Greetings. I'm in need of a new anti virus software, I would like your assistance.

[Jayson]

Today, my NOD32 subscription expired, it was good but I no longer have the money for another year at this moment. I was looking to replace it with a free one until I could get another subscription but there are so many out there I don't know what to go with. Any ideas?

 

[lxskllr]

Avira has worked great for me. I use the free version, but if I wanted a pay for product, I'd buy their premium edition.

 

[insect9]

Avira is a great free antivirus.

 

[mechBgon]

Microsoft Security Essentials is another good free one to look at. http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

 

[balloonshark]

Avast Home is also excellent. A very stable program and is the most complete of all the freebies.

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

 

[PowerRanger]

I use Avira Free as well.

 

[BW86]

Avira Antivirus free edition is great

 

[Chiefcrowe]

another vote for Avira

 

[spikespiegal]

Here's one that's free and 100% effective.

Don't surf with admin rights.

 

[Jayson]

Thank you for the suggestions. Much appreciated.

 

[Jayson]

I have immunet protect that I installed along side NOD32 and the complemented each other well and it detected W32.Vundo during the Avira installation. False positive?

 

[MrChad]

I have immunet protect that I installed along side NOD32 and the complemented each other well and it detected W32.Vundo during the Avira installation. False positive?

It is generally a bad idea to run multiple real time virus scanners simultaneously. Where did you download Avira from? http://www.free-av.com?

 

[Rottie]

I cant believe Mechbog recommend ms securty essitail while majority of us recommans Avira AV

 

[Dark Penguin]

Mse

 

[Jayson]

I went here: http://www.avira.com/en/download/index.php

Also, about Immunet, it's not supposed to be used by itself, or so the developers say.

 

[Jalapeno]

I cant believe Mechbog recommend ms securty essitail while majority of us recommans Avira AV

Maybe thats why: http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/10/av-comparatives-picks-six-malware-removal-winners.ars

;-)

 

[MrChad]

I went here: http://www.avira.com/en/download/index.php

Also, about Immunet, it's not supposed to be used by itself, or so the developers say.

I would guess that it's a false positive then. I would uninstall all of your other AV software then install Avira.

 

[MrChad]

I cant believe Mechbog recommend ms securty essitail while majority of us recommans Avira AV

I used to recommend Avira, but Microsoft's offering performs well in tests, updates far more reliably and doesn't have any of the nagging pop-ups and upgrade screens that Avira does (I realize that there are hacks to disable the pop-ups).

 

[lxskllr]

I used to recommend Avira, but Microsoft's offering performs well in tests, updates far more reliably and doesn't have any of the nagging pop-ups and upgrade screens that Avira does (I realize that there are hacks to disable the pop-ups).

I had some big problems with MSE. I'm going to continue to use and recommend Avira.

 

[mechBgon]

I cant believe Mechbog recommend ms securty essitail while majority of us recommans Avira AV

It has very high detection rates on new malware (which is what counts if you're looking for prevention), has no splash screens, doesn't require as much configuration to get full protection, and works with Vista/7's UAC system to prevent unauthorized changes or disabling of protection by an exploit. AntiVir's not bad, but as a package, I think MSE has some advantages.

MSE also installs the Microsoft Update engine, if I'm not mistaken. For those with extra Microsoft software that's never gotten patched (e.g. Office or whatnot) because they've only been using Windows Update instead of Microsoft Update, it will get people up-to-speed on that as well.

 

[Mem]

I cant believe Mechbog recommend ms securty essitail while majority of us recommans Avira AV

I recommend Avast 5 Beta,it actually has better detection rate(say the developers) then its older Avast 4.8 counterpart,stability with it on my Win7 x64 is also excellent and uses very low resources.

Avira is very good but I got tired of when the update did not work right due to their update server and you had to go to their website to get the updates manually.

 

[MadScientist]

I had some big problems with MSE. I'm going to continue to use and recommend Avira.

What problems? I've had none with XP, Vista, or Win 7.

Don't surf with admin rights.

How true, but how many people actually do this, even after you suggest it to them.

I was installing Avira (with hacks to disable nags) on all those old infected Dell's I keep fixing, but have switched to MSE. People were still getting infected with those popup viruses like Antivirus2009. People like to click on things. Unlike Avira, MSE catches and cleans these as soon as they popup.

And there's the problem of getting Avira updates. Their servers frequently slow down to a crawl or you can't connect. There's still alot of people out there that still have dial-up, especially in WV. No problems so far getting speedy MSE updates.

 

[lxskllr]

What problems? I've had none with XP, Vista, or Win 7.

High memory usage, and crashing Explorer mainly. I also had some web slowdowns, but I didn't investigate enough to pin that on MSE.

 

[insect9]

High memory usage, and crashing Explorer mainly. I also had some web slowdowns, but I didn't investigate enough to pin that on MSE.

I had a problem with Firefox freezing up when a download finished. I haven't had time to mess around with it to see what the problem is. Other than THAT though, I really like MSE.

 

[Rottie]

hmmm i might give it a try on my friend's pc next week.