Decent FREE antivirus program?

jagermeister73

So I think i just downloaded a trojan from official WoW forums. Probably a key logger though all I did was visit a linked website from the forums and didn't download any type of .exe. Still I don't want to take a chance and was wondering, and I'm sure this is a shot in the dark but is there such a thing as a decent FREE antivirus program?

tsmvengy

I use Avast and feel like it works pretty well.

Alternatively, you could try: http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Natheo

AVG is also a solid program.

Rohan

I put in another vote for Avast!. I used to use AVG, but Avast! is awesome.

Rigor Mortis

AVG, Avast!, Antivir, lots of options.

PC Tools Antivirus also looks interesting. http://www.pctools.com/free-antivirus/?utm_source=majorgeeks&utm_medium=text&utm_content=title&utm_campaign=freeav


Good source for downloads is here:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads29.html

Khavall

Fourthing or whatever it is by now, AVG and Avast. I used to use AVG, I switched to Avast just to see how it was, and really, both work well. The only problem I have with Avast is that sometimes I have for one reason or another the volume turned up all the way on my computer and Avast gives a helpful "Virus database has been updated" chime that's a little on the loud side.

Just_Bri_Thanks

Also, nothing stopping you from using more than one; but there are a few things you should keep in mind.

Don't use more than one at the same time. This includes resident portions that do background scans. They tend to trip over each other.

If you have one program quarantine a possible virus, another program may detect the items in the first's quarantine folder.

jagermeister73

thanks guys I picked up avast pro and seems to work well no viruses detected. I did the windows startup scan is that good enough? Just paranoid about a keylogger trojan.

Rohan

You should probably let it scan your entire system. Go watch a film or something until it's done.

grrarg

And run Spybot Search & Destroy or some other anti-spyware too, just to be sure.

Anon the Felon

Linux is a great anti-virus....sorry couldn't help myself.

As for windows Anti-virus, my vote goes to Nod32, yes its NOT free, but seriously...the free stuff is kind of dodgy, 20 bucks for a year of one of the best virus catchers out there seems like a fair deal.

Rohan

Shame on you for calling AVG and Avast! dodgy!

McCly

I use a combo of AVG, CCleaner and AdAware. I guess it gets the job done.

JohnDoe

Anon the Felon wrote: »

Linux is a great anti-virus....sorry couldn't help myself.

As for windows Anti-virus, my vote goes to Nod32, yes its NOT free, but seriously...the free stuff is kind of dodgy, 20 bucks for a year of one of the best virus catchers out there seems like a fair deal.

The free stuff is not dodgy. Do you have anything to back that up that claim?

Ego

Anon the Felon wrote: »

Linux is a great anti-virus

Linux is okay, but I hear from some guy that free stuff is kind of dodgy, so I'm sure we're all better off with Windows, hey?

SporkAndrew

Khavall wrote: »

Fourthing or whatever it is by now, AVG and Avast. I used to use AVG, I switched to Avast just to see how it was, and really, both work well. The only problem I have with Avast is that sometimes I have for one reason or another the volume turned up all the way on my computer and Avast gives a helpful "Virus database has been updated" chime that's a little on the loud side.

Go into the program settings and tell it to not use sound. Then you just get the little blue / green announcements in the bottom corner without the chime and robotic voice.

tsmvengy

Also, one thing to note about AVG is that it can fuck up Source games - I had problems playing Half-Life 2 when it was installed. I had to completely uninstall it to get the game to work properly.

Anon the Felon

I say dodgy because....theres no harm in using a funny sounding word to describe something as less effective then the low cost stuff.

I used to work for a internet retailer that did local manufacturing and sold the stuff over the internet (sorry its earlier, not enough coffee). We used free AVG, and in a 6 month time, got 4 viruses that it failed to catch, they infected the entire network and shut down sales for weeks at a time.

I FINALLY got the owner to convert over to Nod32, and the problems stopped, in fact once it was installed and did its first scan...it found, quarantined and removed 3 other viruses that where dormant.

So yes, Dodgy. As in they dodge being effective. Their Anti-Virus-Fu is not strong.

Ego wrote: »

Anon the Felon wrote: »

Linux is a great anti-virus

Linux is okay, but I hear from some guy that free stuff is kind of dodgy, so I'm sure we're all better off with Windows, hey?

Good stuff man, made me laugh.

GoodKingJayIII

Another prop for Avast here. I got 15 free months of Norton and I'm about ready to uninstall the damn thing as it irritates me to no end.

Luq

Anon the Felon wrote: »

Linux is a great anti-virus....sorry couldn't help myself.

As for windows Anti-virus, my vote goes to Nod32, yes its NOT free, but seriously...the free stuff is kind of dodgy, 20 bucks for a year of one of the best virus catchers out there seems like a fair deal.

I'm running ESET NOD32 on over 300 PC's in an enterprise environment. It works great for that. That is for professional use though. I want to warn all gamers to be careful with it. All AV can cause problems with games, but NOD32 has been having problems with lots of Steam apps lately. So if you're going to run this on your gaming box, you should disable it when installing games and then add the game to the exclusion list. This is for new games. After it's become clear that NOD32 won't delete the executable (because of DRM's sometimes malicious appearing behavior) then you can remove it from the exclusions list.

Me personally, I do not run ESET on my gaming box because I don't want to bother with it.

Storm Shadow

I installed Avast this weekend after picking up the Vundo trojan and it detects it but cannot remove it or even quarrantine it effectively. Ran it three times just to be sure, which took all damn day. Weak kung-fu indeed.

Vundo happily loads a few more trojans through IE popups, turns off your Windows Auto Updater, and Avast is powerless against all of this. If you think that this is an effective anti-virus program you are deceiving yourself.

