Which is the best FREE anti-virus programme

muffler

I know this has probably been discussed before but with more people on board and everyone having had more time to evaluate their own particular choice what would be the best recommended anti virus programme to install?

stagolee

i like avg myself

ShevY

TRY THIS FIRST

Zaph

Agree with stagolee, I use AVG Free Edition myself and find it excellent. Dowload from here

CyberGhost

ShevY wrote:

TRY THIS FIRST

wow that rocks!

but AntiVir is better, better then AVG too.

muffler

zaph wrote:

Agree with stagolee, I use AVG Free Edition myself and find it excellent. Dowload from here

Several people have told me about AVG and it seems very popular but where exactly on the website is the link to the free download.

Ciaran500

AVG products > AVG free edition

BadCharlie

I use NOD32 but you only get 30days free. Just reinstall it after that!

Lump

AVG TBH.

John

snappieT

Current direct linky: http://www.grisoft.cz/softw/70/filedir/inst/avg70f_308a466.exe

irishshogun

I concur, been using AVG for years, no probs, free updates and virus definitions

commited

avg is good for free, but in a test, the non-free AVGi missed quite a few virii compared to the top anti virus boys, so I can imagine that the free one is worse.

I use AVG, but I'm seriously considering buying McAfee or the other 2 that did slightly better.

Testbed consisted of 321 Viruses, Trojans and Worms, all for the Windows32 environment, and all reasonably new samples. I don't have any data on whether some of these are zoo, or ITW, but they are all real threats I feel someone is likely to encounter, since I got them off the internet (and i've verified they are real as each sample must be detected by at least 4 AV's for me to consider it). All scanners were installed on a clean system, without any traces of other anti-virus softwares - between each test the system and directories were cleaned, and the registry was sweeped. Each AV product was treated with a double-reboot, one before, and one after installation. Each scanner was set at its highest possible settings, and was triple checked for proper options and configuration. Most products were the full registered version when possible, others were fully functional unrestricted trials. All products were tested with the current version as of 6-14-04, and the latest definitions for that date. Each product was run through the test set a minimum of 3 times to establish proper settings and reliability, the only product to exhibit some variance on this was F-Secure, which had one scan come up less than the other two without any settings changes indicating a possible stability issue.

The final standings:

1) MKS-Vir
1a) eXtendia AVK
2) Kaspersky 5.0/4.5
2a) McAfee VirusScan 8.0
3) F-Secure
4) GData AVK
5) RAV + Norton (2 way tie)
6) Dr.Web
7) CommandAV + F-Prot + BitDefender (3 Way Tie)
8) ETrust
9) Trend
10) Panda
11) Avast! Pro
12) KingSoft
13) NOD32
14) AVG Pro
15) AntiVIR
16) ClamWIN
17) UNA
18) Norman
19) Solo
20) Proland
21) Sophos
22) Hauri
23) CAT Quickheal
24) Ikarus

Heuristics seemed to play some of a roll in this test, as no AV had every virus in my test in their definitions, and products with stronger heuristics were able to hold their position towards the top of the test. Double/Multi engined products put up strong showings as well, proving to me that the redundacy method works, and I think more AV companies should considering double-engines. The strongest heurisitical AV I noticed was F-Prot/Command, picking up only 247 samples with definitions but they were able to power through 67 additional hits on "Possible Virus" indicators - very strong! Norton with BloodHound activated had 30 Heuristical pickups, and DrWeb rounded up the pack with 20 heuristical pickups. eXtendia AVK grabs the number one slot with double engine scanning, anything the KAV engine missed, the RAV engine picked up with great redundancy on the double engine/definition system. McAfee actually missed only 2 samples with its definitions, but picked those 2 up as "Suspicious File", and therefore, scores nearly perfect as well.

The biggest dissapointments for me were Norman and Nod32. Even with Advanced-Heuristics enabled, NOD32 failed to pick up a large portion of the samples. Norman, while finding some of the toughest samples, managed to completely miss a large portion of them! Showing that their sandbox-emulation system has great potetential, but its far from complete.

Actual test numbers were:

Total Samples/Found Samples (321 total possible) + Number Missed + Detection Percentage

Discovered and tested MKS-Vir2004, from Poland. Surprisingly, this one with caught every sample perfectly on Medium Heuristics. Specifically, nearly 50 samples were picked up Heuristically giving it a perfect score of 321/321. However, when I increased Heuristics to "Super Deep", it picked up an addition 10 more suspicious files. Upon further investigation, it was found that it was picking up signatures of hacktool utilities left over in some of the archives and flagging those files. Indeed, this is impressive. MKS-Vir2004 exhibits the most advanced detection algorithms i've ever seen, clearly it only had signatures for 271 of my samples, but through code emulation, it was able to pick up all 321 samples!! It clearly labeled the Heuristically found ones as things as "Likely Win32 Trojan" or "Highly Suspicious Acting File". In addition, its scanning speed was incredibly quick, and its memory footprint was quite small. Impressive! Furthermore, this is a full featured and fairly polished product that appears to update at least once per day, and tech support responded to me within 5-15 minutes on my emails. Unfortunately, it appears to not be available in the US for purchase at this time.

