Best security for free.

[claylomax]

I've been using Avira for some time now; AVG has become bloatware.

 

[Solaris17]

Nice! we made it to page 2 I've been waiting for TPUs 2014 AV security audit.

 

[icmk]

Name kinda says it all. I'm looking around for the "best" antivirus/malware/spyware program that won't give me issues or use too much resources. I tried Avast! for a while but just kinda, bogged stuff down.

MSE works fine and I use it on a couple of my machines but it only has a signature based scanner and a behaviour blocking module. Top of the line antimalware nowadays usually include some form of cloud-based/crowd-sourced black/white list that can respond faster to threats.

I been using Panda Cloud AV Free for a few years on my main desktop without too many problems (I don't know of an AV that doesn't cause a problem or 2 if you use it long and hard enough, it's a nature of the beast), a recent upgrade seems to have caused the occasional slowdown but things are improving and definitely worth a look.

Note that most malwares are pretty tame if they cannot run with ADMIN privileges and web-borne drive-bys don't work without scripting.

 

[remixedcat]

Common Sense 2014 Enterprise edition

 

[RealNeil]

I used AVAST for years. MSE for a while, and now it's WebRoot SecureAnywhere. While it's not technically free, I bought 6 licences on a Newegg sale for about $20.00

You can get three licences at WalMart for $20.00 all the time.

This works really well and uses very little system resources.
Online JAVA crap doesn't stand a chance while using this.

 

[Guitar]

Microsoft Security Essentials http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download
and
MalwareBytes https://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/

I use these both of these, pretty good combo I think.

I install these on every PC I work on. MWB Pro is the best bang for you buck software available IMO so I put it on for every non-techie user and everybody at work.

 

[RealNeil]

McAfee antivirus is best for computer, tab and laptops. Many security packs are available on internet. You can download in free.

McAfee went down the tubes a long time ago. Now that Intel owns them, I thought about trying them out again, but I still don't trust the name enough to risk any of my PCs.

 

[Toothless]

McAfee antivirus is best for computer, tab and laptops. Many security packs are available on internet. You can download in free.

Actually. It's one of the worst that I've seen. Big, slow, and bulky. You can never remove the dumb thing easily and most uneducated people pay too much for something they know nothing of.

 

[Warrgarbl]

I like Avast!. The detection rates are on par with the other top free solutions, system impact is low and - most importantly - you can switch off any and all notifications except for the usual screen when something was found. I like unintrusive software and Avast! is really good at that.

 

[Toothless]

So I just put BitDefender on my laptop and it found something that Avast! didn't. A "bit" surprised..

 

[RealNeil]

I like unintrusive software and Avast! is really good at that.

Agreed, and WebRoot SecureAnywhere is even better. (the best that I've ever used) WalMart has it for three computers at a cost of $19.99 and that's a steal.

 

[remixedcat]

I got 40 copies of WSA so if anyone wants a copy I'll be holding a contest soon !!!

 

[silkstone]

Why not just get Kaspersky AV? It's only $5 and works better than every free one I've seen.

 

[MyTechAddiction]

Since the browser is the main entry point i now use Google Chrome. And EMET

 

[HammerON]

MSE/Defender.

 

[RealNeil]

I got 40 copies of WSA so if anyone wants a copy I'll be holding a contest soon !!!

once they try it out for a year, they'll be hooked.

 

[MakeDeluxe]

I like avira but their ads were getting way too annoying. I'm using Avast now.

They stopped using the ads quite a long time ago

 

[hat]

I'm giving this Panda Cloud a try. It claims to be very light on resources, because most of the processing is done off in the Panda Cloud. Evidently, the cloud runs a realtime AV protection and is constantly scanning your system. Of course you can use it to immediately start a scan of your own whenever you want, either a "Full Scan", "Critical Scan", or a custom scan. These scans however did appear to use my own resources and not the cloud's.

Has anyone else used Panda? Any thoughts on it?

 

[hat]

Anyone got anything to say about Panda? So far I can't say anything about it other than so far it's been unobtrusive, quietly and constantly scans in the background (albeit very slowly), seems to do quick scans when I initiate one myself... I suppose the cloud idea is neat but I'm not sure even my computer would take a big enough hit from other AVs I would use to notice any difference anyway.

 

[McSteel]

I have MSE installed with real-time protection off. It's there just for the sake of context-menu scans for when I'm not entirely convinced something's safe, and I can't be bothered to upload it to virustotal or jotti. Been meaning to try out the VT Hash check tool, but I suppose I'm just too lazy.

As for entry points, disabled autorun for all drives, have an autorun.inf folder with all permissions removed on all NTFS volumes (local disks and portable storage), use a hosts file from here, use firefox 28 with Java disabled (via quickjava extension), and adblock plus present.

Haven't had an infection in years.

I'm planning on building a small router (probably one of those Atom-based SoC mITX mobos in a mITX chassis with a pico-PSU) using pfSense or maybe IPFire if FreeBSD won't play ball with the newest hardware... The idea is to use host blocking, ClamAV realtime checking, rogue Java and ActiveX applet blocking and context-sensitive ad blocking at the internet entry-point, specialized for the task and centralized for any machine used in the house.

If and when I do this, I'll probably make a post about it on the forum, explaining as much as I can be bothered to.

 

[hat]

A little more experience with Panda...

Firstly, the typical false positives. Panta thought Battlefield 2 was a virus! (something about cdcheck.exe or somesuch during install...)

Panda cleaned my fiancee's computer successfully. She complained about "ads" all over the game site Pogo. At first I thought "well that's real ignorant" considering not only does Pogo effectively force you to disable adblock to use it, but we paid for their subscriber service with which ads weren't supposed to be present. I got mad too because she is an epileptic and a lot of ads tend to flash! I thought it was odd, though, because I wasn't getting ads there... and then she showed me what was happening. Strange popups, some of them featuring the typical "your computer is infected" nonsense... yeah it sure was. Panda succeeded where MSE failed here... although to be fair I never ran a scan with MSE (and I didn't bother looking to see when the last scan was), I just uninstalled MSE, installed Panda, did a full scan, and it found 11 objects... it cleaned them and this eliminated the "ads".

Again, I didn't bother scanning with MSE, or check to see when the last scan date was... I wanted to put Panda on her computer anyway because it's supposed to be ultra-light on resources. I say MSE failed because whatever it was however it got on there it snuck past MSE...