help you if you scan with it regularly and Ccleaner won't do much for you at all.

Why wouldn't you scan with it regularly? You can set it to scan automatically quite easily. I agree that Ccleaner is irrelevant but a lot of people start complaining that their laptop is running slowly and they think it's a virus when their cache is just packed with crap. To be honest if you use a sandboxed web browser you'd probably never need to worry about a virus.

I used to have Avast and AVG installed but I deleted them, hell I even had the cracked eset Nod32 for a while (which is probably what I'd recommend) but they just seemed to be a waste. Perhaps I've been lucky up until now and if that's the case I'll gladly take your advice.

GarIT

Molester Stallone wrote: »

Personally not a fan of avast, have seen it bypassed a little too easily at times. But I'm sure you have the same issue with avg

I've tested both in depth and Avast is much better, Avast is better than most paid products. Avast is the most annoying thing you could ever put on your computer though.

Molester Stallone

GarIT wrote: »

I've tested both in depth and Avast is much better, Avast is better than most paid products. Avast is the most annoying thing you could ever put on your computer though.

From my experience, it's the opposite, but when a customer comes to me my preference for a paid product is always Norton internet security. As long as no one asks for, or suggests bullguard I'm happy

the_syco

Boskowski wrote: »

P.S. I found the best free anti virus software is Linux.

How does it play with all the latest games? :P

emmetkenny wrote: »

You can buy a cd key for Norton at www.g2a.com for €14.50. I've bought fifa 14 off them and the code was sent in 15 minutes and worked perfectly.

Norton will slow down any machine. I'd even advise AVG over it!

=-=

I find Bitdefender Internet Security to be good. Lets nothing in or out, and detects virus the moment you unzip it from a rar file (and sometimes before).

I am not a fan of the updated interface, however, now their new way of scanning, so I won't recommend it.

GarIT

TimeToShine wrote: »

Why wouldn't you scan with it regularly? You can set it to scan automatically quite easily. I agree that Ccleaner is irrelevant but a lot of people start complaining that their laptop is running slowly and they think it's a virus when their cache is just packed with crap. To be honest if you use a sandboxed web browser you'd probably never need to worry about a virus.

I used to have Avast and AVG installed but I deleted them, hell I even had the cracked eset Nod32 for a while (which is probably what I'd recommend) but they just seemed to be a waste. Perhaps I've been lucky up until now and if that's the case I'll gladly take your advice.

Usually you'll forget, Malwarebytes only works automatically in the paid version. Most people forget that they need to be scanning before they do any banking. A decent sandboxed browser would keep you safe but most people think it's too much effort and give up after a few days. You would be surprised with how many people would think it is OK to click I know this program is safe, or click later on updates.

I wouldn't say you have been lucky, just normal. On average it would take you between 1 and 2 years to come across a noticeable and harmful virus. Then when you consider how often the average person you will see that your security program does very little. On average if you were using avast it would probably take you 100 years before you had your bank details stolen, if you look at that as a group of 100 people using avast, on average 1 would have their bank details stolen each year. From my point of view I rather pay the €20 to get 98-99% protection from Norton than take the less than 1% risk of having my life savings cleared out, other people take that risk and I suppose that's up to them.

For the average user though Avast is the only free product that I would consider acceptable.

GarIT

the_syco wrote: »

Norton will slow down any machine. I'd even advise AVG over it!

=-=

Bitdefender Internet Security

From Norton Internet Security 2012 onwards they are piratically the lightest around, slowing down your computer was the only fault Norton ever had and they have done great work on improving that. I've run Norton 2013 on Atom netbooks and not seen any problems.

Bit defender is good, it's at the upper end of the paid products but a bit off Norton on detection.

the_syco

GarIT wrote: »

From Norton Internet Security 2012 onwards they are piratically the lightest around, slowing down your computer was the only fault Norton ever had and they have done great work on improving that. I've run Norton 2013 on Atom netbooks and not seen any problems.

Bit defender is good, it's at the upper end of the paid products but a bit off Norton on detection.

What's Nortons firwall like these days? Both incoming and outgoing. I've caught one or two programs calling home that shouldn't be in the directory that they were in.

It used to be fairly pointless upgrading your laptop if you were installing Nortons. I'll look into how their product in 200 days (when my years sub is running out).