1a) MKS_Vir 2004 - 321/321 0 Missed - 100%
1b) eXtendia AVK - 321/321 0 Missed - 100%
2a) Kaspersky 5.0 - 320/321 1 Missed - 99.70% (with Extended Database ON)
2b) McAfee VirusScan 8.0 - 319/321 + 2 (2 found as joke programs - heuristically) - 99%
3) F-Secure - 319/321 2 Missed - 99.37%
4) GData AVK - 317/321 4 Missed - 98.75%
5) RAV + Norton (2 way tie) - 315/321 6 Missed - 98.13%
6) Dr.Web - 310/321 11 Missed - 96.57%
7) CommandAV + F-Prot + BitDefender (3 Way Tie) - 309/321 12 Missed - 96.26%
8) ETrust - 301/321 20 Missed - 93.76%
9) Trend - 300/321 21 Missed - 93.45%
10) Avast! Pro - 299/321 22 Missed - 93.14%
11) Panda - 298/321 23 Missed - 92.83%
12) Virus Buster - 290/321 31 Missed - 90.34%
13) KingSoft - 288/321 33 Missed - 89.71%
14) NOD32 - 285/321 36 Missed (results identical with or without advanced heuristics) - 88.78%
15) AVG Pro - 275/321 46 Missed - 85.66%
16) AntiVIR - 268/321 53 Missed - 83.48%
17) Antidote - 252/321 69 Missed - 78.50%
18) ClamWIN - 247/321 74 Missed - 76.94%
19) UNA - 222/321 99 Missed - 69.15%
20) Norman - 215/321 106 Missed - 66.97%
21) Solo - 182/321 139 Missed - 56.69%
22) Fire AV - 179/321 142 Missed - 55.76%
23) V3 Pro - 109/321 212 Missed - 33.95%
24) Per_AV - 75/321 - 246 Missed - 23.36%
25) Proland - 73/321 248 Missed - 22.74%
26) Sophos - 50/321 271 Missed - 15.57%
27) Hauri - 49/321 272 Missed - 15.26%
28) CAT Quickheal - 21/321 300 Missed - 6%
29) Vir_iT - 10/321 311 Missed - 3%
30) Ikarus - Crashed on first virus. - 0%

Interesting also to note, is the detection level of the US AVK version with KAV+RAV engines was higher than the German version with KAV+BitDefender engines. Several vendors have free versions of their for purchase AV's, we didn't test the free versions, as it would serve no purpose for this test, but based on the results, none of the free versions would have been very impressive anyway. The term "Heuristics" seems like it should be taken very liberally, as some products that claim to be loaded with Heuristics scored miserably on items they clearly didn't have definitions for. Scanning speed was not measured, as it was totally irrelevant to my testing, and on-access scanners were not tested, as it would have been too time consuming, but considering most products have similar on-access engines as on-demand, and use the same database, results most likely, would be very similar.

Cut through the hype, cut through the marketing schemes, this was a real test, with real samples, and none of these samples were provided to the antivirus software vendors in advance. This is real world, and these are likely badguys you'll encounter, since I got them in my real encounters, and all were aquired on the internet in daily activities which anyone out there might be involved in. (Installing shareware, filesharing, surfing, etc). Keep in mind that with ITW tests the AV vendors have full disclosure of what they will be tested on in advance, not so here, so heuristics and real detection algorithms will play a big part, as well as the depth and scope of their definition database.

[Edit: After re-testing the Kaspersky products with Extended Database option turned ON, the moved up effectively scoring 100% considering the 1% margin of error]

muffler

Thanks to everyone for their opinions. It seems that AVG has won hands down so I've just installed it and hopefully safe surfing hereafter

MrPinK

commited wrote:

the non-free AVGi missed quite a few virii compared to the top anti virus boys, so I can imagine that the free one is worse.

The free version will detect viruses just as well as the Pro version. Pro just gives you some extras like the ability to scan network drives, tech support, advanced scheduling, etc.

bounty

i think common sense is the best free anti virus

i've never used one, and never got any viruses

Capt'n Midnight

muffler wrote:

Thanks to everyone for their opinions. It seems that AVG has won hands down so I've just installed it and hopefully safe surfing hereafter

safer - you still need lots of other tools too.

eg: www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/rootkitreveal.shtml - root kit detection

[edit] based on that then Anitgen should be the best AV for exchange since it uses various engines most of the high up on the list

MrPinK

bounty wrote:

i've never used one, and never got any viruses

It was brilliantly said in another thread, if you don't have a virus scanner then how do you know that you don't have any viruses?

aidan_walsh

MrPinK wrote:

It was brilliantly said in another thread, if you don't have a virus scanner then how do you know that you don't have any viruses?

Because he never got a box popping up saying "I am a virus" or "Would you like to delete drive C Y/N?", obviously...

