are there any free anti-virus as good as the $ ones?

Question

Any free ones as good as Norton and McAfee?

Answer 1

PCTools products do get good reviews. The good thing is they have free versions of their products. They work great. Spyware Doctor from the Google pack is a must. I highly recommend it. I bought Webroots Spysweeper and spyware doctor finds stuff spysweeper does not. Having both is a perfect combo and I recommend running two anti-spyware products.

PCTools Anti-Virus
http://www.pctools.com/free-antivirus/

PCTools Threatfire - Malware Protection
This free tool makes your current anti-virus better. Definite Download
http://www.threatfire.com

PCTools Firewall Plus
http://www.pctools.com/firewall/

The Google Pack includes a free starter edition of Spyware Doctor.
http://pack.google.com/
Reviews
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136191/article.html



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You can do an online scan for viruses and spyware for free from the major vendors. Some of these require Internet Explorer to run because of Active-X

Trend-Micro
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
Computer Associates
http://www.ca.com/us/securityadvisor/pestscan/
Panda Software
http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/
Symantec Security Check
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/?langid=ie&venid=sym
Mcafee Free Scan
http://us.mcafee.com/root/catalog.asp?catid=free
Kaspersky Scanner
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner
Microsoft Protection Scanner
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-US/center/howsafe.htm?s_cid=mscom_msrt
F-Secure
http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/olsbeta.shtml
BitDefender
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html
NOD32
http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/index.php


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ANTI-SPYWARE INFORMATION
Its good to run two anti-spywares even if some extra resources are taken.

SuperAntiSpyware does an excellent job. AVG's full version gets great reviews.



Adaware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware

Microsoft Defender
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

AVG
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/avg-anti-spyware-free/lng/us/tpl/v5

Spyware Terminator 2
http://www.spywareterminator.com/

Spybot Search and Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org/

SuperAntispyware
http://superantispyware.com/


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Anti-Spyware for a cost.
Personally I bought Webroot's Spysweeper, their product is great and well worth the money. Watch Best Buy ads because sometimes it goes on sale for $10 to $15.

Webroot Spysweeper
http://www.webroot.com/consumer/compare/freeware.html?rc=4929
PCTools Spyware Doctor
http://www.pctools.com/spyware-doctor/

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ANTI-VIRUS INFORMATION
There are free anti-virus scanners availble. They work well. I like AVG and PCTools anti-viruses the best of the free anti-virus programs.

If you are not willing to spend money it is good to have some kind of anti-virus software

avg
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

avast
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

Avira AntiVir
http://www.free-av.com/

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For a Cost
This is my recommendation for anti-virus. Free are good, but they are not as accurate as the top paid anti-virus software

Top-Tier
Kaspersky
http://www.kasepersky.com

Nod32
http://www.eset.com/

Answer 2

Oh yes. Yes indeed. There are several though, so you just need to ask around and read reviews. Some of the most highly acclaimed ones are:

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.5 www.grisoft.com
Ad-Aware (Get this at www.download.com)
Spybot Search and Destroy (See the above website)

These are much better than Norton or McAfee. Norton hogs quite a bit of your memory, which would slow down your PC tremendously while using it. McAfee is from the same company, and it is the better of these two. If you ask me, you should get Ad-Aware, and AVG. This will protect you from viruses AND spyware. Best of all, they're FREE!

Answer 3

AVG is good, I install it on a lot of pcs. However, personally I like Avira Antivir better because of its higher detection rate and its rootkit detection ability. Either one of these programs will take care of VIRUSES very well. Where you need to pay close attention to these free antiviruses, is in there malware detection. Unlike paid for programs malware outside of viruses (which is determined by each vendor) are not cleaned by these free antiviruses. This is why so many people get infected while they have free antiviruses on their pcs. The way to cover the malware is by having dedicated malware scanners on your pc used in conjunction with your antivirus. Malware/spyware/trojans are far more prevalent than viruses and malware cleaners are essential for a clean pc. The 2 I suggest are Spyware Doctor Starter Edition and AVG antipsyware, both are free and will remove the malware your antivirus scanner does not detect. This will keep your pc much cleaner (and faster) than with norton or mcafee installed.

