5 Popular Free Antivirus - Compared and Tested [ Windows ]
By ManavHere goes the third part of the series on compared and tested and this time we picked up 5 Popular Free and best Anti virus softwares. Windows users and viruses are like chums, who keep playing Hide and Seek, with each other, and somehow the only tool to win this battle is, Antivirus Softwares. In this post I am trying to compare the five most preferred free anti virus softwares available on the Internet
AVG Free Edition
AVG is the well-known antivirus. AVG is available free-of-charge to home users for the life of the product. It is easy to use and will not slow your system down i.e. low system resource requirements.
Features
- Automatic update functionality, update files can be downloaded and transported to a computer which doesn’t have an Internet connection.
- The AVG Resident Shield, which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run
- The AVG E-mail Scanner, which protects your e-mail
- The AVG On-Demand Scanner, which allows the user to schedule and perform manual tests
- Free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product
- AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files
The best things about AVG Free Edition are “Easy to Use” and “Lightweight”. Scheduler has few options as compared to other Antivirus Softwares, but sufficient enough as far as home use is concerned.
Drawback
I have realized that at the time when AVG is downloading updates, it consumes the max speed of your Internet connection for itself, leaving you face a substantial decrease in your connection, but that’s just a matter of few minutes i.e. 2 to 5 minutes
Download and Watch Video for AVG Free Edition.
Avast! Home Edition
Avast! Home Edition is the free antivirus for home noncommercial use - scans for viruses, worms and Trojans. It has a media player-like interface. Updates are incremental and frequently made available for manual or scheduled download.
Features
- Simple User Interface-Memory test during the program startup, Simple and easy working with the scan results - actions with infected files etc.
- Standard resident protection-Generic SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner, Specific MS Outlook plugin
- Network Shield-analyses all network traffic and scans it for malicious contents.
- Automatic updates
- Virus Chest - The Virus Chest can be thought of as a folder on your disk drive, having special properties that make it a safe, isolated place suitable for storing certain files. You can work with the files in the Chest, though with some security restrictions.
- System Integration- integrates with the Windows Explorer right click menu and also includes a special screen saver which is able to scan your system while your computer is not in use
- Support for 64-bit Windows
Drawback
According to my experience its not as lightweight as AVG, but still is quite lightweight and smooth. Scanning the whole drive takes longer as compared to AVG.
You can download a 60 days demo, if you would like to continue free usage beyond that time, just register from the home page to obtain a free activation key by email, this key expires after an year, then again you can get a new key.
Download and Watch Video for Avast! Home Edition.
ClamWin
ClamWin is another free antivirus on this list. It comes with an easy installer and is open source code at no cost. The user interface is quite simple to use, being very lightweight is another virtue of this tool.
Features
- Scanning Scheduler.
- Automatic Virus Database Updates. ClamAV team updates Virus Databases on a regular basis.
- Standalone Virus Scanner.
- Context Menu Integration to Microsoft Windows Explorer; Addin to Microsoft Outlook.
Drawback:
ClamWin does not include an on access real-time scanner, that is, you need to manually scan a file in order to detect a virus, which reduces its fan-following, as compared to its counterparts
Download ClamWin
Avira AntiVir
Avira AntiVir is effective protection against computer viruses. It constantly and rapidly scans your computer for malicious programs. Actions include repair, delete, block, rename and quarantine programs or files. AntiVir also features enhanced protection against unknown boot-sector viruses.
Through the permanent update of the detection engine, the protection is ensured constantly: the user can set the product to download any updates when available, thus keeping you clean and safe.
Features
- Extensive Malware Recognition of viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, worms, etc.
- Automatic incremental updates of antivirus signatures, engine and entire software
- Permanent virus protection, with Virus Guard real time monitoring
- Install and configuration in just a couple of steps, setup to protect your PC in minutes
- Virus protection against known and unknown threats, using an advanced heuristic system
- Scheduler where you can set the scanner to make automatic virus scans or updates on your system
- Forum and phone support, Knowledge Base with virus descriptions available on web site
Drawback:
You might find the configuration settings a little complex, in that case use the defaults.
Download Avira AntiVir
ThreatFire
ThreatFire ( formerly known as Cyberhawk) is a powerful, full-featured antivirus, which saves your system from malicious programs.
It works on a different mechanism, doesn’t just react on the basis of predefined signatures which protects you with the highest level of out-of-the-box accuracy. It keeps you safe between antivirus updates so you are always protected, no matter how new the threat.
