Best Free Anti-Virus?

Nikkisun

I have a new Acer Laptop which came with McAfee installed on it, unfortunately my free subscription has run out and I just don't have £50 to renew it.

So my question is which is the best AV software to use which is completely free?

aliEnRIK

The 3 main ones are AVG, AVAST and AVIRA
Avast is the overall best. AVIRA good if you have a slow computer
I wouldnt recommend AVG anymore due to the sheer number of problems people keep having with it
COMODO also do a full free package, but as yet ive not seen any tests to see how well it compares
SO AVAST or AVIRA depending on what your after

sparky883

AVG anti virus free edition available to download at download.com,i to have acer laptop but took off McAfee and installed AVG think there are a British Company as well-I do find that it is better to turn off scheduled scans and updates and do it manually every few days other wise PC can be slow but apart from that its great-And easily Uninstalled if you do not like it unlike some others-You can call them as well and they will still help even though you got the free Edition,Will buy there new version next year,But am well happy with the free version for now-Would steer clear of the rest once you install them they make it diffucult to Uninstall on-purpose.

DatabaseError

I've taken a punt and have been running comodo for a couple of weeks so far without issue (d/loaded for the free 64bit firewall). I suppose the test for a scanner is what it catches, as, so far, it's caught nowt (and hopefully missed the same) so undecided. Seems quick enough, looks to be taking just 7 meg (av + firewall) which seems a bit low, with an a/v scan running cpu usage hits...er...3-4% and mem 10meg

aliEnRIK

DatabaseError wrote: »

I've taken a punt and have been running comodo for a couple of weeks so far without issue (d/loaded for the free 64bit firewall). I suppose the test for a scanner is what it catches, as, so far, it's caught nowt (and hopefully missed the same) so undecided. Seems quick enough, looks to be taking just 7 meg (av + firewall) which seems a bit low, with an a/v scan running cpu usage hits...er...3-4% and mem 10meg

Im waiting for actual comparities on finding viruses etc
Its ok BEING an anti virus, its quite another being a GOOD anti virus

Conor_3

aliEnRIK wrote: »

Im waiting for actual comparities on finding viruses etc
Its ok BEING an anti virus, its quite another being a GOOD anti virus

In that case you want either NOD32 or Kaspersky, neither of which are free.

ianian99

I cant see passed avast

roadster1

DatabaseError wrote: »

I've taken a punt and have been running comodo for a couple of weeks so far without issue (d/loaded for the free 64bit firewall). I suppose the test for a scanner is what it catches, as, so far, it's caught nowt (and hopefully missed the same) so undecided. Seems quick enough, looks to be taking just 7 meg (av + firewall) which seems a bit low, with an a/v scan running cpu usage hits...er...3-4% and mem 10meg

I too went for the Comodo solution. I am having issues with my PC running slow so I tried pretty much all the combinations of antivirus and firewalls (free) and Comodo was the only one that allowed Office 2007 to run at a reasonable speed.

Santa is dropping 2GB of memory down my chimney :rotfl: . Hopefully that will resolve all my performance issues......................Hmmmm should I have worded that differently?

DatabaseError

I want the free kaspersky licence that Barclay's customers age getting...but I bank at the Yorkshire
...and I'm tight...
....and it's christmas...
......and I have 5 machines to look after

aliEnRIK

roadster1 wrote: »

I too went for the Comodo solution. I am having issues with my PC running slow so I tried pretty much all the combinations of antivirus and firewalls (free) and Comodo was the only one that allowed Office 2007 to run at a reasonable speed.

Santa is dropping 2GB of memory down my chimney :rotfl: . Hopefully that will resolve all my performance issues......................Hmmmm should I have worded that differently?

Im sure if you used PCTOOLs firewall with AVIRA anti virus, it would run fine

aliEnRIK

Conor wrote: »

In that case you want either NOD32 or Kaspersky, neither of which are free.

But of course if you use FIREFOX with the NOSCRIPT plugin then you have no NEED to pay for anything