Is free antivirus just as good?

[StephenhDMRS]

I deal with this a lot and yes it does work just as well as paid versions. In fact one of the major anti-virus companies(name escapes me at the moment) for medium/large businesses released an update that deleted a part of the registry that was essential for windows to run... Go figure.

Our IT department has us use free versions and I find they work just as well as Norton and such. Paid versions are just at risk of ruining things as free versions are. Stick with the listed ones above and you should be fine.

[i1800collect]

In fact one of the major anti-virus companies(name escapes me at the moment) for medium/large businesses released an update that deleted a part of the registry that was essential for windows to run... Go figure.

That was McAfee. The update misidentified svchost.exe as a virus and instructed McAfee to delete it, which caused a lot of machines running Windows to completely fail.

[Brianguy]

...and not watch free pr0n.

[Dangerpin]

I deal with this a lot and yes it does work just as well as paid versions. In fact one of the major anti-virus companies(name escapes me at the moment) for medium/large businesses released an update that deleted a part of the registry that was essential for windows to run... Go figure.

Our IT department has us use free versions and I find they work just as well as Norton and such. Paid versions are just at risk of ruining things as free versions are. Stick with the listed ones above and you should be fine.

Svchost.exe is not part of the registry. Neither McAfee, nor Norton/Symantec (who had a similar, though less publicized issue with svchost.exe some time back) have been worth a damn since the 90's. They live on because they have learned how to market and sell to the Enterprise, and have well written management interfaces for Enterprise level administration. The free versions do, perhaps work as well as the consumer versions of Norton and McAfee, but frankly that isn't saying much at all.

If you want decent basic protection, Avira and Microsoft Security Essentials will do the job. AVG is the bottom rung on that particular ladder, I'd stay off of it, personally.

If you want to step up from basic then ESET is excellent, Kaspersky is top notch if a bit heavy on resource usage and a lot of people really respect BitDefender.

[NaughtyMonkey]

I use:
AVG Free Edition
Ccleaner
Malwarbytes
A-Squared
Spybot S&E
Spyware Blaster

There all free and its what I use and what I install on peoples computers I fix and what I used when I worked at a computer shop. So there great!

[armedoffroader]

I've used AVG free now for years and haven't had a problem since. It updates frequently and I have it set to scan automatically every few days and am happy with it

[Sinixstar]

I never understood the need for AV software. I never had an issues on Windows and I didn't run any software. My wife doesn't have any issues and she doesn't have software. Even if I didn't use Linux, I still wouldn't run AV software, I'd just keep my PC up to date and not watch free pr0n.

Yea- in 20 years the only viruses i've had, are ones i set off myself to see what they would do.

Then again - when somebody sends me an email that says "I love you - click here" with a .vbs attachment - i tend to not open it... go figure.

[wrightb]

AVG has worked great, except for that really annoying popup you get once every couple days to upgrade to the paid version.

[Rekrab]

AVG is the best you can get for free. But if you're serious about protection I'd hit up something like Eset's NOD32.

[NiteQwill]

Free: Avast!

Paid: NOD32 (low memory footprint, great scanner, excellent definition database, FAST, FAST, FAST.)

[WokMaster1]

Avast here for 2 years now.

[NaughtyMonkey]

Just never ever run Avast or AVG at the same time, my grandpa figured this out the hard way haha.

[bones138]

I never understood the need for AV software. I never had an issues on Windows and I didn't run any software. I'd just keep my PC up to date and not watch free pr0n.

This.

[the_donald_]

AVG free & Spybot can do the trick just fine.

[JDay]

The top two commercial AV programs (McAfee and Norton) are actually some of the worst around. Although Norton actually made it to #4 this year, McAfee didn't even make the list.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/