Am using Norton free for 30 day trial but my computer is really slow. Running 7 Windows Home Premium on a 4/5 year old computer. Wonder do you recommend Avast or AVG or other, the Norton is making my computer really slow. thanks
Is there a good FREE anti virus?
hsk on 28/10/2013 - 15:19
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yup
Avast is better than AVG (connection issues and ads) or Avira (didn't detect virus in my PC, Avast did)
Zone Alarm and AVG are good free anti virus software. However you should also look into getting a good malware scanner, and for that I recommend the free version of Malwarbytes Anti Malware or MBAM.
Zone Alarm actually uses Kaspersky, so it is pretty good.
What about Microsoft Security Essentials? That's free.
but not good….jk it's okay, but I personally prefer avast.
Can you please explain what you mean by not good? I am always keen to learn something new. :)
Microsoft Security Essentials is not 'bad', but it's not 'good'.
To explain, Security Essentials is provided as a baseline. It does the basic job, and it does it in a pretty transparent and non-obtrusive way.
It is consistently slightly behind other more AV-focused vendors, but then again all AV vendors are consistently behind the malware creators, so it's a little bit disingenuous to suggest that's a good reason to avoid MSE.
To be fair, it's free, it's fast, it's quiet, and it'll do most of what needs to be done. The scanning engine itself is second to none.
I've been using it for several years and never had a virus infect my PC, and even when something is threatening it catches it.
The scanning engine itself is second to none.
but it's not 'good'
????
Source?
I think MSE is a good compromise between not having any AV because of cost and performance impact and having a decent level of protection.
It's not a high tech forcefield, but it's good enough unless you're constantly walking into malware deliberately.
seconding MSE. All the free ones end up getting painful about upgrades or advertising. MSE just works and is pretty low footprint.
Good thing about MSE is it is known as defender in Windows 8, and included by default in 8.1, meaning that most people (your everyday non warez/porn/pirate downloading individual) effectively don't even need to worry about an antivirus :) I think that's a pretty good move as long as they keep the program effective.
I've been using it for years. It's a great program and doesn't take up too many resources.
MSE has gotten a lot worse since it first came out, and gets quite a poor rating in recent independant virus scanner tests.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/384394/microsoft-securi…I use Avast, but check out the ratings at av-test to see which come out on top in their testing
no donot used microsoft security essentials
I recommend this one just because it's not always in your face, blocking everything and installing other crap on top. Also, it's detection rate is not bad so long as you keep it updated and scan with it occasionally.
The real-time detection isn't as good.I would recommend ESET if you were going to buy something. Norton is the worst.
I've been using Avira for years. So far so good.
Good review from CNET.com
http://download.cnet.com/Avira-Free-Antivirus-14/3000-2239_4…
I can highly recommend this anti virus.
Microsoft Security Essentials or Avast.
Avira is good, but the advertising it does puts most people off.
Another vote for MSE. Light footprint and "good enough" detection for most people. Unless you're downloading lots of 0-day warez/sketchy pr0n/silk road where site blocking and/or heuristic detection might be more important, in my opinion you're just wasting resources.
I'd also recommend coupling MSE with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware or Spybot Search-and-Destroy to eliminate things that aren't "viruses" per se, but are still annoying nonetheless e.g. bonzibuddy and so on.
I would use MSE too.
MSE
where do you download from or just google it and click on the link
I like Avast. No advertising. You just need to re-register every year. Don't even need to use a real email address.
http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-8/janfeb-2…
I'd go with AVG
Decide for yourself I guess.
I use MS Security Essentials which seems to keep all my systems virus free. If someone at work tries really hard to infect a work PC by clicking on EXE email attachments I use combofix to remove the malware. Combofix looks crude but is almost magic in how well it works. I've found Malwarebytes doesn't remove everything but combofix sure does.
I used to use AVG but found it slowed down most PCs on which it ran by quite a large amount when lots of small files were loaded on a regular basis.
Peerblock is also very useful to select which IP's are blocked/allowed when using bittorrents.
mse+comodo
OS X Mavericks lol..
but you need to buy a whole new machine which destroy the purpose of getting cheap anti-virus
Um you can install OSX on a PC, and Linux is free.
Been using MSE for years, very happy with it. the important thing is to practice safe computing, ie don 't open unkown attachment, careful about clicking links and keep your windows patches up todate etc.
If your computer runs slow, consider:
- Reinstalling Windows.
- Upgrading to an SSD ($99)
- Trim start up programs.
