AntiVirus Software

[SpaceBooger]

Currently I have Trend Mirco AntiVirus on my main PC (which is down right now) and it expires in a couple days. On my laptop and arcade cab I have AVG Free.
I had no problems with either the free AVG or the Trend Micro I pay for, but am wondering how good these two products are and what should I use on Thursday once I install my new motherboard in my PC?
Are there any good free ones out there that you guys use?

[Niode]

Avast is ok, the frontend is terrible though.

I quite like Kaspersky Internet Security, it's very fast and has a very small footprint, even when scanning. It's not free but it's dirt cheap if you have more than one system. I bought the 3 system 1 year licence from Amazon for £14.99 (the single system 1 year licence was £14.98, go figure). So I got all my systems protected for less than £5 each. Can't say fairer than that to be honest.

[elvis]

ClamWin is free (as in open source free), but doesn't do realtime memory scanning.

http://www.clamwin.com/

It has an Outlook plugin for mail scanning, and can do on-demand scans. Updates come in regularly (I've seen as many as 5 per day), and are tiny (a few KB each, not these big bloated 1MB+ updates you get from Trend, Symantec and others).

It's based on Clam Anti Virus, which is typically loaded on Linux mail and file servers as gateway scanners to protect windows networks behind them.

[Dakinggamer87]

I use AVG and haven't had any problems with it.. I also use Norton on another PC which works fine as well. It's light on system resources unlike past versions..

[Marspants]

I've been using Avira since I got tired of AVG and it's been working good for me so far. It's free to use.
http://www.free-av.com/

[Ziggy]

I was using AdAware Pro, an older version. I liked it a lot so I paid for the 2008 version which turned out to be horrible. I've been using AVG free ever since and haven't had any problems with it. I also use SpyBot (with out the resident scan) but I wouldn't recommend it by itself.

[Gamerforlife]

COMODO is pretty good and I think comes with a firewall too. Both free

[Anapan]

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 26&t=11127

[sneth]

lots of the free ones really dig their claws deep into your system. Also, a lot of them do not play well together.
i used to run Avast and AVG together as they both used different resources.

Now, i only run AVG from grisoft. I would also recommend this to other people.

panda, kapersky, and avast all turned a little too bloated.


I also run a spyware remover in addition to a virus scanner. It gives some great coverege. For spyware removers you can take your pick of Windows Defender, Adaware, or spybot. I use windows defender because it has good updates and now "buy now" buttons.

[marurun]

I will past here what I posted in the other thread that Anapan linked to.

"I run without antivirus but I also disable a lot of services and run with the firewall on. Unless you are very savvy with internet safety I do not recommend going without antivirus. Likewise, unless you are very Windows savvy, and not just UI savvy but internals savvy, you probably shouldn't play with your services either. You should ALWAYS have some kind of firewall running these days. I also do periodic scans with some free tools like Spybot S&D and Hitman Pro.

I have Avast! Free Version running on my wife's laptop because it seems to have a low profile and a minimal impact on her aging PC."

Also, Avast! seems to rank above AVG free edition and Avira free version in the comparisons I've seen. It ranks fairly close to many of the commercial packages and it doesn't hit the CPU too hard.