What's free and good

Young Simmo

Young Simmo

Member
OK I have a new Windows 8 ASUS tower, and have been using free anti-virus since about 2000. I have been using Avast free for quite a few years. We are retirees and our computer is a fun thing although, we do quite a bit of shopping and banking on it. Because we are not a Multi Million dollar mining company we want to remain on free Anti-Virus.
I am open to suggestions from some of you experts on what I should use to protect our new computer.
It seems these days that you go into a FreeBee, and after a month they want some of your money.
GO.
 
Your avast free works well. Or could run Microsoft Security Essentials. We also use for paying bills and buying online, use a virtual keyboard for putting in private information.
 
I've used both Avast and MSE without any trouble at all. 90 percent of your virus protection is going to be from being smart about going to certain websites and downloading or opening certain things. The anti-virus is a backup when you do something you shouldn't or unknowingly install something you shouldn't have.

But yeah check out the report John posted and see what you like. Typically you want to pair Avast or any other Anti-Virus with MalwareBytes and run that every few weeks or so.
 
Avast is probably the top free av, but if you fancy a change Avira is also very good.

Avg is a bit of a has been and microsoft security essentials has had many bad reports on it, even microsoft themselves were once quoted as saying it was not a serious av
 
Bitdefender Free is pretty good and will throw a page up that it block a virus on a website. You do have to create an account, but that's it. It doesn't nag after that. I have it on my aunt's computer that I manage remotely. Since they don't know much about computers it has caught 19 viruses when I checked it. But signature based malware protection is becoming a thing of the past. What you want to primarily use is a free software called Sandboxie that will launch your browser in a sandbox. This way if you get malware it will stay in the sandbox and not touch the computer.

You need to configure Sandboxie to delete the contents on browser exit and allow access to bookmarks and your profile. Further you need to configure Sandboxie to recover files when you download them. And there lies another issue. You should scan downloaded files with the free malwarebytes. I use a browser which is based on Firefox called Pale Moon so if your using Internet Explorer I'm not sure how to configure Sandboxie for that. Sandboxie does have a forum you can go to and ask questions.

Cryptolocker didn't care what kinid of malware protection you had, but if you were using Sandboxie it would have never touched the computer. This is why signature based anti-virus software isn't as effective as it once was.

MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials is basic and fine for netbooks, but you can't depend on it and it's no better than the built in Windows Defender. In fact the EICAR Standard Anti-Virus Test File doesn't even trip Windows Defender. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EICAR_test_file

Here is the file: http://www.eicar.org/download/eicar.com

MSE even lost their certificate. I don't know why so many people recommended it across the Internet. And Ccleaner is just a temp file cleaner. LOL

http://www.sandboxie.com/
 
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jamesd1981 said:
Avast is probably the top free av, but if you fancy a change Avira is also very good.

Avg is a bit of a has been and microsoft security essentials has had many bad reports on it, even microsoft themselves were once quoted as saying it was not a serious av
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Avira puts a toolbar in your browser and to remove Avira it's a PITA! You have to use their registry cleaner now and safe mode. I use to swear by Avira for its good detection engine, but now they are going down hill I'm afraid.

I have tried damn near all the free anti-viruses out there. I don't even use one anymore and depend on scanners for files I download, Sandboxie, Noscript for Pale Moon and Untangle a server deployment. The reason why I can't use an anti-virus software anymore is because it causes problems with my games and hacks, etc.
 
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Scanners you should have on your computer:

Super antispyware free edition.

Malwarebytes free

Herprotect

ADwcleaner.
 
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Agent Smith said:
Avira puts a toolbar in your browser and to remove Avira it's a PITA! You have to use their registry cleaner now and safe mode. I use to swear by Avira for its good detection engine, but now they are going down hill I'm afraid.

I have tried damn near all the free anti-viruses out there. I don't even use one anymore and depend on scanners for files I download, Sandboxie, Noscript for Pale Moon and Untangle a server deployment. The reason why I can't use an anti-virus software anymore is because it causes problems with my games and hacks, etc.
Click to expand...

Is the toolbar a new thing ? It has been a while since I used avira, i pretty much stick to avast, I know bitdefender is one of the top rated paid for av, I might give the free version a try myself
 
Thanks for all the feedback everybody, I have been away for a couple of days and just opened this page.
I will sift my way through all the info and come up with a plan.
 
Thanks everybody for all the suggestions, I have been away for a couple of days and just got back. I will now try and analyse the info and make a decision.
 
If you have some extra cash a good idea might be to get ESET NOD 32 when it goes on sale. I've seen it go for 15 bucks on Newegg.

For only free, Avast is good (though it will never match many of the paid AVs) as the others have said.
 
^ I don't recommend either.

AVG used to be good but it went downhill after Version 9.0. Avast is probably the best free one now.
 
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