Best free Virus Protection software?

[Morgan C]

Kaspersky is decent. I tried Avast and suffered the consequences.. it said a file was virus free and I ended up spending 8 hours removing the virus. I use Avira now.

Download Malwarebytes Anti-malware scanner. The free version is not a real-time virus scanner, you have to manually scan files, but it's IMO the best anti-virus scanner, and since it's not realtime it's not going to interfere with Kaspersky. It can't hurt to get a second opinion on any file you might think is a bit dubious.

And finally, if you want to be super-secure, download Sandboxie. Runs the program in a sandboxed environment that has no effect on the actual computer files, registry files, etc. So if it's popping up with a virus that you think is a false positive, run it in Sandboxie.

Or get a Mac, but fuck that.

 

[laszlozsolt82]

AVG and Avira on another PC, works well ...

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

I think Marcus may have found an anti-virus since 2008

 

[MarkG]

I'm quite happy with Avira

Avira free along with Malwarebyte Anti-Malware (the 20 dollar upgrade) has served me well. I had McAfee and zonealarm but still got a nasty virus that opened up all the ports and crippled my system. Installed Malwarebyte Anti Malware and it took care of it no problem. Both pop up every now and then to block an intrusion, so everything is great.

 

[Morgan C]

I think Marcus may have found an anti-virus since 2008

LOL I didn't even notice the date.. why was this bumped?

 

[SocialNumb]

Autorun Eater.

Please explain how you ended up bumping a thread from 2008?

 

[jacare]

I'm quite happy with Avira

+1
EDIT: HAHAHA... just noticed the post above mine. Geez...

 

[Razorjack]

Please make this thread die before it starts another Mac war.

 

[Rob Logic]

Please make this thread die before it starts another Mac war.

That and I was about to explain to AudioGeekZine how to rid himself of the rootkit virus he had in 2008.

Bastards...

 

[Saculus]

AVG, and have been virus free for about 5 years using common sense and saying cancel or no to crap I didn't instigate. Last week right after answering the DAW internet post I was surfing with a friend checking out emperor speaker cabinets and picked up Antimalware-Doctor out of nowhere.

AVG would only aggravate it as would CC clean. Luckily my friend has more experience with this fixing family computers and turned me on to http://www.malwarebytes.org/ . Their free tool took an hour but no more antimalware-doctor.

 

[Ascendant]

Microsoft Security Essentials and a bit of common sense keeps my computer virus free. In fact the only time I got a virus was when my sister got a virus on HER computer that instantly installed itself on every computer in the network.

And, to be quite honest, if you don't think the reason why there are probably close to 1 million bits of malware for Windows compared to the sub 1,000 bits for Apple (if that)

There's almost a whooping 122 kilobytes of malware for windows!? While some people here probably don't know the difference between malware and a trojan, you're most likely right that people who go out of their way to make malware target the Windows platform because they dislike it... Or because it's such an incredibly easy target.

 

[ParsonsMatt]

Malwarebytes destroys all opposition!!

 

[slashvanyoung]

Microsoft Security Essentials and a bit of common sense keeps my computer virus free.

Yeah, I migrated to MSE too recently and it's unobtrusiveness yet reliability is great. No need for 3rd party software for me any more.

I wish they'd offer it for XP too, though.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

I think Marcus may have found an anti-virus since 2008

Thank you Pedro And yeah, Kaspersky + Superantispyware pro are still doing the job, haven't had a single problem since the OP date!

 

[narcossintese]

Please explain how you ended up bumping a thread from 2008?

OMG! I swear I´ve seen the thread on the first page.

That´s some serious Twilight Zone shit going on here! Maybe someone bumped it and deleted it´s own post while I was replying?
LOL that´s awkward.

 

[Fox Mulder]

Windows XP, haven't had an antivirus soft for the past 6months or so. My firewall's disabled too. No problems whatsoever. No much of a 'surfer'. Maybe I'm blessed.

 

[dani]

common sense and internet smarts will go a long way for effective anti-virus.

as for the whole windows vs. mac debate..

safari is weak in terms of browser security. it's always the first one to be compromised in the pwn2own competitions. on top of that, apple are quite happy to leave things unpatched, in some cases for months. microsoft are usually pretty swift about hotfixes, and patches.

the DNS vulnerability from last year, that caused some panic for network security people? it took apple over 3 months to fix it. it was in the linux kernel within minutes, and a fix for windows was available within hours.

trust me, when OS X is broken, and it will be broken, we're all going to learn a harsh lesson about how little apple care about security.

i use all 3 (linux, windows, OS X), but mainly OS X.

thanks,