Free Anti-Virus software...do you get what you pay for?

I have been using a free AV for almost 3 years now. It is called AVG and is available as a free download from www.grisoft.com . The updates are also free. It has been very effective when kept up to date in my experience, and in some cases has found things that Nortons and MacAfee have missed. AVG uses an interesting feature that it calls 'Hueristic Scanning', where it looks at code for certain criteria that applies to most virii, supposedly giving it the ability to detect virii that are not in its database. I am curious as to if any other AO menbers have used this product, or any other free AVs for that matter, and what their thoughts and impressions are. Any takers?

Ive been using AVG for a year and a half now, and its worked great for me. Its snagged many email worms and viri, and even found some old crusty viri on stuff I transferd to my compuer across my lan. It scans nightly, and updates once a week. As far as AV goes, im pretty pleased with AVG's performance.

I have installed AVG on my parents machine. It has worked great for them updates by itself and detects all virii.

Free can be good its about making the right decision

AVG kicks ass. If you planning to shell out money for a virus scanner you should a least try AVG first.

I had used a free antivirus before. It was called PE antivirus or something in that style (old gozilla versions made advert for it) but it was too bad (bad virus definition list).
Now I'm using KAV but as it crashs my Windows I think I will try AVG.

I too am another happy AVG user. I run it on my wifes' XP Pro box and it's never let us down...

inoculate PE kisscool??

i got avg and it was full of adware, and popups, and im sure u get heuristic scanning techiques in most AV scanners. but i do love Trojan first aid kit which is free and works well


Preep

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Originally posted here by preep
inoculate PE kisscool??

i got avg and it was full of adware, and popups, and im sure u get heuristic scanning techiques in most AV scanners. but i do love Trojan first aid kit which is free and works well


Preep

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I've yet to see the first pop-up generated by AVG, so this is news to me. I've run both AdAware and SpybotSearch&Destroy, neither of which detected any adware associated with AVG. I could well be wrong here, but I suspect the ads came from something else other than AVG.

hi

for my sole windows box i have a free AV called free AV (free-av.com). i don't know if its the same as the one you guys are using, but its not too bad. when i had used it for work purposes (i should register them one day) it found klez and elkerns that NAV and McAfee had missed. it doesn't appear to take up that much of windows' resources either.

regards,
mark.

I have to concur AVG is a great free virus scanner Ive used it now for quite some time and like it better than Mcfee or Norton. It is easy to set up and can be set to automaticlly run or download updates. So far its found one virus in my daughters email before she had a chance to open it.

Preep - I would suggest running adaware on your machine. My parents never get pop ups from AVG.
The stories here just go to show that free software can somethimnes be better because they know they wont get any money out of for any bug fixes.

avg all around for me too, ive got it on my 2 boxes (one on win 98 SE, other on XP pro) and on my parents box that also uses 98 SE, havnt had a single problem with it at all even in xp (dont need no compat mode either)

good thing about it is you get updates as well as the virus program, as its well known its not much use having an av progam without keping it updated, the update only takes about 5 mins to get too so they have the idea of accessible free virus protection for peeps who dont want to spend $100 on something that can be had for free anyway

and now getting to the topic in discussion here, no you dont get what you pay for coz you dont pay for it, except if you want to include the charge for your net access and phone calls :-), not very often you get something for nothing these days

GOD BLESS FREE PRODUCTS

Another vote for AVG. We have it on both of our computers. I've read numerous reviews on AVG antivirus and I think, in conjunction with Tiny Personal Firewall (also free), you can't go wrong. Nothing is 100% but the combination is very good.

WOW so many people are saying good things about this antivirus so i'm gonna have to check it out thx :D

I use BitDefender.....easy to use...unobtrusive....automatic updates...no problems!!

I've put it thru alot of tests.

tons of fun

:killcompu. i used mclaughee and i had one puter crash. im going to have to try AVG. if its as good as everyone here says i think i might be happy.

From what ive heard AVG is one of the best free anti-virus scanners out there. Norton has a feature simliar to AVG's 'Hueristic Scanning', called 'Bloodhound Virus Detection Technology', although im not too sure how it measures up.

avg in my opinion is in my opinion an excellent virus scanner, in some cases possibly better than some payed for commercial virus scanners. of course you also have the added bonus of free updates. i use avg alongside my mcafee virus scanner just to make sure nothing slips onto my comp that shudent be there :P

Thanks friends. I was just starting to look around for an anti-virus for my new XP machine and i think ill give this AVG a shot. 24% downloaded right now. Thanks again.

free

paying for software is a new consept for me.


everything is free if you know how.

i have used avg and free - av both . i liked free av for fact that it gets updated more quickly than avg (what i mean is avg gets updated weekly whereas free-av in 4-5 days and someitmes that can matter)

hey dev_ocean...AVG can be configured to check for updates daily...it's not locked in to weekly updates....just a friendly FYI

I dint like AVG just wasnt my hting i liek norten i got it on sale for like 20$ so...

I have heard people rave about AVG, I havent personally tried it but I do recommend it to people when they ask about free AntiVirus software. I have PC-Cillian 2002 which seems to doing a pretty good job at the moment. One day I might just look into AVG and see how it compares to the others.

i thought pc cillin was good as well.although i dont use it my self you cant go far wrong with it,
i think its best feature is its email scanner and virus submision.however the firewall kinda sucks.