Ruu_Old

AVG, i believe they are opening a European office in Dublin or something ive heard, close thread

chump

Used to use AVG, then followed a suggestion for AntiVir and haven't look back...

bounty

MrPinK wrote:

It was brilliantly said in another thread, if you don't have a virus scanner then how do you know that you don't have any viruses?

because i havn't run any possible virus files, and my firewalls, applications and o.s. are all upto date

i mean, how many executable files do you run that are not from a respectable site?

i can understand if kids were using the pc, but i can spot a virus a mile away

Capt'n Midnight

bounty wrote:

i can understand if kids were using the pc, but i can spot a virus a mile away

There is probably more than 1,609 meters of copper between you and the exchange. Some of the other hops may be even longer.

If you are using IE (for example) then it's possible for sites to push junk on to your machine firewall or not. Many vulernabilities aren't patched for a few months so even if up todate still possible to get something.

I'd have to agree though that if you have every other possible defense then you 're safer with an older/poorer AV than someone with just the latest AV.

is_that_so

All in all, better safe than sorry. Having worked in a corporate IT environment with people who could also "spot a virus a mile away" and still manage to lose all their PC data, not having anything at all is foolhardy. :rolleyes:
Freebies are OK but IMO you are better off spending the cash.
You can spend more on two rounds of 4 drinks than on an annual antivirus subscription.

lomb

is_that_so wrote:

Freebies are OK but IMO you are better off spending the cash.
You can spend more on two rounds of 4 drinks than on an annual antivirus subscription.

I disagree with that actually. i personally prefer etrusts antivirus from computer associates a very very reputable company. at the moment they are giving a 1 year free trial. it rates higher than norton on alot of reviews and more importantly uses very very little ram and is good for slow pcs as well as being free for a year. the latest version has a nice front end also.

to avail of the trial go to www.microsoft.com/protect and click on virus menu and software downloads and it should be there somewhere.

is_that_so

lomb wrote:

I disagree with that actually. i personally prefer etrusts antivirus from computer associates a very very reputable company. at the moment they are giving a 1 year free trial. it rates higher than norton on alot of reviews and more importantly uses very very little ram and is good for slow pcs as well as being free for a year. the latest version has a nice front end also.

to avail of the trial go to www.microsoft.com/protect and click on virus menu and software downloads and it should be there somewhere.

Yes but you eventually have to pay for it. The main point here is having the AV in the first place whatever you choose.

Anarchist

Avg

muffler

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

safer - you still need lots of other tools too.

eg: www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/rootkitreveal.shtml - root kit detection

[edit] based on that then Anitgen should be the best AV for exchange since it uses various engines most of the high up on the list

I.m a bit of a novice at these things but do I need more than AVG.
I also have Spybot, Ad-Aware & Spware Doctor installed

rw227

I use NOD32 and it has never missed a virus ... were you using the trial version?

^whitey^

muffler wrote:

I.m a bit of a novice at these things but do I need more than AVG.
I also have Spybot, Ad-Aware & Spware Doctor installed

A firewall would be good try Sygate

Kali

While not exactly a desktop product I installed clamav two weeks ago on our companies mail relay and not one virus has gotten through yet (on average 20-100 viruses/day).. recently I've rolled out sophos on our desktops it seems a bit over cautious .. but isn't as intrusive as symantec/mcafees offerings.

As far as home-use goes AVG is grand.. but only when coupled with a firewall that will stop the proliferation of worms in the first place .. i.e. its reactive not proactive.

Sarunas

the problem with avg and AntiVir is that you can only use it on one computer </nit picking>

CyberGhost

what do you mean?

Capt'n Midnight

Sarunas wrote:

the problem with avg and AntiVir is that you can only use it on one computer </nit picking>

I'm guessing you mean the personal licenses, AVG, AntiVir, eTrust for a year - that's three covered. If you use Sophos at work then you are allowed one license for home use.

Just how many PC's do you have and if you have that many one should be in use as a firewall too

jessy

bounty wrote:

because i havn't run any possible virus files, and my firewalls, applications and o.s. are all upto date

i mean, how many executable files do you run that are not from a respectable site?

i can understand if kids were using the pc, but i can spot a virus a mile away

Don’t mean to insult you here mate but that is absolute nonsense, what is a possible "virus file" in your own opinion???

bounty

jessy wrote:

Don’t mean to insult you here mate but that is absolute nonsense, what is a possible "virus file" in your own opinion???

exactly what part of my post do you not understand?

damm, im getting bored of spelling everything out for noobs :rolleyes:

if you dont know what a virus is, may i suggest you use google to search for examples

jessy

bounty wrote:

exactly what part of my post do you not understand?

damm, im getting bored of spelling everything out for noobs :rolleyes:

if you dont know what a virus is, may i suggest you use google to search for examples

I know exactly what a virus is but apparently you are clueless, a virus infects files so every file that executes on your machine could possible be infected. And how exactly do you go about stopping worms? Let me guess you can spot them a mile away as well. I heard and seen all this before some newbie gets a computer thinks he’s a computer genius, thinks viruses are called virus1, virus2 etc like wise with worms, Trojans, spyware and adware, if the majority of people are running Good AV and still get the odd virus imagine how riddled your machine must be. Get a clue mate and stop acting like you know something.

Sarunas

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Just how many PC's do you have and if you have that many one should be in use as a firewall too

5, but only 1 box is running windows on its own(family computer), the other 2 dual boot. So I need 3 licenses...