All these downloads are free and available at www.download.com.

Good Luck!

Answer 4

AVG is good but Yahoo itself has free antivirus software that I've been using for about 3 years now. I've never had a problem yet. Look at the downloads button off the yahoo page.

Answer 5

DO NOT GET AVG! you have to pay to get a good anti-virus. i use Norton, and it is great. AVG is just dead weight on your computer. I can sell you a Norton CD $20 off if you like.

Answer 6

AVG. As good if not better than the $ ones.

As good as Norton? Well if you consider hogging all the system power for security a good thing, none.

Answer 7

All of these are free for home use and will work with XP and Vista.

AVG Free is the most popular free solution available at no cost to home users and provides the high level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers.

Easy to use, low system resources
Automatic update functionality
Real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run.
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/us/frt/0

Avast-
avast! 4 Home Edition works for 60 days after the installation in demo mode. You will obtain your FREE license key by E-mail after the registration. The license key is valid for 1 year. After one year you will need to just re-register.
http://avast.com/eng/home-registration.p...

Avira-(recomended)
free-av.com – Protection and security against viruses, worms, Trojans, dialers & more.
http://www.free-av.com/

PC tools-(recomended)
PC Tools AntiVirus Free Edition feature highlights
Protects your PC as you are working, surfing and playing
Detects, quarantines, disinfects and destroys Viruses, Trojans and Worms
OnGuard™ protects your computer against threats in real-time.
http://www.pctools.com/free-antivirus/


Free spyware remover.
SUPERAntiSpyware(recomended)
SUPERAntiSpyware will remove ALL the Spyware, NOT just the easy ones!
Easily remove over 100,000 pests such as SmitFraud, Vundo, WinFixer, SpyAxe, SpyFalcon, WinAntiVirus, AntiVermins and thousands more!
http://www.superantispyware.com

Spybot - Search & Destroy detects and removes spyware.
http://www.spybot.info/



Adaware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_a...

ewido.
Go to the left of the page where it says,"Scan your computer now online
and clean it for free!"
http://www.ewido.net/en/

AVG anti-spyware-
AVG Anti-Spyware Free Edition is a popular free antispyware solution available at no cost to home users and provides a high level of detection capability.
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/20/us/frt/0

*Never install more than one anti virus, as they may conflict with each other.On the other hand, is always good to use more than one anti spyware.
*You will probably recieve several answers to your question. Whoever helped you the most,please come back and give that person Best Answer.

Answer 8

I see the AVG fanboys and cheerleaders are out in full force again here on Yahoo Answers!

AVG Anti-Virus is crap!

Mostly noobs, the naive, the computer illiterate, and children use AVG Free. People of their ilk love AVG because they say it is easy to use and almost never bothers them with any pop-ups or warnings. Of course AVG Free never bothers them, it hardly ever finds any virus to warn them about!

In test,
http://www.virus.gr/english/fullxml/default.asp?id=82&mnu=82
after test,
http://www.av-comparatives.org/
after test,
http://antivirus.about.com/od/antivirussoftwarereviews/gr/avgfree.htm
after test ,
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=891307&postcount=1,
after test,
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130869-page,1/article.html,
after test,
http://techsupportalert.com/issues/al_current.htm#Section_0,
after test,
http://winnow.oitc.com/AntiVirusPerformance.html
etc. etc. etc, ad nauseam, AVG fares poorly.

AVG has proven itself to be a miserable performer at best. Missing almost 20%, while trying to detect known malware, in some tests. Not to mention almost non-existent heuristic detection and infrequent "once-a day" updates.

There are much better free anti-virus alternatives such as Avria Anti-Vir:
http://www.free-av.com/
and Avast:
http://avast.com/eng/free_software.html

Answer 9

Yes... I use AVG and it works great.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1


You could also add Spyware Blaster for protection against spyware... http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

I occasionally do a free online scan at Trend Micro for a "second opinion" and to make sure nothing "slipped through the cracks"... http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ This scan detects and removes both viruses and spyware.

Answer 10

Yep he's right...some people acctually like it better than Norton and the others because it doesn't take over your computer...just go to avg.com/free and download it and your all set.