You could also spend all your time trying to debug Windows and getting rid of all the malware using MalwareBytes, Windows Malware removal tool et cetera, but this generally takes just as long as a Windows reinstall, and there is no 100% guarantee that you've removed everything — traces can remain.
If your computer is heavily infected (making it slow), I would simply backup your stuff, and wipe / reimage the whole system.
That's what I do at work — clients bring their laptops in, complains about slow speed, we just image their computer via SCCM (after backing up their user profile folders).
This is a more guaranteed way of removing malware that even the best AV's will miss. It also takes less time to scan your backup data for viruses than it does to sift through the entire C:\ directory.I agree. I have sometimes spent more time removing spyware than it would take doing a fresh install.
The most time consuming part of a reinstall is generally installing all your software and configuring your settings.
I suggest people learn to make system images. I keep 3 types of systen images of my machine.
1. A clean install with current updates
2. Clean unnatural plus all my software
3. Periodical images so I can revert back to a time before the issues aroseThat way if you run into any issues you can be up and running again in 10mins
Ninite is also a time saver too and is a good way of 'deploying' up to date software to a machine, after imaging.
I always get my folks to only use Ninite whenever they want to install something, because Ninite automatically says no to all the toolbars and bloatware. And everything an average user needs is listed on Ninite.com, which is great.
Ninite is a godsend! The only problem is lack of custom install location =(
Good advice you have here.
Just one question. What if the user profiles are infected and they are migrated to the reformat state?
we're only an IT helpdesk, we're not security experts. Don't really have the time to spend hours debugging and cleaning malware off a person's data — if they get re-infected, the we just do a wipe.
If Sophos / Norton / MalwareBytes says the backup data is clean, then we assume that it's good to go back onto the client's machine.
Another advantage of regularly fresh installing is getting rid of all the legitimate programs you no longer use but have installed over time.
Nothin' nicer than a clean system—feels like you've upgraded the hardware!
I don't use any anti-virus software what-so-ever. Never have and never will. I do use a firewall though which is the inbuilt windows one.
You might not browse any suspicious sites, don't pirate games or movies and be extremely careful with downloading things off the net, but that doesn't mean you have zero risk of getting a virus.
Chris Hoffman from HowTo Geek writes: http://lifehacker.com/why-you-should-use-antivirus-even-if-y…
Many people think that you can only get malware by downloading suspicious files, running unpatched software, visiting the wrong websites, and doing other irresponsible things like having the Java plug-in enabled in your web browser. It’s true – this is how most people pick up malware. But this isn’t the only way malware can spread.
We have previously written about “zero-day” exploits – vulnerabilities that the bad guys find first. Ones we don’t know about, which we can’t protect ourselves from. At events like Pwn2Own and Pwnium, contestants are challenged to compromise fully patched software like Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Adobe Flash, and more for a financial reward. These browsers and plug-ins inevitably fall as the contestants use unpatched security flaws to crack their security.
These flaws are corrected as soon as they’re found, but new ones inevitably pop up.
In other words, your computer could be infected just from you visiting a website. Even if you only visit websites you trust, the website itself could be compromised – something that happens with alarming frequency these days.
If you think about this carefully — how many security vulnerabilities do you think a well-visited site such as Ozbargain, Steam, News.com.au and Whirlpool have? Probably not many at any given time, but there is still a risk.
Hell, for almost a whole year msy.com.au was infected with a javascript trojan dropper. (SQL injected).
Plenty of reasons to run one.
Just disable every shield on AVAST except the WEB SHIELD if you want light.
I haven't had a virus in over 10 years (oldies might remember the Blaster worm that made firewalls essential).. but I still use MSE because I'm not that brazen :P
That's rediculous statement. Even Security expert have antivirus or some sort of software to protect themselves from attack.
You can still catch virus even if you never use internet. You can get virus from let's say an infected USB, or an unkown program u install. (Unless u r a security and IT expert)
Actually, many experts don't bother with AV software.
http://www.itproportal.com/2012/03/05/security-professionals…
Those articles are a little misleading and a tad irresponsible. These experts are most probably running unix or at least MAC, which is very popular in the IT Security space. For any average Joe runnning any flavour of Windows you are absolutely doing yourself a disservice by not having at least MSE (My personal fav too).
Also, this 0 day stuff isn't really that much of a problem for home systems. Anyone cluey enough to develop one is going to target much bigger guys. Your computer doesn't have anything a hacker with a 0 day would want.
