free (no trial) antivirus software?

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Harkamus

Supreme [H]ardness
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Does anyone know of a free antivirus program that isn't a trial? A while ago I had a site bookmarked that had a completely free antivirus. A friend of mine needs such a program. As I am unable to go to her house, I figured I'd ask for one that she could download herself. Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
Thanks. None of those looked familiar, but they all look good and definitely suitable.
 
I like Avast. Just as good as the paid programs, only it's free. AVG isn't bad, has some really annoying tendencies, but does a competent job.
 
I fourth Avast. I have been using it on the wife's Windoze box for a while now with good results.

Keith
 
Harkamus said:
Does anyone know of a free antivirus program that isn't a trial? A while ago I had a site bookmarked that had a completely free antivirus. A friend of mine needs such a program. As I am unable to go to her house, I figured I'd ask for one that she could download herself. Any help is greatly appreciated.
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http://free.grisoft.com/ for your free AVG. AVG uses less resources when it's a 'background' process than Avast! does. AVG tends to disable itself and be too "quiet" about letting the user know whats going on. It is common place to find your AVG turned off because an update didn't complete, and not have any knowledge about that until you happen to glance at the little indicator. Scheduled virus scans that find something also tend to just "go into the scan history" without any alert (until you actually GO to test results) that there was an infection.
That being said, last I checked, AVG did not work for Vista64 (at least, the free version did not) so you may not have an option if you are running such a computer.

http://files.avast.com/iavs4pro/setupeng.exe Avast! Home Free. Can run BEFORE windows starts. Do your self a favor, and disable sounds, cause there's nothing more likely to give you a heart attack than a 3:00am scan that has a Klaxon going off and screams "Warning! Virus Found!" Avast uses many resources, even idle.




AntiVir, IMHO, is under-effectve, and has missed way too many viruses for me to trust it.

On regular systems that I feel are less likely to get infections, and are currently virus free, in the first place, I tend to use AVG.

I use avast when it's an ALREADY infected system because of the boot-time scan function.

I use avast + avg in "frequent offenders" for clients who get themselves infected OFTEN.

I also sell both applications, and have a partnership with grisoft.
 
I used to put AVG or Avast on every client's machine, but I noticed Avast can really chug away on P4 or lower machines. I switched over to Clam Win AV and it's been VERY good so far. Utterly free as well, andMUCH lighter weight than Avast

http://www.clamav.net/
 
I've used both AVG and AntiVir. Noobs that I have built machines for seem to prefer AVG. I've never used Clam Win AV. I'll have to give that a try.
 
Active Virus Shield is pretty good and easy to use. Don't let the AOL co-branding scare you away... it's really just the "lite" version of Kaspersky. :)
 
FYI There's a legal crack of NOD32 (it changes a registry value, which is legal) - you don't feel clean when you do something like that though. I think Avast has become more bloated over time, it used to appeal more to me.
 
Been using and recommending AVG for a couple of years withous issues, so thats my recommendation :D
 
ChingChang said:
Or you can pay the ~$35 to show your support for such great software.
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Well I do agree with you (as I said about the dirty feeling of stealing). I was just getting it out in the open that one does exist, although for the 35 dollars it costs for NOD32 why not buy it? It is a good thing to support this sort of software.
 
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