Is Avira Free a good Anti-Virus?

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timarp000

timarp000

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I got hit by a virus which messed up my whole system I had to re-install Windows... I downloaded the Avira Premium Antivirus Trial but it will get over in 10 days. Will Avira Free do the job? or can you recommend another free antivirus better than Avira?
 
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MSE? heard it is failing hard at detecting new viruses... granted, it has very good protection against older threats, but I wouldn't ignore failing AV test twice in a row... thus I cannot bring myself to recommend MSE to anyone :)

Also, I like to install Avast and have to deal with viruses very rarely...
 
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I was starting to like MSE but those AV tests shook my confidence so I stick with installing Avast for the time being. Mainly because I like it's boot-time scan option.

I have BitDefender on my personal machine and would recommend it to anybody but unfortunately the free version is only an on-demand scanner 🙁
 
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Avira is actualy not bad.

MSE is god-awful for finding anything newer than 2 years. It *is* the most user-friendly free AV out there, but that's not worth much.

AVG and Avast are the best free out right now, imo. They rank pretty highly on avtest. Though it doesn't rank as high, and takes some time to train, I also like comodo.

And if you find yourself infected again, nothing beats malwarebytes for virus removal right now.

enjoy!
 
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Yeah, MSE got a bad review for not detecting a few crucial viruses. To be honest, norton is terrible too. I used to use ESET but that is pretty expensive. Now i just use windows defender on Windows 8.

If i needed anti virus though, i'd use avast, i just hate free ones though because they pester you every day to upgrade to the pad one
 
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The AV-Test results showing that MSE did not detect so many 0 day viruses have been a boon to antivirus vendors.
But in the real world, the situation is perhaps different.
MSE works on prioritizing the threats than might impact real world users.
Here is one article that explains the test results
and shows how many MSE users were impacted:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/archive/2013/01/16/lessons-learned-from-the-latest-test-results.aspx

Considering that MSE is free, effective, and unobtrusive, it deserves consideration.
 
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Perhaps, but considering that article you linked to was written by the program manager of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, I wouldn't trust it as far as I can throw it. Hardly an impartial assesement, if I may say so.

...Also the key point of his defense of MSE is "It hasn't affected us yet, so protecting against it isn't important". That is a silly argument. The complement of what he said amounts to "We're going to wait until a lot of our customers are infected, then we'll push out protections."
 
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It's a common misconception about Norton being the resource hog that it used to be. They completely re-did the program structures a few years back and it is very minimally invasive at this point. Granted, depending on the suite that you run (AV, Internet Security, 360) they each have their resource requirements. I'm running Norton 360 now and it doesn't cause any hiccups in my system that I've detected as of late.

Picking a good AV/IS combination is usually just like picking out clothes to wear for the day. Only you know what you want as far as protection, everyone will have their own opinions, and will more than likely not like your decision unless its dead on what they recommended.

It's why I almost always try to tell my customers at where I work that it's a matter of personal preference when they ask me something like this.
 
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I personally use Avast and I haven't had a virus in years..thanks to the active web scanning...it shuts down the connection before you can get infected...
Love it..
On a side...Kasperski rated high on the chart what's with that ?
 
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kaspersky is like your psycho soon-ex-to-be... it messes with everything you do, protecting you from everything /even yourself/ and thus making your life miserable...
so - the protection is a bit better than the rest and /if you can cope with the annoyance/ it is one of the best av available.

my fave combo is: avast + comodo firewall + spybot s&d
 
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I would not say avira as bad antivirus , but i would like to know you that whether it suits your system features, If not you can try some other good antivirus like comodo, avast, avg etc... there are a lot out there...
 
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I think you should consider using Unthreat Antivirus. It's a free antivirus and I think it does a great job of protecting my computer. The thing I like about it most is that it doesn't slow down my computer while scanning which a lot of antiviruses do AND I haven't had a trace of a virus on my computer since I downloaded it.
 
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i love avast, use it for my windows 8 laptop and had used it for my w7 ultimate machine until it started causing hang on startup (was either that or realtek drivers, so just did away with both). paired with windows defender, its about the best you can get for free. avira isnt terrible, but i personally much prefer avast.
 
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