Free Anti-Virus Programs - Comments Page 4

Dear Bob,

Your article on various Free Virus checkers said nothing of the operating systems they support.

AVG and Avast do not support Win98/SE/ME

What do the legacy windows users do for a FREE or paid virus checker???

In future articles I would like to see a reference to Operating Systems supported by the software and hardware described.
Yours,
HB

I've been using AVG over the years and have been happy with the free product. I downloaded a newer Version 10.0.1153, AVG 2011 from filehippo.com. This new version has Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, LinkScanner, Resident Shield, E-mail Scanner, Auto-Updates, Id Protection, and Anti-Rootkit. Not a bad package for free. Enjoy!

AOL Security LOL, I just spent four hours reinstalling XPee Pro on a friends machine because of a targeted AOL hole. You get what you pay for in antivirus support. Only the big four have the resources to do the work, everybody else it's just a part time job.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The big four... hmmm... you must mean Avira, AVG, Avast and Microsoft, right?

On your recommended paid AV I can see Mc Afee and Norton (that by everyone's standard is crap), but I son't see BitDefender, that , by all standards, is a superior product. How come that you list software you say yourself is crap, but leave out good software?

Everybody always seems to slag on Norton products and I admit, a few years back, deservedly so. But the last couple of years Symantec got their act today, made the product far less bloated and you can remove it completely with no problem. I can attest to this after having used Norton Internet Security 2010 for about 10 months now and having removed and reinstalled it. By all means, don't use it if you don't want to, but you might want to give it another look.

HB: If you're running Win98/SE/ME, that alone makes you more vulnerable regardless of anti-malware protection. Microsoft no longer issues patches for those system and there are numerous IE 4/5/6 security holes that were never fixed. You really need to look seriously at upgrading unless your computer never goes online. If your computer is older and you can't afford an upgrade, consider one of the many Linux distros available, preferably something lightweight like Damn Small Linux, Crunchbang, Mint, Puppy.

what i need is a program to detect and prevent viruses which will be loaded to my 16G usb stick to protect its files from unprotected computers. My work take me to places where computers still are very much at risk for many reasons and one of them is faulty or generally "incapable" anti virus programs that are better off advertising themselves than really controlling digital pests.
Is there any ?

Bob, something that popped out of the cloud at me today was Panda Cloud Anti Virus Free.
There is a paid version as well. I've never come across this one before and it was virtually pushed on me by Secunia PSI (version 2).
I can so far discover very little about it via Google that's useful to me and I don't want to abandon my very effective Microsoft Security Essentials. I am aware of the downside to operating two AV programmes but since the Panda offering is cloud based, can these two be run together, or should I dump one of them?
Since you opinions have always been of value to me I would appreciate you advice on this question.

Used Norton (nearly all versions) for over ten years and have never had a problem.

And then the question:
What is the best program when you have a netbook?

What program is the best grogram for spam protection when you have a netbook?

COMODO INTERNET SECURITY Premuim, free Anti-Virus & Firewall belongs on the list. I have used CIS for over 3 years (previously AVG and Avira) with no intrusions. CIS seems have minimal affect on computer speed. However at first, and during installs you must deal with pop up permission requests.

Roy

Sophos Anti-Virus is free, easy to use, and effective. MacTech magazine turned me on to it.

www.sophos.com/products/free-tools/free-mac-anti-virus/

I used Panda for a couple years and it did OK, but almost impossible.

I'm using Norton, but it is expensive...
I'm very hesitant about downloading free antivirus protection

To get directly to the point - what is the best free antivirus product?

Thank you for your help

Hello Bob, I am writing from London. Whether you can offer a view will depend whether you have encountered 'Virgin' it's an isp, telephones etc. etc. I have them and they are very good. My only query is whether you have come across their anti spyware. Virgin had problems with the spyware for a while, then things bucked up.

If you have come across Virgin Media Anti-Spyware can you give me your view. It is a very heavy spyware and can be slow. I really would appreciate your professional view if you can do this. Thanks for all of the help and indeed the support often given.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I have not tried it. But if you think it's heavy and slow, why not go with a free alternative like MBAM? See http://askbobrankin.com/malwarebytes_antimalware.html

I have been using the free Avast program for about two years with no problem until last week. It stopped working completely shut down sending me a notice that my computer was unprotected. I was careful to always do updates etc. so I contacted their tech. support. After 3 hours, no kidding 3 they were not able to reinstall the program! The final tech. person a supervisor ended up installing Micro's Security Essentials so I would not be unprotected. They said I had some infections that needed to be removed professionally, offered to do it for a price. I asked several times why mine died only to be told the MSE they installed was a good product and work fine for me and my computer! Never suggested I fix the "problem infections and come back etc. Plus they had no answer why if I was using their product I got viruses in the first place!

i will be using a good one called zenok free antivirus 2012 is a good version ,nice GUI here is http://www.zenok.com/en/free-antivirus/ try and comennt :)

hai I use kasperasky trial version

hi , i think i have a trojan horse virus , when i put my flash into the comuter i found many shortcut folders named backup00M backup00G backup00D .... about 20 file , and then they goes , and when i put the same flash in another computer then i found these files , i used many antivirus and some of them detect these folder but cant find the source, are COMBOFIX software can solve the problem ? can u tell me about a free anti trojan ? plz help me

How about a 2012 update. I'm still running XP with the free AVG & ZoneAlarm. Now ZA has come out with it's own free anti virus app. Should I keep AVG w/ZA even though running two anti virus apps at the same time will slow everything down? Just drop AVG & use ZA? Or stay with the original AVG + ZA w/out ZA's anti virus?

I found your newsletter while searching for a new AV program, the one AV company I had used for about 2 years decided to turn it into ad-ware promoting a $ 10.00 upgrade to my $ 39.00 subscription of last March. About every 10 minutes a popup blasted onto my screen. I complained about it and the AV company said to just ignore it, yea right!

Anyway, thru your site I followed links to an independent software testing company that did a test of about 20+ AV programs, some free others not. I found my old AVP was on the bottom third of the list and about 1/2 of the free AVPs were better than my old AVP.

I downloaded and installed Panda on my desktop XP computer. It's a Cloud AVP. So far, I like it. It is conservative with PC resources and ranks well at detecting viruses without too many false positives.

Do you have any views about a Cloud AV program? I have reservations about putting personal information in the Cloud but I can't see much wrong with a cloud AV program.

This is their home page;
http://www.cloudantivirus.com/en/forHome/

I like your news letter also. It is shedding new light on some issues like de-fragging a hard drive that I had never considered.