recommended free anti-virus

[VJ]

Hello,

So far, I had been using Grisoft AVG antivirus. However, I recently upgraded to version 8, and am encountering issue after issue (failed updates, if an update succeeds it needs a reboot, ...). On my dad's computer, it even causes network issues...

Which free alternative would you guys recommend?


Thanks!


Jörg

[Nowhere]

People who do Avast so far menaged to update it without making it suck (a lot of people have that impression with latest AVG...)

[Marshmallowman]

I have sing clamav for quite a while, it seem to do the job.

It is open source, it was originally for unix but the win32 port has been working for me, it also compatible with 64bit windows.

[UtwigMU]

Avast.

After I managed to drop my work laptop with McAfee Enterprise and started using my private laptop with Avast, I never saw a crash in Outlook with Avast plugin. With McAfee plugin Outlook was crashing several times a day.

I don't have experience with Windows ports of ClamAV but on Linux it worked nicely.

[VJ]

Thanks!

I think I have found the issue on my laptop with AVG: if the first update fails (e.g. due to no network), it never seems to recover from that...

But I'll give Avast a go on my dad's pc: it has lower minimum requirements (and that pc is a PentiumII running XP ).

Jörg

[Nowhere]

Just remember that as of yet ClamAV doesn't have on-demand virus scanning, it only scans files you told it to (either manually or by scheduling).

As for slow PCs...NOD32. Not free though.

[Dr Mordrid]

AVG 8 here with zero troubles.

We have an old Dell C600 laptop running XP SP2 with no troubles. Just used to run OpenOffice at shoots.

[Rakido]

Avast user here

[Jammrock]

I'm a NOD32 user, but work pays for my license.

[Gurm]

Everything starts to suck eventually.

AVG 6 was the most brilliant thing ever. AVG 7 was... bloated by comparison. AVG 8? Just icky.

Kaspersky? Was awesome. Now is SUPER-intrusive.

Trend? Used to be cool, corporate still is, but personal? HUGE and bloated.

The list goes on.

AVAST is, thus far, dodging this fate.

[Jammrock]

NOD32 is too ... so far ... imo.

The personal edition used something like 5 MB RAM and you never notice it. Since I am running Server 2008 on my laptop on the moment (Hyper-V is fun) I have to use the business edition, which uses about 30 MB RAM, but you still don't notice it's running.

[Admiral]

I had to choose between Avira and Avast when I switched to Vista x64. Installed Avira, worked fine, in the end I never got to test Avast.

[Evildead666]

I totally agree with Gurm on Kaspersky.
It was my favorite AV software until the latest version, which constantly bitched at me...
I'm on AVG 7.5 still, and have had no problems with it whatsoever...

[The PIT]

Seen to many infected machines with avg sat there blissfully unaware of the infections. NOD32 doesn't cost a fortune and at the end of the day how valuable is your data if you get careless???
Really sucky anti viri stuff. Anything with Nortons, Mcafee and Sophos. Just hit resources too much and considering they miss a fair bit should be free as well.

[Evildead666]

on avg 8 now, we'll see how it goes...