Best free antivirus?

L

_Lynn_

New Member
What's the best free antivirus/internet firewall to use? I think my laptop has some kind of virus, because it would freeze randomly (still can move mouse but everything is not responding), sometimes every half hour and sometimes every few hours. The really weird thing is that if I close the lid of my laptop (going into standby), it would still go to standby normally, and when I turn it on again, everything would be unfrozen! :confused:
So yeah anyways I used Lavasoft's Ad-Aware before, I was wondering what else I should use as a system anti-virus, as well as browser firewall software? Just looking for free ones... I don't surf the net that much (only downloads some movies and check mail) so no need to dish out several hundred dollars for an expensive software.
Thanks.
 
Your problem could also be related to other things besides a Virus.

Many Viruses come from email attachments. You can go along way to preventing a Virus by not opening attachments. That is a one of the steps I do.
 
Any major brand. Get what suits your use - simplicity, lack of annoyances. To give a comparison from my experience, I found ZoneAlarm very simple to use but not hugely configurable whereas my current Comodo firewall is highly configurable and sometimes confusing. I migrated from ZoneAlarm because it eventually conflicted with AVG which I have swopped for Avast.

As intimated by User0one, commonsense is about equal in effectiveness.

In a recent PC Magazine, Ad-Aware got high reviews. I had it once but thought it seemed fairly useless. Perhaps it improved in the last few years.
 
I have used avast for more than a year on multiple machines and haven't had any problems yet.

Also malwarebytes is good.
 
Please download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware from here or here and save it to your desktop.
  • Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
  • At the end, be sure a checkmark is placed next to
    • Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
    • and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
  • then click Finish.
  • If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version. Please keep updating until it says you have the latest version.
  • Once the program has loaded, select Perform quick scan, then click Scan.
  • When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
  • Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
  • A log will be saved automatically which you can access by clicking on the Logs tab within Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

If for some reason Malwarebytes will not install or run please download and run Rkill.scr, Rkill.exe, or Rkill.com but DO NOT reboot the system and then try installing or running Malwarebytes. If Rkill (which is a black box) appears and then disappears right away or you get a message saying rkill is infected, keep trying to run rkill until it over powers the infection and temporarily kills it. Once a log appears on the screen, you can try running malwarebytes or downloading other programs.



Download the HijackThis installer from here.
Run the installer and choose Install, indicating that you accept the licence agreement. The installer will place a shortcut on your desktop and launch HijackThis.

Click Do a system scan and save a logfile

Most of what HijackThis lists will be harmless or even essential, don't fix anything yet.

Post the logfile that HijackThis produces along with the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware log

So far as actually having something to protect you, Ad-Aware won't, and I would not agree with what the others have said about AVG. Avast is lighter and more secure than AVG is:

http://download.cnet.com/Avast-Free...0019223.html?part=dl-85737&subj=dl&tag=button
 
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