Suggest free Antivirus to replace AVG?
Dec 17, 2006, 2:38 pm
#1
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Suggest free Antivirus to replace AVG?
My free version of AVG antivirus software is saying I'll have to sign up for a paid subscription starting Jan. 15, 2007. The fee's pretty reasonable ($9.95 per year, if I remember correctly), and I like AVG because it plays well with other applications and is not a resource hog. But before I pay up, are there any other antivirus programs comparable to AVG in performance that are still free?
Dec 17, 2006, 3:16 pm
#4
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: DEN
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You can get the free AVG 7.5 at http://free.grisoft.com/. The popup is (I'm sure) intentionally misleading, but I've just upgraded 4 machines in my house to the new free version.
Dec 17, 2006, 3:42 pm
#5
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Consider paying for the Anti Malware edition. It's obviously not free, but it works VERY well. Not only does it catch virus's, but it catches spyware also. And updates itself regularly. I've been happy with the trial version (you can get this also) and will become a paid customer shortly.
Dec 17, 2006, 6:24 pm
#6
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Zonealarm is a firewall, or a security suite which includes AV (made by CA). As mentioned prior there is still a free version for personal use at http://free.grisoft.com. Otherwise give Avast a change -- its nimble, and pretty good.
One of my favorites is Kaspersky not free, but well worth it. Catches things others don't, and very stable.
Phil
One of my favorites is Kaspersky not free, but well worth it. Catches things others don't, and very stable.
Phil
Dec 17, 2006, 10:25 pm
#7
Join Date: Oct 2004
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use
Zonealarm is a firewall, or a security suite which includes AV (made by CA). As mentioned prior there is still a free version for personal use at http://free.grisoft.com. Otherwise give Avast a change -- its nimble, and pretty good.
One of my favorites is Kaspersky not free, but well worth it. Catches things others don't, and very stable.
Phil
One of my favorites is Kaspersky not free, but well worth it. Catches things others don't, and very stable.
Phil
which is free of charge .
very good scanner.
have english and german interfaces for download.
dp
Dec 18, 2006, 10:12 am
#8
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Naples, Florida
Posts: 7,419
You can get the free AVG 7.5 at http://free.grisoft.com/. The popup is (I'm sure) intentionally misleading, but I've just upgraded 4 machines in my house to the new free version.
But AVG 7.5 is still free.
I also have Free AVG Anti Spyware running ... former Ewido.
Dec 18, 2006, 10:31 am
#9
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Re: Zonealarm recommendation.
Zonealarm's firewall-only product is available free (for non-commercial use). But that does not include the antivirus product they license from CA.
Zonealarm Antivirus (the cheapest way to get ZA firewall + antivirus) is not free. But it's pretty cheap. I run it on one of my laptops without any trouble. Much lower overall resource usage than the hog of McAfee it replaced. ZA Antivirus is 19.95 USD if you first install free ZA and then click on the Anti-virus Monitoring link inside ZA, then click on the "Click here to learn about Zone Labs fully integrated anti-virus protection". Sometimes it's the same but sometimes it's more if you go directly to zonelabs.com
Zonealarm's antivirus is also in their more expensive Interet Security Suite.
Zonealarm's firewall-only product is available free (for non-commercial use). But that does not include the antivirus product they license from CA.
Zonealarm Antivirus (the cheapest way to get ZA firewall + antivirus) is not free. But it's pretty cheap. I run it on one of my laptops without any trouble. Much lower overall resource usage than the hog of McAfee it replaced. ZA Antivirus is 19.95 USD if you first install free ZA and then click on the Anti-virus Monitoring link inside ZA, then click on the "Click here to learn about Zone Labs fully integrated anti-virus protection". Sometimes it's the same but sometimes it's more if you go directly to zonelabs.com
Zonealarm's antivirus is also in their more expensive Interet Security Suite.
Dec 18, 2006, 10:42 am
#10
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Personally, I have to admit that I dont run AV on windows, Linux, OS X or BSD...
I find that its an insane waste of overhead and if you just practice some safe surfing then its easier to avoid viruses than to proactivly protect against them.
That being said, when I work on the machines of friends and family, 90% of the time the real issue is that they got infected with malware...and once its infected the only choice is to wipe and re-install (because you can never truly trust that the machine is clean). When I do that I first install Firefox as the default browser then I load up Clamwin http://www.clamwin.com/ .
Clamwin is a fork of ClamAV which is an opensource AV app that does a nice job. I have found it to be slower than Norton Enterprise and about the same as AVG.
What I really like is to talk people into using a Mac...but since most people dont want to drop a grand or more just because they are getting 100 viagra pop-ups a day, then I try the home brew router option. For $100 off ebay you can buy an older computer that will make a perfect home router. Once you load IPcop or PFsense then you can load some pretty solid AV add-ons (usually rooted in ClamAV) which do a good job of filtering viruses at the firewall level.
That doesnt do a lot of good for laptop users. In that case you can always try something like SandboxIE or just running the Firefox browsing appliance in VMware Player... I'd rather have a virtual machine chewing up cycles than some bloated AV software.
Probably more than anyone wanted to know...but there it is, ClamWin
http://www.clamwin.com/
I find that its an insane waste of overhead and if you just practice some safe surfing then its easier to avoid viruses than to proactivly protect against them.
That being said, when I work on the machines of friends and family, 90% of the time the real issue is that they got infected with malware...and once its infected the only choice is to wipe and re-install (because you can never truly trust that the machine is clean). When I do that I first install Firefox as the default browser then I load up Clamwin http://www.clamwin.com/ .
Clamwin is a fork of ClamAV which is an opensource AV app that does a nice job. I have found it to be slower than Norton Enterprise and about the same as AVG.
What I really like is to talk people into using a Mac...but since most people dont want to drop a grand or more just because they are getting 100 viagra pop-ups a day, then I try the home brew router option. For $100 off ebay you can buy an older computer that will make a perfect home router. Once you load IPcop or PFsense then you can load some pretty solid AV add-ons (usually rooted in ClamAV) which do a good job of filtering viruses at the firewall level.
That doesnt do a lot of good for laptop users. In that case you can always try something like SandboxIE or just running the Firefox browsing appliance in VMware Player... I'd rather have a virtual machine chewing up cycles than some bloated AV software.
Probably more than anyone wanted to know...but there it is, ClamWin
http://www.clamwin.com/
Dec 18, 2006, 5:14 pm
#12
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Join Date: Dec 1999
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Consider paying for the Anti Malware edition. It's obviously not free, but it works VERY well. Not only does it catch virus's, but it catches spyware also. And updates itself regularly. I've been happy with the trial version (you can get this also) and will become a paid customer shortly.