what is the best A/V freeware?

[badgolferman]

Don't know if any one A/V prog can be called the "best" either, but I

also settled on Avast after trying nearly all the most popular titles.
AVG comes in a close second (IMHO at least.) Forget the big two
$$$ware options (Norton & McAfee.) They're not even in the running.

Other than it not being freeware, tell me why you think Symantec Corporate
Edition (this is what our company gives us to use on our personal computers)
does not stand up to the the three A's? All the independent reviews I've
seen rate Kaspersky, Symantec, McAfee, Panda, F-Prot higher than others.

 

[Ron May]

Other than it not being freeware, tell me why you think Symantec Corporate
Edition (this is what our company gives us to use on our personal computers)
does not stand up to the the three A's? All the independent reviews I've
seen rate Kaspersky, Symantec, McAfee, Panda, F-Prot higher than others.

To be perfectly honest, I haven't tried Symantec's Corporate Edition,
but their Norton Personal Firewall 2003 came with this machine I
bought in May (HP a412n, 2.8G, 512M, XP Home.) I uninstalled it after
a few weeks in favor of Avast. Minor problems, false positives
mostly, occasional small performance hits. I ran an earlier Norton
version (2001) on an older machine (HP, 333Mhz, 512M, Win98) that had
also run McAfee Virus Scan and AVG at various times and I seem to
recall Norton, comparatively speaking, used more resources and had
some problems playing well with others.

Admittedly, I run a lot of freeware and that may be a large part of
the compatability issue, but bottom line, what matters most to me is
how a program works in the environment I've created, and, stating the
obvious, price vs performance is a high priority to anyone who follows
this NG. I do use $$$ware, but it has to offer something I believe is
worthwhile that I CAN'T get from a freeware alternative.

Ron M.

 

[Francesco]

In data Sun, 10 Oct 2004 16:01:27 GMT, Ron May ha scritto:

Message-ID<[email protected]>:

Don't know if any one A/V prog can be called the "best" either, but I
also settled on Avast after trying nearly all the most popular titles.
AVG comes in a close second (IMHO at least.) Forget the big two
$$$ware options (Norton & McAfee.) They're not even in the running.

When I bouth my notebook pc I found Norton AV on it...how long did it stay
on my hd?
Maybe less than 5 minutes...it's not that I hate it...I just don't like it

I think Avast and AVG are the best ones, but I tend to prefer Avast for the
automatic updates.
Bye

 

[MinMin]

xtort escreveu:

I was wondering what everyone thinks is the best A/V freeware these days?

I like AntiVir Personal.

[]s

I agree. I've tried AVG and Avast too, but settled on AntiVir because
1. it uses fewer resources and 2. you can start the AntiVir Guard
whenever you want, rather than being forced to start some component/s
with Windows like the others. I particularly wanted a background virus
scanner that I could run only when I connect to the internet, and this
was the only freeware that would fit the bill; although you could run it
all the time if you want - I have never noticed any slowdown with it
running, unlike when I had McAfee installed - its VShield used to freeze
my system for seconds at a time as programs and browsers were opened. I
was pleasantly surprised to find AntiVir was so superior to a commercial
product, I just wish I'd started using it sooner!

 

[Rod]

I agree. I've tried AVG and Avast too, but settled on AntiVir because
1. it uses fewer resources and 2. you can start the AntiVir Guard
whenever you want, rather than being forced to start some component/s
with Windows like the others.

FYI, you do have control wether a program starts with Windows or not, just
run msconfig.

 

[MinMin]

FYI, you do have control wether a program starts with Windows or not, just
run msconfig.

I was aware of that thanks - but that's where the problem actually lies.
If you try to start AVG or Avast from within Windows you cannot access
their resident scanner functions - they must be started with Windows for
this to work.

 

[Rod]

I was aware of that thanks - but that's where the problem actually
lies. If you try to start AVG or Avast from within Windows you cannot
access their resident scanner functions - they must be started with
Windows for this to work.

Don't know about Avast, but I can start AVG from within Windows without any
problem. I have a permanent internet connection, so I don't realy need this
option, but it can be done.

 

[xtort]

(coming out of my state of nirvana)...
Thanks for all of your responses

I tried this Avast AV, it seems to have the same features that one
could get out of a $ware like PCCillin or McAffee. I guess what I was
getting at too, is it really necessarily that any $ware AV can make
your box safer? After looking at reports on AVG and Avast both, I am
not persuaded that cost is a factor at all. I had Symantec for years,
until now, where it has gotten to be a bloated, slow application, and
I bet that Avast can go toe-to-toe with it.

One caveat I noticed in installing Avast yesterday--it may not be a
good idea to say "yes" to the scheduled "boot time scan", when running
the Avast installer--this could be a nuisance.

best,
xtort
[http://xtort.net]

 

[Alice]

Alice <[email protected]> had
written

Yes thats the right link. I can't remember which freeware site I
got it through but it (THE freeware site) had "Users Comments"
where at least a dosen people recommended AntVar. Honestly I had
no problem with AVG but I am interested if AntiVar is better.
The fact it uses less resources gave it a + over AVG. Not as
pretty though!

Thank you.

 

[JP Loken]

In data 9 Oct 2004 12:51:37 -0700, xtort ha scritto:


I don't know which one is the best but I surely think Avast is really
good

Bye, Francesco

Avast has a lot of functionality, and looks really nice.
But on my home computer, Pentium with EDO-RAM, it was too much.
Now it runs fine with AntiVir.

 

[Rod]

Avast has a lot of functionality, and looks really nice.
But on my home computer, Pentium with EDO-RAM, it was too much.
Now it runs fine with AntiVir.

Out of curiosity, I'm running AVG, and I'm always interested in a
backup/followup: your experiences are that Antivir uses less resources than
Avast ?

 

[JP Loken]

Out of curiosity, I'm running AVG, and I'm always interested in a
backup/followup: your experiences are that Antivir uses less resources
than
Avast ?

Definitely yes.
I've installed Avast! on several home computers, and it works excellent on
most of them.
My experience has been that a Pentium II with a 266MHz CPU and 96 MB
memory is representing the downward limit for Avast!. (I ended up with AVG
on that one because it was necessary with a proxy functionality that
AntiVir PE doesn't have.)

A rather irrelevant, but telling(?) indicator: Avast! used 34 MB on the
HDD; AVG 11 MB; AntiVir 9MB.

 

[Chaos Master]

Quoting JP Loken [[email protected]], that posted to alt.comp.freeware

A rather irrelevant, but telling(?) indicator: Avast! used 34 MB on the
HDD; AVG 11 MB; AntiVir 9MB.

I've used those 3 AV's (one at a time) on my 233MHz Pentium with 64MB RAM,
using a really customized Windows setup.

AntiVir was faster, I even forgot that an AV was running at all.
AVG caused some blue screens on AVGCORE.VXD.
Avast! was too slow to be any good.

[]s
--
Chaos Master®, posting from Brazil.
"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." -- Kurt Cobain

Evanescence: http://marreka.no-ip.com | Lies: http://tinyurl.com/46vru |
/dev/null: http://renan182.no-ip.org