What'' the best free antivirus?
- Thread starter micrometers
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T_Yamamoto
Lifer
- Jul 6, 2011
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Berryracer
Platinum Member
- Oct 4, 2006
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DO NOT under any circumstance install that crap.
Microsoft Security Essentials is NOT a full fledged Antivirus, it is more like an anti spyware program NOT a real antivirus (just a little improved over the useless Windows Defender) but has slipped many viruses on systems I've tested it on many times. And it is the worst when it comes to cleaning a system.
That is exactly why you don't even see it mentioned in the top security tests suites.
What's worse, is that thousands of people *think* they are protected not knowing what is lurking behind the scenes or whether or not their system is really clean.
The best Free Antivirus is avast! Free Antivirus hands down. It is light, very good at detections (Even much better than many paid AVs) and has an Auto Sandbox feature built in. Let's say you launch some known app but avast! detects that it is trying to access critical areas of your system, it automatically sets the app to launch in a contained sand box, where you may run it to preview it but any changes to the system cannot be made sine all that app has is the little virtual environment it is running in (the sandbox)
you really can't get better in a free antivirus than avast!
LOL_Wut_Axel
Diamond Member
- Mar 26, 2011
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mikeymikec
Lifer
- May 19, 2011
- 20,542
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+1
I've seen every anti-virus package miss stuff that another detects, including MSE (both scenarios). I use MSE. I used to use Avast.
Also, Avast's auto-sandbox feature is one of the biggest own-goals of a security product I've ever seen.
Last edited:
BlueWeasel
Lifer
- Jun 2, 2000
- 15,944
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mse is easy on system resources...but its going to miss the same things other people miss, which in my experience, are what i see most:
shit users click and run.
my dad gets something on his pc every 3 or 4 months. ive tried avast, avg and mse. i finally just took advantage of the parental controls on his new router and block malicious sites and categories
shit users click and run.
my dad gets something on his pc every 3 or 4 months. ive tried avast, avg and mse. i finally just took advantage of the parental controls on his new router and block malicious sites and categories
You're free to have your own opinion, but I know plenty of IT and Info Sec professionals that recommend MSE for small business/home users. It's not suitable for medium/large businesses that require centralized management and reporting, but it is excellent for someone looking for A/V for their personal computer.
Nothinman
Elite Member
- Sep 14, 2001
- 30,672
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All of them are so close to worthless it's not funny. Of all of the machines that I've seen get infected with the drive-by infections presenting things like fake AV all of them have had a commercial AV installed which couldn't remove it and most of the time wouldn't even detect all of it.
mikeymikec
Lifer
- May 19, 2011
- 20,542
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Fake AV seems to have security products largely stumped, this is true. Occasionally I've seen a machine with fake AV, then the security product gets an update which detects the fake AV and gets rid of it.
I think a very different ball game started when fake AV came along - I think this marked the rise of malware making money and being sold to others to make variations to make more money. I don't think most security vendors have found a way to counter this yet.
Even more worryingly, I'm seeing more fake AV products achieve admin privs resulting in deeper infections on Vista/7 machines.
I think a very different ball game started when fake AV came along - I think this marked the rise of malware making money and being sold to others to make variations to make more money. I don't think most security vendors have found a way to counter this yet.
Even more worryingly, I'm seeing more fake AV products achieve admin privs resulting in deeper infections on Vista/7 machines.
Nothinman
Elite Member
- Sep 14, 2001
- 30,672
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That's the whole point. From a software standpoint fake AV malware isn't anything new per se, it's just a new face on old exploits which go one step further and ask for your CC# and other information as well.
Viruses have had numerous variants since it's inception and AV has always struggled to keep up. They're attempting to create something like the human immune system except that it only knows about the malware for which they already have signatures. When a new one comes a long it just lets it go because it's not a match. So you're effectively always using an outdated list of signatures now matter recently they were last updated.
xgsound
Golden Member
- Jan 22, 2002
- 1,374
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The three A's (AVG, Avira, and Avast) seem to have become bloated over the last few years. I used to use Avira which worked smoothly after the bootup testing. Then I went with MSE and found it satisfactory until recently. Lately it has begun to generally bog down XP on some single core machines and particularly netbooks.
As to which one is least demanding, they seem to take turns being the lightest. I'm getting ready to try Avira again.
Jim
As to which one is least demanding, they seem to take turns being the lightest. I'm getting ready to try Avira again.
Jim
gevorg
Diamond Member
- Nov 3, 2004
- 5,070
- 1
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This, to a certain degree. A good firewall like Privatefirewall has better odds at detecting something wrong.
I'm certain that Avast has better detection rates than MSE, but it pays for this with more false positives. Although for removal, I think Avast is pretty crappy. To my knowledge MSE doesn't implement any self defense, I know you used to be able to terminate it with a simple call to NtTerminateProcess, which every other product out there hooks (there's still 2 dozen ways to kill them anyways). Avast isn't great on behavior based detection, but its better than MSE. I give MSE the nod on speed.
where are you folks going that you detect viruses on a regular basis? I've used 3 different kinds of virus scanners in the past 10 years and the only time anything suspicious came up was when I'm using game trainers such as cheatengine (which are false positives).
bigboxes
Lifer
- Apr 6, 2002
- 41,937
- 12,350
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MSE. Free, light and effective.
Of course, I use a handful of other spyware software to augment. Had only one problem in the last three years, but that was my own fault. When you download *ahem* things on purpose you occasionally will get burned. Normally, I fix other people's issues, but this time I had to seek outside assistance. Most problems can be avoided through common sense. Since that is lacking most people I keep acquiring new clients on a regular basis.
Of course, I use a handful of other spyware software to augment. Had only one problem in the last three years, but that was my own fault. When you download *ahem* things on purpose you occasionally will get burned. Normally, I fix other people's issues, but this time I had to seek outside assistance. Most problems can be avoided through common sense. Since that is lacking most people I keep acquiring new clients on a regular basis.
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