Features
- Immediately Effective with No Complicated Set Up
- Proactive Defense against Both Known and Unknown Threats-it uses intelligent behavioral analysis to proactively hunt down and paralyze any activity or behavior that might compromise the security of a PC.
- Rootkit Scanner Seeks Out Deeply Hidden Files, Objects and Registry Keys
- Complementary to Your Existing Antivirus Software- no need to uninstall your pre existing antivirus.
- Advanced Custom Configuration Options and Rules Settings
- Virtually No Impact on System Performance
- Built-in Web Search Provides Additional Threat Details
- Continuously Improving Protection Technology with Technical Support
Drawback:
As it keeps training itself with programs behavior it might slow the system a little but its on lower side.
Download ThreatFire
Special Thanks to Nirmal whose post on 7 Free Anti-virus Software for Windows, was a good resource
A Quick Comparison
| Name | Updates | Launch Time | Effect on Resources and System Speed | Real Time Scanning | Protection Against Zero Day Threat |
|
Auto and Offline | 2 | Doesn’t require much resources, hence doesn’t hamper your system’s performance | Available | No |
|
Auto | 3 | Takes much resources as compared to AVG | Available | No |
|
Auto | 1 | Almost no impact on System Performance | Not Available | No |
|
Auto | 3 | Slightly heavy on resources as compared to AVG | Available | No |
|
Auto | 1 | Quite lightweight. | Available | Yes |
So which free anti virus would you go for ?
Thanks for your tremendous response in the last vote, Please do it again and help everybody to find the best .
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About The Author of this article: Manav is one of the co-author of this blog and writes on various interesting softwares, PC tips and more. You can read more of his articles here. |
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21 Comments and Link-Backs to “5 Popular Free Antivirus - Compared and Tested [ Windows ]”
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There are a couple of commercial products I used to like/recommend. But, because of changes in management/staff, they’ve done things that I disagree with, so I’ve come to advise against using them. In other cases, the security suites have become too hard to manage, or understand and are intrusive. I also noted that many casual users forget to update or renew subscriptions. They have AV installed, but the protection is ineffective and outdated.
So I sat down and loaded several low-cost, light-weight products on test machines for my own comparisons. I used four of the five you tested, excluding Threatfire. The goal was products I could recommend for home users that would provide good protection without fail, and were easy to use.
My tests ranked AntiVir as #1 in detection, but it had a higher rate of false positives on my test machines. It’s what I use on most machines for skilled users.
Avast was second, with no false positives, and flexible monitor options. It’s what I recommend in most cases.
AVG did well, but not quite as good as AntiVir and Avast at detection. The version I tested also had an awkward setup and management GUI. It’s third on my list.
ClamAV is a good scanner, but lack of on-access detection stopped me from suggesting it to my demographic.
I’ll have to look at Threatfire.
I would mention, firewalls as an important item in combination with any of the above. that I recommend Comodo Personal firewall, with ZoneAlarm Home as my second choice.
And yes, there is a performance hit for on detection scanning, but on typical machines, the hit is very small. Less than the load incurred by several office products that do background indexing. The commercial products I stopped recommending were more resource intensive. Folks seeing a performance issue might want to re-examine the list of auto-starting programs.
In my test usage, I would set TaskManger to track CPU-TIME as well as CPU %, then run a regular list of tasks, web browsing and email checks. Typically my System_Idle CPU-Time would equal about 1hour at test end. My background AV-scanner use would be 2-3% of that, 1-2 minues of CPU_Time. When actively doing a FULL scan, CPU load % would run about 30-40%. However, with on-use detection, full scans need be done less often, scheduled for off-peak usage times. CPU usage is not an issue in that case.
Oh — and I’m posting this with FireFox on Ubuntu 7.10, which has a very low antivirus foot print. It’s one O/S on my dual boot work machine. I only need XP Pro to host a few applications, like CAD and GIS mapping. Most work I do is from Linux. That is one of the other options I recommend more and more often.
It was very disappointing. I immediately switched over to ESET NOD 32 Antivirus. Believe me, it’s just unbeatable. It’s worth trying.
NOD32 is not free. They give a month trial after that their software will not get updated until or unless we purchase it. Having said that, after the trial period expires, their is no restrictions on software. I mean, we can use as long as we want, only thing is we won’t be able to update it.
Who caresss???
They launch the new versions of their antivirus very often. So, you can download the new version as soon as it is available.
Simple
Wrote an interesting post!!U have done nice piece of work.Thanks a lot for sharing information.
keep up the work.
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Thanks for a good article.