BTW, how much can you configure it, and does it have some sort of "auto-pilot" mode (so I can configure other machines, and then let others use them)?

zenno

Using free anti-virus software just shows a lack of caution with most folk. These anti-virus software products are not good enough, and are also no good at stopping real-time nasty viruses from entering your system.

AVG is terrible, as I have purposely throughout the years infected my test system with some bad viruses/keyloggers and malware and AVG didn't even notice they were there. Norton is not a good choice either for a paid subscription as it is on the lower scale imo.

Kaspersky internet security and bit defender came out tops at removing all viruses from the test machine with a reboot. Some PUP's (potentially unwanted programs) were easily removed using the free malwarebytes software.

Also, if using firefox, you should install the free addon add-blocker called... Adblock Edge 2.0.9. Kaspersky has a built-in anti-add-banner but Adblock Edge is much better if using firefox.

beauf

GarIT wrote: »

From Norton Internet Security 2012 onwards they are piratically the lightest around, slowing down your computer was the only fault Norton ever .....

Speed was not the only problem. IMO Norton used to be worse than having an virus. As for slow, it could make a glacier look fast. Uninstalling it was a nightmare, and personally it took so long to fix you were better re-installing the OS. It was soooo bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_AntiVirus#Criticism

They may have sped it up. Personally I'll never trust it. Even in the bad old days it topped the charts in all the reviews, but this wasn't reflected in my experience of it in Real Life. For a very long time, for me, "is Norton installed" was up there with "turn it off and on again" as the most common support phrase.

biko

Lots to chose from. There's reviews and comparisons available
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388652,00.asp
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/best-free-antivirus-9-reviewed-and-rated-1057786

zenno

I always hear the statement that AVG and all the other free anti-virus software work great because after the scan nothing is found and people assume their system is clean, well think again, it just isn't finding the viruses/keyloggers/malware/spyware.

If you really want piece of mind and a generously working anti-virus scanner, purchase one. They are not all 100% but the best ones will do the job well as long as definition files are automatically set for updates. Free ones will just not cut it.

Would you rather your home, half secured, or fully secured to the best of your ability ? the same goes with computer systems, lock it up well so no-one can find it easy to get in through the back-door. Free will not cut it. Sure a person can purchase kaspersky internet security suite 2014 for 1 pc for €20 on Ebay UK for a full year, so I see no excuse with taking a chance.

BloodBath

Zenno stop trying to sell people crap they don't need.

Avast hands down is the best AV solution I've ever used including compared to paid services.

Combined it with the odd scan with Malwarebytes and the use of Adblocker and you're covered. Don't expect the programs to completely make up for ignorance.

AVG, Norton and MSE are complete bollocks in my experience.

padma

Avast here the past 4 years.

AirBiscuit

Common sense.

200motels

I use Panda on my Windows and find it very good and light on resources, I don't like Avast as it's a resource hog, but as been said common sense is always important, I use no Antivirus on my Linux Mint and that's what I use most but you still have to be careful.

Mr. G

As far as free Anti-virus goes, Microsoft Security Essentials or AVG.

Of course, no Anti-virus will protect you if you do not run scans regularly or keep it enabled/updated.

GarIT

Mr. G wrote: »

Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft has asked everyone not to use Microsoft Security Essentials as it is not good enough to properly protect you, and that you should only ever use it as a backup to your real protection.

BloodBath

GarIT wrote: »

Stop right there, letting in 50% of threats is not OK. What everyone needs is Norton internet security, it goes for €20 every now and again in argos.

If you are doing anything with money, banking or shopping, you absolutely need Norton.

Bollocks. There are far better free and paid options than Norton. Do you work for Norton?

GarIT wrote: »

I have studied computer security and tested most security products and I can assure you they are not fine. Most free products offer less than 70% protection. To be fair the average user comes in contact with approx 5 pieces of malware each year but where shopping and banking is concerned I rather be properly protected.

Let's have a look at your conclusive testing evidence then.

beauf

Personally I don't trust Norton or the scores it achieves. Microsoft seem to be slowly dropping MSE, for a couple of reasons, they want to move away from XP, and MSE gives people an excuse to keep it. Also they have AV built into to Windows 8. The intent to move people to Windows 8 is pretty obvious. AVG got very bloated. So I no longer use that.

noel farrell

I have been using avast seems to work fine in the background, for me Norton is worse than any virus it will slow your PC to a crawl ,and boy is it hard to get off your computer, I had to get their Norton remover to get rid of it, and even then it was a battle, I guess some of it is still bidding in my laptop weighting to pop up,,