Free anti-virus software to protect your Windows PC
Viruses have not made the headline recently. While the Internet is the main medium for the viruses to spread, the network enables the antidote to spread rapidly as well. Anti-virus software can update their virus definitions online, which has made large scale computer virus epidemics rather rare these days. Many new PCs feature an anti-virus software as a standard feature, but unfortunately the PC packages are often shipped with a limited trial offer - most common seems to be a 60 day license of the Norton Internet Security. What to do when the license runs out? Well, don’t worry as there are some high quality anti-virus solutions offered for free.
There are three major vendors still offering a free anti-virus software, for personal and/or non-commerical use: Avast!, Avira AntiVir and AVG. All of these software and their providers have been around for a long time and they have earned a good reputation. All of these offer basic virus protection, including real-time scanning in the background, and thorough on-demand scanners.
Avast! is a very user-friendly solution that has been translated to several languages. Along with basic protection, the free version also includes additional protection for P2P file sharing, instant messaging and email. A free one year license must be obtained for the vendor. I have used Avast! for years and it has worked flawlessly.
Avira AntiVir has only the basic features, but the configuration options are a bit more advanced. For an example real-time scanning can be adjusted only to scan file read, writes or both - obviously using only read or write scanning will help to improve the performance hit caused by resident protection. Based on a number of anti-virus reviews I read, Avira scores highest score of these three in virus detection tests. I am currently using Avira and it seems to be working extremely well.
I have not used AVG personally, but it is possibly the most popular free anti-virus solution available. It is often commented as being easy on the system resources, but it has not scored the best results in detection tests. I have heard many positiive comments about AVG and it should serve you fine as well.
Best thing about all of these applications is that they seem to be much more resource friendly than Norton’s Security Suite. Note that in addition to a anti-virus software, it is wise to equip your Windows PC with a firewall. In case you wish purchase a commercial solution, then I would advice you to have a look at NOD32 (used by Microsoft Corp.) or F-Prot anti-virus software. And once you have installed your anti-virus software, be sure to test it at Eicar test site.
Download: Avast!, Avira AntiVir, AVG
need free anti-vius software
My first antivirus software was F-prot. I used to like it and it worked well enough, but nowadays it’s far too primitive software (at least compared to Avast!, Antivir or some commercial softwares.
After F-prot I moved to (Avira) Antivir. It inclueds just enough good antivirus software engine so that it should satisfy most home users. I’ve also tried Avast! and AVG. Avast is pretty nice little software, but with AVG I had some serious problems whith my old computer (800MHz, 128 Mb RAM, Win98 OS, AMD): After the software had been installed Windows restarted and the istallation had to finaliaze. Well, the installation wizzard appeared, but almost immediately it crashed down (typical for Win98). I restarted the OS again, and managed to finaliaze the installation. After this the software run very slowly (that’s why I peronally didn’t like the software at all compared to Antivir and Avast both of which run pretty smoothly).
One major problem with these free antivirus softwares is that they don’t include firewall. When I was using these, Zone Alarm firewall software was non-commercial, so I used it. Later Zonelabs released another fine little free tool IMsecure (http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_ims.jsp?lid=nav_fim) which is a messaging protection software.
Another problem with these free antivirus softwares is the lack of antispyware feature. Because of this, I had also Ad-Aware (http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php) installed. It worked always well.
Nowadays I’m using (with F-Secure) a-squared (http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/), which is probably the most perfect antivirus software when using a commercial internet security software. A-squared (free edition) has no automatic updates or any else function that could be harmful for the primary internet security. With this I mean that it’s a perfect solution for the secondary antivirus software. Besides, this software updates quite frequently and it has language support for pretty many languages. I recommend it very much.
Few months ago, the creators of a-squared recruited testers for their new security software Mamutu (http://www.mamutu.com/en/software/mamutu/). I was one of the beta testers and that’s why I got a free 6 months license. Mamutu is also a quite unique software, which I recommend to try to everyone: it detects harmful softwares by the way they behave. Check out the link above to get more information.
Conclusion: Ljpp is right. There are several other options to protect your home computer than the commercial softwares.
Does anyone else have some experience of other antivirus softwares?
I recently noticed that Avira AntiVir pops up nasty windows advertising their paid version. Very intrusive, so I uninstalled immediately. I check out AVG, but it did not detect the Eicar test file, so I couldn’t verify how it actually works - since I had no real viruses at hand.
Therefore my highest recommendation of free anti-virus is Avast!.
Firewall and spyware are quite different things. Sunbelt Kerio Firewall is very good and offered for free. Spyware has never been an issue for me, and best way to avoid spyware is not to use Microsoft web browser (Internet Explorer) and email (Outlook). Firefox and Thnderbird by Mozilla foundation are free can much more secure.
Yes, I’ve heard about Kerio Firewall that it’s more complicated compared to ZoneAlarm. Is that so? Despite, I’d be using Kerio if I hadn’t this university paid commercial internet security software, because it’s no doubt enough for a home user (and free)…
Where can that Eicar test file be found?
I think seriously that Microsoft have evolved a lot IE’s internet security. Isn’t it almost as good as Firefox’s security? Well, Outlook I wouldn’t use in any case, because I don’t trust it, but IE receives frequently security updates from Windows Update. Why doesn’t Firefox?
Is there some differences (in internet security) between Win XP and Vista? I mean that is there still some “security holes” in Vista or is it as “safe” as XP (or even more safe)?
want a good anti virus for trial only if it will good than we purchase this.
rajan,
I am currently trialing NOD32 and I am very pleased with it. I am pretty confident that I will purchase it, replacing free alternatives.