QOTD: Is Free Antivirus as Good as Paid Software?

[hardwarekid9756]

I work for a free PC Security utility. (www.threatfire.com)

and I can tell you from my personal experience, they're all about the same. For pay. Not for pay. It doesn't matter. Some clean things up better than others. Some detect better than others. Some have lots of fake hits, some have very little fake hits. Some are incredibly alarmist, and some are very understated. But, in the end, they all block the majority of the baddies, and in the end, they all have the potential to save your behind from danger.
I, however, have come to the conclusion that security software can be more or less avoided, if you know what you're doing. Don't go to dirty links, do click on suspicious content, keep the privileges of your account to a minimum (LUA with that annoying but ever-so-useful UAC), update windows often and with everything, and if you need to do something that even feels like it COULD be fishy (opening a habitually-infected friends' USB drive on your PC) use a virtual machine. (Virtual Machine 2008 and Linux are both free, walk you through the process, and more or less transparent to use.) Hell, if you're ultra-paranoid, Virtualize EVERYTHING, and leave only your most-trusted apps on your host for heavy-lifting.

AV's are not protection, they're damage control. Behavior guys (Like us, PrevX, and HIPS like Comodo and so forth) are approaching the more "proactive" solutions, but in the end, things like Security Essentials, Norton, and Avast are exactly what they say they are: Virus removal tools that might help you stop it from hurting your system farther once it's on the box.

IMO, just being intelligent about security and your sites (only go to trusted sources, don't do shady things on a production machine, keep everything separate, don't open things you don't know) and keep yourself very well informed before venturing into the nasty open world, and everything will be peachy. Why get sick and need an immune system when you can use test mules and knowledge to avoid being sick in the first place?

 

[frenchy]

Some of the observations I've had over the years is anti-virus software from various companies can go up and down in quality. It's something a person almost needs to read constant reviews on to see what's the best one at that time. So for example if you buy one with a 1 year subscription and it comes time to renew, don't just click on the renew button. See what's the best one is at that time and go with that. I think it would be hard to constantly stick with the same one.

I'm all for free anti virus software and I hope it pans out.

 

[Sardaukarz]

AVG = I had very bad experiences. Like the one where the software doesn't catch any virus at all but the machine is clearly infected. Never tried Avast.

I have used Norton in the past = slows down the system way too much. McAfee - can't disable it?! What the hell?!

F-Secure - really good product if you are a It pro and you know how to set it up, but it's very heavy on the machine (takes a lot of ressources).

I am running Kaspersky Internet Security and it's excellent.
I will always buy Kaspersky till they prove me wrong.

 

[nachowarrior]

To answer the question as simply as possible... sometimes. Haha. There are some REALLY GOOD free solutions. as well as there are some really nice paid solutions. Before norton 09, norton was terrible. I also like TrendMicro. On the other hand, I personally have little need for a fully featured AV software as I can remove infections manually as well if need be. Generally I like to use Open Source software... I use clamwin for xp, and for windows 7 I have not had the time to find something that works especially well yet as it is a new product. I'm also going to point out that the infections that target your bios and your master boot record are some that are the biggest headaches. So protections built into the hardware (or firmware)are something I tend to scrutinize a little more than OS software. Having said all of that. It's generally good practice to back up all your information, scan it with anything you have got, and then reformat, on a regular basis. What you use your pc for will generally determine the frequency of formatting. Good practices go a long way to help your overall security. EG: keep a linux live boot cd, or some way to boot into a Ubuntu OS handy in case your windows OS gets bricked. That, I find, is an easy way to recover important files and data, without getting the host OS infected. On another note there is AV software for Linux out there as well, which gives a great way to scan all your vital documents after recovery.
Does that answer the QOTD well enough?

 

[jangocat]

Good for a home computer, absolutely! Good for a business, no. I've used AVG for about 3 years now and much prefer it over anything else I have used. I totally trust it. In fact we used to run Bitdefender in our company and I was running AVG on my workstation because Bitdefender's active scanning just kills your computer. Someone sent an email to MIS with a virus in an attachment and it got right by Bitdefender but AVG free caught it.

We now use Symantec Endpoint and that's a resource pig too, but runs better the Bitdefender. I hate it. But you really have no choice when your dealing with thousands of computers, you need something that is easily manageable on a large scale.

 

[rooket]

anyone hear of f-prot? they still are around 😉 I used to use f-prot and thunderbyte back in bbs days. sure had a huge great deal less virii at tha time. thunderbyte i mentioned has been abandoned since. I never liked mcafee and still don't like it.

 

[Guest]

Normally, I would say that it's not all that worth the price to go with a paid product, but I had a virus a few weeks ago that AVG, AVAST, and MCAFEE wouldn't even find. In the end, I bought Norton online and it found the virus and cleaned it right off with 1 pass. And I could tell that a virus was on the system just from the way it behaved.

 

[CChick]

[citation][nom]lavacon[/nom]All Norton and Mcafee seem to do is cause more headaches than they solve. Compared to Avast and AVG most paid solutions seem to be nothing more over priced bloatware.[/citation]

that simply means you dont know shit about the latest and newest.

AVAST/AVG is a total joke comapare to the newest Norton.

Mcafee is still garbage, however.

