Comments on: Free anti-virus software to protect your Windows PC

By: raj from microsoft

raj from microsoft — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:55:28 +0000

And regarding firewalls, i would suggest dont install any, just go by the windows firewall. The more u’ll think about antivirus softwares the more confuse u would end up with. so just go with the three softwares that raj discussed those are indeed the best available.

By: raj from microsoft

raj from microsoft — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:44:03 +0000

Dear all as per my experience u wont believe it i have done a thorough research in each and every antivirus available in the market for the past 9 years.I suggest you 3 softwares that will secure your pc under any given situation.Firstly install avira premium, secondly go with malwarebytes, and lastly install avg free antivirus. I would suggest u to run all these in safe mode. About Norton 2010 its really useless dont go for it, it will delete most of your softwares either by corrupting it or changing its registry. Kaspersky 2010 is good only for those pc having more than 2GB ram.

By: benpal

benpal — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:37:27 +0000

i now using avira antivirus, but i also recommenda comoda antivirus cause it is very simple n free in hard drives.

By: masad

masad — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:38:02 +0000

i want antivirus which donot offer update

By: Frank

Frank — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:56:43 +0000

I like using NOD32 because its light on memory
and its has won the most vb100 awards.

I also recommending Threatfire, unlike what Albino the Superior’s Mammutu, Threatfire is free and
also looks at how malware behaves.

I want to know if there’s any secondary antivirus
out there?

By: ljpp

ljpp — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:47:43 +0000

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.

By: rajan

rajan — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:06:37 +0000

want a good anti virus for trial only if it will good than we purchase this.

By: Albino the Superior

Albino the Superior — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:56:58 +0000

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)?

By: ljpp

ljpp — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 20:54:12 +0000

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.

By: Albino the Superior

Albino the Superior — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:45:29 +0000

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?