Most compromises are from websites or systems with vulnerabilities many months/years old.Yes, I'm another one of those IT Security consultants that seem to be ubiquitous on these forums :)
Irresponsible? They're clear that average Joe should still use strong AV.
| "…end users of course still need to make use of the stalwart of online security…"
Also, Macs and Unix get plenty of viruses and malware, albeit proportionally less than Windows. (You're an IT security consultant and you don't know this? ;) On top of that there is all that evil stuff out there that is platform-independent, like phishing scams.
I said "tad", which means a little.
That stuff is in the second section after the attention grabbing headline that you might only read, they don't mention the OSes that the experts use.
They glorify the non-use of AV, and don't say these guys are probably using single use OSes or VMs to do any banking or sensitive on-line stuff.
Phishing scams won't get blocked by AV, unless they contain a malicious payload as well.
And like in all posts on the internet, I know more than I can write here and DON'T know everything. Happy to learn, but these things are apparent in these articles.
Huh? Most AV software will definitely attempt to protect against phishing attacks without a payload using simple URL blocking. Norton has Site Safety, AVG has Surf Shield, Kaspersky incorporates the PhishTank database, etc. Again, how do you not know this as a security consultant? ;)
There's a significant difference between not knowing everything, and not knowing the basics.
thanks chose to install Avast free version and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware now just need to get rid of Norton.
use Revo Uninstaller to get rid of Norton (and other programs). It's free and works very well. The standard Windows uninstaller, and the ones included with the software you're getting rid of, usually leave heaps of junk behind.
Also don't forget a firewall. Avast free version doesn't have one. I variously use ZoneAlarm, Comodo, and PC Tools. ZA is probably best. Comodo drives you mad asking you if you want to allow stuff. PC Tools, I'm not even sure if it is still free but it's easy to use and unobtrusive.
other…. ubuntu
Free Internet Security for NetBank customers
With McAfee® Internet Security, you’ll enjoy award-winning software that will protect you online, all the time. And it’s free for six months.
https://www.commbank.com.au/security-privacy/online-security…—
I personally use the free Microsoft one. However, I think it came last in some recent tests.I would also recommend you try EMET 4.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2458544I use Avast for over 5 years now, it is really good as AV, then Malwarebytes for Anti-Malware.
You can Get 90 days trials from norton as well for pretty much all product. What i do is i use 90 days free trial for norton 360 2013 and than for norton antivirus 2013 and than norton internet security 2013. And than next years new 2014 products are launched so keep repeating the the cycle.
Thanks DarryID am looking into the firewall now. ZoneAlarm sounds good, thanks oh and Revo to uninstall the pesky Norton, thanks
Which is better MSE or KIS ?
I know KIS s paid anti virus but its kind heavy and slow down my laptop (I am using vista)KIS has more features, like a firewall, anti-spam filter, email security and boot-time scan. Also has extra stuff like anti-theft, anti-phishing filter, and parental controls. It's more secure, but it's also more resource intensive. An SSD upgrade will usually solve the problem, since using an antivirus means there's also more disk activity.
MSE is fairly basic — your everyday Home Brand antivirus app.
thanks for the info, I will keep the KIS and I will try to upgrade to SSD soon but not sure if its worth it or no as the laptop around 4 years old.
You can transplant the SSD from your old laptop to your future one, if you decide to upgrade.
torrent
Apart from a few false positives I haven't had too much of an issue with avast.
I would recommend it.
Dr web curit is all you need. No AV can prevent a stupid user, but you need a good scan every now and then and what is better than the company that discovered the mac virus.
Avira.
AVG + Malwarebytes combo..
If you prefer your automatic Windows Updates to be turned off, don't install Microsoft Security Essentials.
Last time I checked, Microsoft Security Essentials insisted that Windows Updates were turned on in order to use this antivirus. Windows Updates are a total waste of time & bandwidth (IMHO) and I prefer to only install the updates I absolutely need rather than play with the stability of my system in all-you-can-eat update fashion.
The big 3 free antivirus packages are: Avira, AVG & Avast.
www.avira.com
www.avg.com
www.avast.comRemember to negotiate the maze of "install this toolbar" or "install our Internet Security product" or "install Google Chrome" as the case may be. Be sure to get the free version and not the 'free trial' of their Internet Security products. Their free versions are just advertisements for their other upsell products. If you can live with the obstacles getting it on your system, they are worth it. Avira & Avast were the leaner alternatives, last time I compared them.
In any case, I tend to do a slow & deliberate custom install to make sure I only get what I want installed.
if you are a Westpac customer, you can download Bitdefender with a 1 year subscription.
