OK, I think I’m done with Avast! Any suggestions for a freeware antivirus that might be more likely to catch virus like a net than to catch virus like a cold?
What wrong with Avast! It is my personal choice. AVG is a close competitor in the free anti-virus market if you want to give that one a try. They are both good.
Missed edit window.
What wrong with Avast!? It is my personal choice. AVG is a close competitor in the free anti-virus market if you want to give that one a try. They are both good. Anti-virus software doesn’t catch everything. You need it plus anti-spyware and anti-malware software as well which is often free also but a slightly different question. You have to keep the anti-virus definitions updated. If you do that, Avast! has never let me down finding true viruses, worms, etc. Don’t run two true antivirus programs like AVG and Avast! on the same computer at the same time because they can fight. You can combine them with anti-malware tools however. Malware isn’t a real virus but something like spying. popup, or advertising software that doesn’t truly hurt your computer but is still annoying or invades privacy.
I have Avast! & Spybot. But I’d taken Spybot off because I thought they would fight. Sunday my computer apparently lost power, & when I rebooted Google Chrome would not load. In trying to fix it, I reinstalled Spybot, put on a new version of Firefox, then… noticed that my Windows Firewall is just gone, & I lost sound mysteriously.
Do I need a third program?
Spybot-S&D, that is, though I probably have the worm of that name as well.
Other than Avast, and AVG, there’s also Avira.
And Avira is better than both. Heck, free AVG is so bad that it doesn’t even make the top ten with free antiviruses. Oddly enough, the paid version is actually better than most if not all other paid antiviruses.
The biggest problem with Avira is that it has a nag screen every time it updates. Google avnotify, (or look in the GQ antivirus thread) though, and you’ll find out how to remove it (in a way that, in my opinion, does not violate the software agreement.)
The other one people seem to like, which was a little worse than Avira last year (but I don’t know about this year) is Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s main drawback is how long it takes to do a full scan.
Also, all of this is in the GQ antimalware thread. It also explains that spyware programs and antivirus programs are not the same thing.
There’s also Microsoft Security Essentials which combines anti-virus and anti-spyware. I’ve been using it for the past few months without issues.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=e1605e70-9649-4a87-8532-33d813687a7f
Previously I was using AVG, also without problems. It also does anti-virus and anti-spyware these days. Be careful when downloading it though. The web page tries to confuse you into downloading a trial version which will require payment once it expires.
Same here, but for a year or so.
I switched everyone in my care (parents, brother, in-laws) to Microsoft Security Essentials about 6 months ago and they are all doing just fine. I run it myself as well.
I also use Microsoft Security Essentials.
Microsoft can actually make things that work and don’t piss people off. This and Windows 7 so far.
A little hijack here. With so many decent free antivirus programs available why do the pay ones still expire after a year and expect you to basically pay for the program again in order to update? I might be willing to pay for a good program if support never expired or the yearly subscription were minimal, like $10 a year.
My cynical assumption is that AV you pay for gives you lots of extra stuff you don’t actually need, stuff that actually bloats your computer unnecessarily and makes it run slower.
IMO Free AV is more than adequate for the job.
This. MSE and Win 7 are both winners. 
I switched from using (free) AVG to Avira on several computers and found—particularly on my wife’s Vista laptop, which is far from a powerhouse—that it did not slow the system down as much as AVG, which (the latter) tended to make booting/powering down and general disk operations sluggish.
Are there any sites that compare the programs on objective grounds? I run AVG but other than “No, I don’t seem to have gotten any viruses” i can’t really evaluate its quality.
I volunteer to be the dick who says, “Linux”. 
A few months ago, I had to evaluate antivirus software for work. I found that Avast! got the highest ratings of the free packages. I wish I could remember some of the others…but I do recall that one reference I used was Consumer Search.
IIRC (for non-free options), and I was surprised at this, Symantec got a very good rating also, seriously upgraded for its 2010 offering from their terrible 2009 evaluations. I was also surprised that ZoneLabs suite was ranked as mediocre, as in 2009 it had fairly high ratings.
Another vote for Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s much faster in scanning and doesn’t slow your computer much at all, almost as though they had an “in” with the developers of the operating system.
I was on AVG until they bugged me to death with forced upgrades and having to hunt for the free version.
Now I’m on Avira but I’ve also installed MSE on other people’s computers with no complaints. I like how MS didn’t call it something like “Microsoft AntiVirus”, IMO the name they chose is confusing.
For any anti-virus that does a daily scan, I’d suggest finding the scheduler and turning the daily scan off. Doing one scan is fine, but after that you’re wasting your time and slowing your system down when the anti-virus scans every file that is read or written anyway.
Another one for this.