Best Free Anti Virus Software?
- Thread starter turbolapp
- Start date
Hi Turbo, I actually liked Symantec Endpoint Protection. Great anti-virus and firewall.
It is trial ware, but when it expires you can just re-register with a different email and info to get a new license. They only sell it to businesses with a minimum of 10 licenses so I just kept using the free version for a couple of years. (I'm sort of a cheapskate. Lulz)
It uses more resources than most programs of it's kind, but it definitely kept my network and systems safe. If you decide to try it, you will have to disable Windows Firewall & Windows Defender during the install and any other anti-virus software you may have installed.
One of my favorite features of it is that it has an option to NOT allow your computer to connect to the network or Internet until it has done a quick scan at boot-up and has all protection running.
Back when it did not support Win7 I went back to my AVG + Spybot Search & Destroy + Spyware Blaster + CCleaner + Windows defender for my stuff.
I'm thinking of going back to Endpoint now that they should be supporting Win7.
It is trial ware, but when it expires you can just re-register with a different email and info to get a new license. They only sell it to businesses with a minimum of 10 licenses so I just kept using the free version for a couple of years. (I'm sort of a cheapskate. Lulz)
It uses more resources than most programs of it's kind, but it definitely kept my network and systems safe. If you decide to try it, you will have to disable Windows Firewall & Windows Defender during the install and any other anti-virus software you may have installed.
One of my favorite features of it is that it has an option to NOT allow your computer to connect to the network or Internet until it has done a quick scan at boot-up and has all protection running.
Back when it did not support Win7 I went back to my AVG + Spybot Search & Destroy + Spyware Blaster + CCleaner + Windows defender for my stuff.
I'm thinking of going back to Endpoint now that they should be supporting Win7.
I've got the AVG key that will upgrade you're protection, it balls out, and for some reason the key is usable over and over. Soooo, PM if you'd like it.
Since I bought this Vista powered machine nearly a year ago I haven't used a single piece of antivirus software and things have been just fine.
I still think Vista sucks, though.
I still think Vista sucks, though.
Just installed AVG on my new Windows 7 desktop. I haven't noticed any CPU or memory issues with it, but then again, with a quad core processor and 6 GB RAM, it could use up quite a bit and I still wouldn't notice.
It should only be using CPU if it's actively scanning your machine. Turn off the daily scheduled scan and this won't be a problem. The 3 or 4 processes running under AVG should all be sitting at 0 CPU usage most of the time.
It does eat a bit of memory though, but no biggy if you've got 4gb.
I've used AVG for a few years now and it's only failed me once on my girlfriend's machine. I don't know if it was her or my business partner, but one of them managed to get a virus on there that AVG didn't recognize. However, I used ESET's online scanner which got rid of it easy enough.
most people don't realize that malware/spyware is not a virus. i work for a government organization that has 76000 computers and we spent over 500k on the latest and greatest mcafee enterprise. I still get calls daily about anti-virus pro and cybersecurity getting through. but anything serious your av software will catch. for all the rest, malwarebytes ftw.
mcafee enterprise
windows updates
zone alarm free
spyware blaster/adaware/spybot/win defender/hijackthis
sysinternals tools (autostart, procmon, regmon, filemon, tcpview - awesome tools)
services.msc / manual all unneeded processes
a miscellaneous rootkit scanner
secure router
Truecrypt/dropbox
common sense(probably not so common, been sitting at a PC for like 15 years)
no pirated software
Boot CD's
Backups (7 places, probably overkill, but I would cry)
windows updates
zone alarm free
spyware blaster/adaware/spybot/win defender/hijackthis
sysinternals tools (autostart, procmon, regmon, filemon, tcpview - awesome tools)
services.msc / manual all unneeded processes
a miscellaneous rootkit scanner
secure router
Truecrypt/dropbox
common sense(probably not so common, been sitting at a PC for like 15 years)
no pirated software
Boot CD's
Backups (7 places, probably overkill, but I would cry)
Great list. It's very easy to locate a rogue exe using sysinternals (with Process Explorer it shows what process spawned another for example).
edit to zimok's list:
keep pirated software on a vm
80% of my computer is pirated software. In many cases you can get the software from the developer in a trial version and just keep your keygens in a vm
Basically just be careful with anything you torrent
keep pirated software on a vm
80% of my computer is pirated software. In many cases you can get the software from the developer in a trial version and just keep your keygens in a vm
Basically just be careful with anything you torrent
I like to keep mine on another image. Whenever I want to run photoshop, macromedia, etc I drop my 'graphics' image. Then when I want to torrent, I drop my torrent image which has installs of limewire, vuze, all the usual suspects. Once I was to clear it up, I recover back to my base image. I currently use clonezilla but there are lots of others out there Ghost, Acronis, etc.