For reviews of the "Best Free Antivirus Software", check out:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-anti-virus-softwar…
And as mentioned by others, av-test.org rate and rank the antivirus products on protection, performance and usability:
Windows 7: http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-7/mayjun-2…
Windows 8: http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-8/janfeb-2…
The short of it is that Avast stands out for free software, and maybe AVG for Windows 8 (except for the slow scan speeds). And as others have stated, MSE has relatively poor protection.
My vote and the vote of many in the IT industry is Avast! if going down the free route.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-anti-virus-softwar…
http://www.techradar.com/au/news/software/applications/best-…
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/buying-advice/security/3456902/be…
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/software/379729/avast-free-an…The biggest problem is it doesn't contain a full protection suite because it is free, paying for the upgrades can be worth it. Turn on silent/gaming mode and you don't hear from it. It has the functionality to help you update other software on your system.
Microsoft Security Essentials is not great at all, it is a fine free anti-virus but not good as it's zero day exploits is poor.
Other tips use:
- MalwareBytes, it is a free tool and great at getting rid of crap-ware.
- CCleaner, remove junk from your PC, be careful what options you use especially if you like your websites to store your passwords.
- Defraggler, if you have an old style hard drive (not SSD) defrag that hard drive for a speed boost.
- Anti-virus removal tools, even if you've uninstalled them, make sure the last traces are gone.Also if you are using an old OS like Windows XP, don't have your main account as an administrator. Create an admin account and have your own account as a Power User, when you need to install applications type a password in.
To be honest, just go MSE.
Be smart with how you browse the web and you won't get viruses.
Guys… I bought Kaspersky Internet Security (AV+firewall) for $18. It is the best on the market, other AV don't get all the virus (although it is rare). If you really want a free solution: Comodo (firewall ) and Avast (AV). MSE has a good reputation (same as Avast).
Great price on Kaspersky. How did you get it so low? Thanks. Standard price is normally around $50.
Unfortunately, MSE is not as great as it used to be. Even Microsoft state as much and recommend installing something better:
http://lifehacker.com/microsoft-admits-that-third-party-anti…
http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-7/mayjun-2…
OEM version. You can find it pretty much anywhere: ijk.com.au, computeroneline.com.au, pc case gear, etc.
ZoneAlarm uses the Kaspersky engine, and is free, plus it comes with a great Firewall.
Another hint: virustotal.com
You can upload a suspicious file and the website will scan it with 22 anti virus. It works nicely. Also update adobe and java, they are know for security issues.
what about av for android? I'm using Avast and it seems okay
MSE combined with Chrome (or any browser that forces updates) with ad blockers installed and researching what programs you are installing should be sufficient (taking note not to install the extras that some apps default to, like toolbars etc.) Always update and remove old versions of Java.
This has worked fine for me for several years (prior to MSE I used avast and avira) without any infection, the only "detections" I get are from tracking cookies and other non-viruses like "hack-tools" (aka patch tools). I was an avid user of pirated wares for trials and such so I had a fair amount of exposure to getting infected, but a little reading of comments would inform me if I needed to run the tools in a sandbox (see Sandboxie) or not to prevent actually getting infected.
As for those on networks, set up a strict firewall; only unblock ports you are actively using. I believe I was using Comodo firewall, which prompts you to allow or deny access every time something new tries to access the net inbound and outbound to build its set of rules. If anything I would suggest blocking everything for the local network apart from windows file share, network printing, and anything else you actually use.
TL;DR:
Chrome + adblock + web of trust(WOT).
Update and remove old versions of Java.
Sandboxie.
Comodo Firewall.
Read the comments before clicking/installing.I'm pretty similar, except no MSE or adblockers and I found Comodo too pesty, much preferring the built-in Advanced Windows Firewall. I avoid Java apps altogether.
Sanboxie looks very interesting, thanks!
Comodo use to have a sandbox built in, but they removed it. I think the gist of reasoning were along the lines of "no one really used the feature and it's not needed with our awesome firewall".
1a. Use Ninite to install applications
http://ninite.com/1b. Patch your systems frequently. Secunia PSI will scan your system and warn and install the latest patches for most applications (stuff that Ninite doesn't install for you)
http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/Install EMET -> this will stop a fair number of zero day hacks. NB - it is not bulletproof and needs a tiny bit of fiddling.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/security/archive/2013/06/17/now-a…
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/jj653751Don't run as administrator - run as a normal user.
