Best free Antivirus??

chaddy7604

Your opinions would be helpful on the best free Antivirus software?

I have used AVG before but have just restored a laptop back to factory shipped condition to start setting up from scratch again, just not sure if I should replace AVG with another free Antivirus software?

Looking at possibly trying out Avast! Antivirus Home Edition

Feedback on this thread will help me make a more valid decision, thanks in advance

(Running on XP)

Donnie

Another question asked over and over again..... Use the search function.

chaddy7604

Donnie wrote: »

Another question asked over and over again..... Use the search function.

Apologies Mr Donnie, I asked for an opinion not sarcasm :rolleyes:

Mind you I've just read back over your recent posts most are of a sarcastic reply anyway so why should I expect anything better? :rotfl:

If it's to much trouble to help somebody out then naff off, you reply was worthless

superscaper

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=36497

In summary from above and all the other threads it comes down to:
Avast, AVG, Antivir. Pretty much all there is, people have different preferences. Antivir is supposed to be better at detection but has no pop3 scanning. Some people say AVG isn't all that good at detection (I know Donnie is very anti-AVG and I can see his point, there are lots of people come on here with trojans and have AVG installed), personally don't see much difference between AVG and Avast. They have different interfaces and which you prefer is personal taste. Asking for the "best" is too subjective really.

Quasar

I have installed AVG on all my laptops and never looked back. Never had a problem. Only a few days ago, I clicked on a dodgy link and got 3 viruses which AVG immediately identified and isolated.

I also have ad-aware and spybot antispyware and Sunbelt Kerio firewall. All free.

free4440273

I used to use AVG (for about three yrs): after having to reformat my laptop a month ago, I have switched over to Avast (again). I think sometimes there is an over reliance on anti-virus protection: much of it is (or should be) common sense

startrekker

Forum Etiquette Pls be nice to all MoneySavers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps.

Looks to me like some of you girls with their hand bags drawn cant read anyway....:rotfl:

I use avg ion one pc and avast on another, cant say one is better than another, as long as they keep my systems relatively safe im not bothered.....

superscaper

startrekker wrote: »

I use avg ion one pc and avast on another, cant say one is better than another, as long as they keep my systems relatively safe im not bothered.....

That was my experience, I'd put AVG on two pcs and Avast on two laptops. Wasn't much difference. I changed to NOD32 though as I feel a bit more confident about its detection and it takes less resources and is far less intrusive than either AVG or Avast.

free4440273

^heard excellent things about NOD32, especially its fast scanning time. It's not free is it thanks.

superscaper

free4440273 wrote: »

^heard excellent things about NOD32, especially its fast scanning time. It's not free is it thanks.

Unfortunately not. I used it's free trial period (30 days) to see whether it was worth getting and in the end I thought it was worth paying for even compared to the free alternatives.

Bongedone

Computer Shopper magazine ran a head to head test of most virus checkers a few months back. They tested them by throwing virus's as them. Avast failed lots of the tests whilst AVG passed most. They rated AVG above Norton. I removed Avast and replaced with AVG after seeing the failure rate.

The one problem with AVG is that it runs a full test at start-up which can be quite slow. I disabled this and only run it now and then.