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Best of the Free Anti-virus Choices?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the protect-yerself dept.

iamjoltman writes "I've been looking to replace the McAfee anti-virus on my parent's XP machine. So, I've been looking at the three free anti-virus choices, AVG Free Edition, avast! Home Edition and AntiVir Personal Edition. I know there are other options, but I believe any others are only on-demand scanners, and that's not an option. So, what does the Slashdot crowd think is the best of these choices? Keep in mind, I'm only looking in anti-virus, I'll go elsewhere for firewall or malware protection."

4 of 499 comments (clear)

  1. AVG by gowen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I like it. I've used commercial AV before, but the free AVG is as good, or better than those. And it can be set to auto-update and auto-scan.

    I haven't used the other free ones; AVG has never given me a need to switch.

    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  2. AntiVir is going downhill by abbamouse · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've used AntiVir since the late 1990s or thereabouts. The most recent version has taken to spamming me with an ad for the pay version every time it updates (once a day). The ad pops up and interrupts whatever I'm doing. It doesn't go away until you click it. So this nice freeware seems to have become nagware. I'll be reading others' responses to find out what I should be running instead of AntiVir.

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    Make cheese not war 8:)
  3. Re:AntiVir by Neurotoxic666 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Agreed. AntiVir gets the job done. No fancy graphical interface, no abusive CPU usage, no unwanted services running. It's easy to use, easy to update, it scans rather quickly and I've never seen one single computer running AntiVir that got infected.

    I've used AntiVir to countless a dozen PCs that were running Norton and got infected anyway. I recommend it to all of my clients. So far, I'd say there are around 40 computers I'm taking care of here and there that are running AntiVir without any problem. I am highly satisfied with this product. No, I don't work there.

    --
    You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
  4. Re:Go with Antivir by xtracto · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Nice summary, I just installed AVG Free and it deleted the keylogger I was using (it is my own laptop and I have always had a key logger), unfortunately I could not find an option to ignore the specific file/process, each time it was accessed AVG told me that I was infected with "trojan keylogger" and gave me the option to "ignore, heal, quarintine, etc.." but I had to click on ignore EACH time I used it or I restarted my computer (or I accessed the file in any way).

    So, my question would be, does any of these 2 other AV has a way to "incoulate" or ignore certain file and process forever?

    --
    Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'