Ego

Most AV software is (in my experience) pretty bad at removing a virus from a machine that's already infected. Generally your best bet (short of redoing your system of course) is to look up specific removal instructions for whatever virus you have, or to use a rescue CD.

Rohan

Indeed, anti-virus programs are great for preventing infection, but installing an AV program after you're already infected is useless. Read up on specific instructions to rid yourself of the virus, then install an AV program, and not worry.

Tofystedeth

^This.
If you are already infected you should have installed AV sooner.

I say dodgy because....theres no harm in using a funny sounding word to describe something as less effective then the low cost stuff.

I used to work for a internet retailer that did local manufacturing and sold the stuff over the internet (sorry its earlier, not enough coffee). We used free AVG, and in a 6 month time, got 4 viruses that it failed to catch, they infected the entire network and shut down sales for weeks at a time.

I FINALLY got the owner to convert over to Nod32, and the problems stopped, in fact once it was installed and did its first scan...it found, quarantined and removed 3 other viruses that where dormant.

So yes, Dodgy. As in they dodge being effective. Their Anti-Virus-Fu is not strong.

Wow, I've used free AVG for about 6 years and haven't had any trouble. And that's with me going to some dodgy sites. Like, that shit be unclean. What the hell was your business doing that it was picking up all that crap?

Though of the 3 A's, AVG is probably the lowest ranked at this point. Avira and Avast! have been consistently scoring better in AV trials. I just haven't switched because of inertia.

Ninto

Well, this thread is getting me to switch to Avira. Thanks guys!

Uselesswarrior

I personally use Clamwin. But is just a on demand scanner, not a program that constantly runs and checks processes.

It is also open source, don't know if that matters to you or not.

RockinX

Just hijacking this thread for asking an antivirus question: the other day I caught a virus while looking for some information on Google (don't really remember what it was, but this specific time it wasn't about porn), and when I opened the website Google found there was a message prompt that told me to install their antivirus for protection.

I rejected the offer, and Avast detected a virus, which it didn't kill, aparently, because every time I booted Windows it found a virus that I had to delete in vain. I proceeded to format after a few days, and there were still problems. Apparently, the virus had caused problems to a cyclic thing on my hard drive, and it even gave me problems booting and formatting again.

Now that I was able to solve the problem by running the HDD on my brother's PC and deleting the partition and creating it again, I went to N-Sider.com and I got the same virus message as I did last time, but I aborted the connection with Avast faster this time.

How do I know if Avast aborted the connection for real and I didn't get the virus? The virus had a name like "fakeAV" or something and it was a trojan.

Edit: Now Avast found four viruses, which it can't quarantine or delete because that operation is "not supported" for that type of file (all of them NTPad.dll on D : System Restore or something like that). What should I do? Move to another antivirus?

Edit 2: I downloaded AVG Trial Version after disabling Avast's resident protection, ran a scan with AVG, and it found nothing. Does that mean this is a false positive from Avast?

bent

tsmvengy wrote: »

Also, one thing to note about AVG is that it can fuck up Source games - I had problems playing Half-Life 2 when it was installed. I had to completely uninstall it to get the game to work properly.

I've always used AVG and haven't had any problems with source games. A quick google search is giving the impression that this problem you're describing isn't exactly common either.

Woggle

RockinX wrote: »

snip
all of them NTPad.dll on D : System Restore or something like that. What should I do? Move to another antivirus?

Edit 2: I downloaded AVG Trial Version after disabling Avast's resident protection, ran a scan with AVG, and it found nothing. Does that mean this is a false positive from Avast?

If I'm reading that right, you have system restore enabled, and it has a backup of the virus in at least one of the save points. It might or might not be a false positive depending on if the free AVG is searching the system restore files and can recognize the virus.

Regarding system restore in general, when you're infected it's a good idea to either use it to get back to an uninfected state or turn it off to remove any backups with the virus and then turn it back on. Disclaimer: this is just my impression from reading past accounts of virus infections and should not be taken as the final word on the matter.

RockinX

I had to look for info on that to get an idea of what it was.

I now disabled it on D :. Should I disable it on C:, too?

Edit: It was System Volume Information\Restore, not System Restore Information, I was wrong.

I captured screenshots of the findings:

LoneIgadzra

Gravedigging a bit because I have a similar question. I need a free antivirus to put on people's computers who ask me to help make their computer secure, and I can no longer recommend AVG because the current version has an astronomically huge performance detriment and doubles the boot time of every computer I have installed it on. Which one should I use? Key features are some measure of behind the scenes automatic protection, especially in Outlook and when downloading files. (So a little performance detriment is okay, but what AVG is doing now is absolutely ridiculous.)

I liked Symantec on my university's computers, I used that for years when I was in a dorm and it was totally invisible...

I tried Avast for a little while when I moved out, but it self-destructed and refused to launch within a week, haven't tried it since. Nowadays I just use Spybot's TeaTimer thingy and be careful.

Buttcleft

I'm not a fan of AVG.

I had a couple bugs on my system that I never knew about, even with AVG fully up to date, that never showed up on a scan. [Found them when I switched to another Antivirus ]

I think it's gone down hill in reliability since it hit 8.0

Idoliside

Been on AVG for a few years. Can't complain, does the job. I use it with S&D, keeps the computer clean and fresh.

Dark Shroud

I don't recommend AVG or Avast! anymore either. I've had them fail me a few times. AVG is turning into Norton has been for some time. I only use NOD32 at this point as it's the only one that gives me performance while not failing to detect items. I like McAfee but it hogs system resources though it never failed to protect my PC

Supposedly Norton is no longer a mess. I haven't tried the lastest version, last time I used it was version 2001.

Also, Comodo has a free anti-virus out now. Comodo also offers everything together in an Internet Security suite.