antivirus free

[quaker13]

I just downloaded Avast free, but once installed it asks for a registration number and as I dont have one, I had to click on demo.

Now it says it runs out in 2 months. I thought it was supposed to be free. Can anyone advise

[axbaby]

http://free.avg.com/ww-en/download?prd=afg

AVG .. a better free solution

[U4EA]

AVG's free version seems to be widely regarded as the best option.

Also, don't forget that Microsoft recently released Security Essentials, which is also free. I haven't tried it yet though.

[Foo]

All you have to do with Avast is register for a free key. It gets emailed to you.

AVG is full of extra stuff you don't need (firewall etc). Avast's nice and light.

[obsidian]

Avast > AVG, IMO.

[Foo]

widely regarded as the best option.

(citation needed)

[MKJ]

[Doombrain]

Security Essentials >* for me.

[+JuggerNaut+]

^^this

[Foo]

Yeah? I haven't looked into that yet.

Does it spam windows updates like defender does?

edit: never mind, gonna run with this for a while and find out for myself. Cheers gents. MS releases so much stuff that I have to parse through, loads falls through the cracks.

[+JuggerNaut+]

No sir. Updates in the background.

[quaker13]

Thanks. For some reason it wont install AVG. It gives a message saying an error occurred and something failed to initialized.

[DTS]

Just get the free key for Avast like Foo said to. It's much better than AVG.

[axbaby]

my favorite antivir is ESET NOD .. not sure it's free though

[U4EA]

When I last tried Avast it had a really useless and bulky UI whereas I found AVG to be lighter with a much cleaner interface. Mind you, this was about a year and half ago.

[Tormentius]

I've been using MS Security Essentials for awhile now and its impressed me. Its free, lightweight, and effective. That and a bit of common sense are really all thats needed.

As for the alternatives Avast is a free registration, as Foo said. AVG, NOD, and Antivir are all good choices as well.

[Silicone_Milk]

havent ran an anti-virus on my machine for over 2 years. Haven't had an issue at all. And yes, I sweep the computer to see if I've been screwed and everything's clean

To be fair, I visit the "malicious" sites on a VM running Debian. But still, I torrent through the main OS.

(I run Windows XP btw)

[SOAPboy]

havent ran an anti-virus on my machine for over 2 years. Haven't had an issue at all. And yes, I sweep the computer to see if I've been screwed and everything's clean

To be fair, I visit the "malicious" sites on a VM running Debian. But still, I torrent through the main OS.

(I run Windows XP btw)

Lul, you so have a keylogger and dont know it.

[Silicone_Milk]

awesome. Somebody knows my Quake3World login info. Oh noes!

[Bacon]

Antivirus is such a joke to a serious blackhat, 30 minutes of hex editing and a new file stub or "crypting" a virus and even every result on jotti will spit it out as a clean file. Im not saying a/v programs are useless in the whole but if someone is serious enough these programs won't help you.

[obsidian]

Common sense > Mac/Linux > Windows with Antivirus for those odd "whoops" moments > Windows with no protection at all and knowing shit-all about not downloading/clicking on every blinking thing on the internet that claims to be an error dialog or free wallpaper.


FFS... /thread

[+JuggerNaut+]

Antivirus is such a joke to a serious blackhat, 30 minutes of hex editing and a new file stub or "crypting" a virus and even every result on jotti will spit it out as a clean file. Im not saying a/v programs are useless in the whole but if someone is serious enough these programs won't help you.

well, duh.

[Foo]

Antivirus is such a joke to a serious blackhat, 30 minutes of hex editing and a new file stub or "crypting" a virus and even every result on jotti will spit it out as a clean file. Im not saying a/v programs are useless in the whole but if someone is serious enough these programs won't help you.

These programs are not designed to protect you against a proficient hacker targeting your computer specifically.

They're designed to protect against threats targeting groups.

If you were trying to score some kind of nerd points here, you just ended up sounding like a bit of an idiot

[Bacon]

not really... I don't even know anything about it

However this method I talked about is used to target large groups of people, such as spreading botnets over p2p/youtube/ect

[Tormentius]

not really... I don't even know anything about it

However this method I talked about is used to target large groups of people, such as spreading botnets over p2p/youtube/ect

Yes, but those type of virus-like behaviours are why antivirus apps have heuristic detection built in.