Use Chrome rather than IE. (IE11 with auto-update is okay now)
Disable Java, Flash, Adobe PDF reader, etc for your browser of choice.
5a. If you must have all the Flash, etc, run it a browser that you only visit trusted sites (eg banking, etc).
If you are really paranoid, install a browser and other critical stuff onto a portable USB that has the write-switch and turn it to read-only.
http://portableapps.com/Use a firewall (assuming you don't have a firewall on your home router/adsl)
8a. Sophos UTM home user license is free and comes with 10+ client installs + mobile install. UTM requires a spare PC with two NICs. You can install it on a virtual machine, get the license key for the AV and turn off the UTM. It requires some fiddling and is probably overkill for most people, but it can scan downloads, block malicious sites, etc.
http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-utm-h…8b. Otherwise use or any of the virus packages that the other fine folks have recommended, including MSE
Personally I find it better to use an on-demand virus scanner, browsing dodgy sites sandboxed and a tight firewall open only to what I let in and out. All sensitive data encrypted and backed up.
All those years of using Norton, McAfee, Avast, AVG, Kapersky and one or two others, I found the ongoing annoyance from these is worse than viruses themselves.
Sort of reminds me of doing self-defense classes and being continually bruised and sore. I'd just rather get a good a## whipping every so often.
All (or most) antivirus software can be operated in on-demand mode. Just disable their resident modules.
Real-time protection however is pretty much how antiviruses work to secure your system. Going with on-demand means switching from a 'proactive' measure (prevent the threat) to a 'reactive' measure (respond to a threat).
By the time you detect that you have a virus or worm on your system with a on-demand scan, chances are you've been infected for some time and the infection is at a point where removal can be difficult, and time consuming.
At least with real-time scanning, files that you download onto your computer are scanned in real time, and the antivirus can block the download from being completed.
This is why real-time protection is pretty much required; it is like choosing not to lock your car door — the bad guys can still hijack your car.For e.g you can try this downloading this EICAR test file. A good antivirus will scan this file before it's allowed to be saved to your drive. If you're relying on a on-demand scanner, you wouldn't know this was an infected file after you have done your manual scans.
+1. and I downloaded the file to test.
Yeah, I used to spend my life temporarily disabling the resident modules so I could execute false-positives. I just don't want the software on my machines, full stop.
In over 20 years of using Windows pretty much 80 hours a week visiting the dodgiest of dodgy sites, I've been infected, sure, but I've never had a hard-drive cleaned out, data suspiciously disappear, nor seen any evidence of my details being stolen. If someone wants to track websites I've been to or run some trojan that gets stopped by my firewall, go for it.
But I've had anti-virus software delete false-positives (thank you) plus also true-positives that I indeed wanted.
Compared to the loss of work I've had from blackouts, application crashes from known bugs and hard-drives going down between backups, for me the minimal additional risk of a major damage from a virus is just not worth the all the niggling issues that come with AV software.
The EICAR test file: well Chrome warns me it might be malicious before attempting to download it. I don't have autoopen enabled for filetypes, and for the ton of files Chrome would miss, I'd run it sandboxed or upload the file to virustotal before executing it (I don't even have an on-demand checker installed locally).
Agree removal is difficult once they're in so I don't even try, preferring just to put a clean OS image on and get rid of all the other rot at the same time.
Hi, I use Sophos for Anti-Virus, but for some reason, it was disabled. My computer was very slow, I did research then I used this http://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-adware-popup-ads/ to get rid of the malwares. My computer is normal now.
didnt think ill type this but buy a mac, they never get viruses its been proved, that is why they are the best
didnt think ill type this but buy a mac, they never get viruses its been proved, that is why they are the best
Poor attempt at trolling
LOL
OMG Mac's do getting f%^king viruses!!!
Is that the kind of response you were wanting?
Norton Symantec/Trend Micro for free (or profit) when EOFYs come.
hi, just wondering about Malwarebytes Anti-Malware it expired a few days ago? was that meant to happen? can I sign up again? thanks
Sounds like you might've been using the 14 day Pro trial. Install the free version?
MSE pretty darn ordinary 6/10 avast avira 8/10 , I got tired of the nag ads /re registering
been using 360 Internet security[not Norton!] for 6 months & very happy free. no ads. —it uses 3 scanners BITDENDER is one of them — the test file got nabbed before it hit the desktop [screenshot] http://tinypic.com/r/2vnjnft/5
& protects against Cryptlockeroops typo Bitdefender
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Personally, I found Avast is a bit faster than AVG.