 

[blackhawk1928]

I've been using AVAST for almost 5 years now. I remember when the conficker virus was all the buzz and the AVAST people were asked about what they were going to do to help prevent infections on AVAST enabled computers. I don't remember the exact quote, but they said that AVAST users with current definitions should be immune, so nothing to worry about.

AVAST + a simple script blocker (NoScript in Firefox) should prevent any spyware or malware from getting on your machine. I have no sympathy for IE users with malware problems...

5 years with AVAST, 0 infections. GO FREEWARE!

Being on an OS newer than Windows XP helps against infections also...

-Are you serious, do you really think that avast would say "You know folks, we don't have anything against the conficker so looks like you are going to be infected with it so sorry for all you avast people, we still like you but our anti-virus is pretty crappy"...think about it, of course they would say they have anti-conficker protection, if they said otherwise everyone would switch to other anti-viruses and they would lose a lot of business.

-And also, how would you ever know you have 0 infections if Avast is all that you have used?...how do you know it isn't just crapware that misses all the infections and tells you that your computer is healthy? To make statements like this, you need to try other anti-viruses as well. Once you have tried Avira,AVG,Comodo, and others then I will believe you about having 0 infections. Or wait, why don't you run a scan malwarebytes anti-malware and see if it missed anything, if malwarebytes says its clean, then i'll believe it.

 

[almostdecent]

I use a free AV/Firewall solution at the moment. I have used Norton and McAfee, but they are bloatware and resource hogs, not to mention not even offering the best protection. I tried AVG, but that is easily one of the worst, and Avira (hate hate hate those damn pop-ups) that suffers from far too many false alerts. Finally I found the hands down best:

COMODO (free AV and 64-bit firewall)

 

[MitchMeister-]

To be perfectly honest, I haven't seen a single piece of software that has not failed to prevent a system from getting infected at some point. I've worked as a PC tech for 10 years now, and have seen every single antivirus and antispyware software out there on some customers computer come in with infections and issues. I will not lie, I do see more computers with AVG and McAfee infected or broken than others. We still recommend norton antivirus here, but tell people that there is nothing out there that will protect you 100%. We also recommend Sunbelt Software's Counterspy with norton, and suggest that over norton all the time. I personally do not even use any kind of running active anti anything. But everyone's arguments on what is better is like asking people what your favorite kind of car is and what has had the least issues.

 

[scryer_360]

No. I work in tech support. Roughly half the machines I see for infections are using AVG Free 8.5, some Avast! free too. Then, maybe a quarter of them are using paid for AV but its either out of subscription period or Norton 2008 or before.

There are loads of features not included in the free programs that are actually worth it. Its been a decade since all you needed to protect yourself from a virus was to scan once a day. Heck, a good deal of research has been done showing that scans are nowadays largely ineffective: if it gets to the kernel level, its in and its not coming out unless you either can do a manual removal, or boot to a PE, mount your security logs and do a scan from there.

Of course no AV program offers 100% security, heck no bullet proof vest assures you won't get injured when shot at. But its better than nothing. My recommendation is to get something like Norton 2009 or 2010 (which is actually a good program), Kaspersky 2010 IS, or G-DATA antivirus. Then practice safe surfing, backup your important bits commonly, and wipe+reinstall your OS once every two months. If you browse every link you can click on, I'd prefer once a month.

 

[Guest]

In conjunction with an antivirus package, the absolutely BEST way to prevent infection is to either use a restricted account in Windows when surfing the web, or create a shortcut to Internet Explorer using the "runas" command so that IE runs under a restricted account. While this won't help with downloads, it does keep 99% of virii off the machine since the process does not have permissions to modify things. I manage over 250 PC's spread out at over 40 different geographic locations and these controls keep all my PC's virus-free. The only ones I ever have trouble with are those that run administrative accounts (very few PC's).

 

[x_2fast4u_x]

Kaspersky Internet Security 2010, The single best AV/Firewall ever produced.

 

[tandy_lau]

Free Anti Virus is Great! i`m using Avira AntiVir Personal, the setting i like, that i can choose this Real Time Protection module to only scan the Read files, of Write Files, or Both (default) but i`m choose to Read, so while it write or move or copy, it readed 1st so it not scan twice.. n i found at symantec 2007 or 2008 nir of this option. n at 2 office (mine, n other office that call me for help) symantec corporate cannot be uninstall(u may search google that many of this trouble). why we paid for harder our self?

 

[Guest]

I prefer the Free AVG, and the Free Comodo. Both are less intensive on the system, compared to retail versions. Yes, retail versions are great for the inexperienced home user, with all the security software
included.

Norton, well i used that religiously back in the late 80's early 90s, when it was halfway decent. Since then, it has evolved to be extremely complicated and intrusive on a system. Im sorry, if i want to adjust software or specifically move something, i don't want another program screaming at me and undoing what i just accomplished. Not to mention it is a pain in the A** to remove.

As for McAfee, it can be good at times but it also bogs down the system something fierce.

 

[Guest]

I have Norton 360 2012, and I got four Trojans that I removed with Malwarebytes, and Kaspersky .......My subscription for Norton runs out soon....and, I won't be buying it again. I came to this forum to read opinions and found one user stated that Norton users weren't here over Trojans and viruses....duh...I beg to differ🙁