Avira Introduce WebGuard Toolbar on free edition

GunJack

Continuing the theme of Avira associating itself with some possibly less than reputable companies,

http://www.avira.com/en/avira-searchfree-toolbar

this has just popped up during an update. Whilst it may not seem like a bad idea, it's search part is powered by Ask.com, they of the dodgy Ask toolbar which has been known as suspect in anti-malware circles for a while now.

Don't think I'll be using this, and if Avira keep hooking up with the ikes of Uniblue and Ask, I'll think long and hard about continuing to use their AV. It'd be a shame to have to do so, but.........

RussJK

Same as Imgburn now

I've recently switched to Panda free AV believe it or not (without the Panda yahoo security toolbar). Tried it out on some hours old zero-day malware, and it detected all out of the samples I downloaded but one (which MBAM Pro detected upon execution).

somersethillbilly

Is this with Avira Antivir Personal Free version 10? Im still using 9, while it's still supported. Avira really seem to have shot themselves in the foot big time! Rather than upgrade to 10, maybe I'll jump ship to Avast instead.

Edit: Not had the "invitation" to install it on version 9, yet.....

GunJack

RussJK wrote: »

Same as Imgburn now

I've recently switched to Panda free AV believe it or not (without the Panda yahoo security toolbar). Tried it out on some hours old zero-day malware, and it detected all out of the samples I downloaded but one (which MBAM Pro detected upon execution).

Same applies to Imgburn, why (apart from the money, of course ) do decent software houses insist on doing these things ???

must admit, surprised by panda being that good, never really rated them much. But, I s'pose that's progress .........

GunJack

somersethillbilly wrote: »

Is this with Avira Antivir Personal Free version 10? Im still using 9, while it's still supported. Avira really seem to have shot themselves in the foot big time! Rather than upgrade to 10, maybe I'll jump ship to Avast instead.

Edit: Not had the "invitation" to install it on version 9, yet.....

interesting.....might have to drop to v9 in that case..either that or back to avast and slightly lower ping times

stilltheone

GunJack wrote: »

Same applies to Imgburn, why (apart from the money, of course ) do decent software houses insist on doing these things ???

must admit, surprised by panda being that good, never really rated them much. But, I s'pose that's progress .........

Why do you think? The developer wants to make some money.

It is easy to opt out of installing the Toolbar with ImgBurn, so no harm, no foul.

But if it's true that Avira still bugs you even after you have opted out and attempt to disguise the Toolbar as an Integral part of their suite, that's another thing altogether.

Foxit are sailing fairly close to the wind too....sometimes stepping over to the dark side.

RussJK

I've been looking at alternatives all year to Avira.

Tried Avast but it didn't get along with MBAM Pro as well as Avira, and there was that system crash it caused and consequent general system sluggishness which persisted even after a system restore. Obviously that's not going to be everyone's experience of it.

Thought of MSE as people tend to go on about the 'lightness' of it, but they just aren't reflected in the tests at raymond.cc - the only things quicker are things that matter less, such as initial bootup time IIRC. Actual general computer use is significantly slower than with Avira or Avast according to those charts.

Same thing with Kaspersky - great program, but at the expense of system performance.

F-Secure was ultralight and unobtrusive, but obviously it's costly.

The one thing that occurred to me is that with a proper security set up, you shouldn't really be relying on an antivirus anyway since it shouldn't come to that. When it does, most fall short anyway (hence Malwarebytes Pro). I figured in that case I might as well go with the lightest possible, i.e. a Cloud scanner. Panda seems to have matured enough to be useful, and I was quite surprised by the zero day tests and had never seen that with traditional AVs.

santer_2

With avira, CCleaner kept finding an issue which was there even after deleting it, in expert mode for avira the protect settings had to be unticked, then CCleaner run, the issue deleted, then the protection settings restored which required a reboot

If you have facebook, Panda anti virus is free for 6 months

https://www.facebook.com/PandaUSA

stilltheone

Don't CCleaner have a Toolbar in the normal version too?

spud17

Yup,same here, 101 files installed, resisted the cruddy 'extras'.

RussJK

santer wrote: »

If you have facebook, Panda anti virus is free for 6 months https://www.facebook.com/PandaUSA

It's more of an annoying trial version, with reminders each time that it's not a paid for version.

I'm going to stick with the minimalistic Panda free AV, no annoyances