"So, here we are.... In INDIA it's 23 DECEMBER and everyone is living well. No doomsday till now.... As I am getting lot of complaints of DMCA about content on my blog (even I don't care) I thought its good to post FREEWARE's for some time.... YES we Indians love free....!!!!!"
A computer virus can be programmed to do anything such as stealing sensitive information, locking up or slowing down the computer, data loss through corruption or deletion, and etc. With so many brands around and they all claim to be have the best detection and lightest in system resource, it is certainly not easy determining which is really the best. Billions of dollars are spent every year on antivirus software alone by enterprise because they know that computer virus can cause a lot of down time and making the company lose money. For HOME USERS most of antivirus companies offer cheaper versions or even FREE versions for non-commercial use.
After extensive testing on my netbook (Asus EEE 1000H) and my desktop. I have managed to make list of 5 antivirus which are free
1. AVAST FREE ANTIVIRUS
Recently avast! Free Antivirus has gained a lot of popularity and has even taken the first spot in CNET’s Download.com overtaking AVG and Avira. After installing avast! Free Antivirus on our test computer, it didn’t even feel like running a crippled slim down version of an antivirus program because it has all the features from the paid version except SafeZone, Firewall and Anti-spam. The comparison chart displayed on their website says that the sandbox feature is unavailable on the free version but in fact it’s actually still there.
Memory usage is very little for AVAST FREE and comes with extra features such as auto sandbox, boot-time scan, remote assistance, non-annoying browser protection plugins, 8 different real-time shields and cloud reputation service.
2.AVG ANTIVIRUS FREE
The free version of AVG AntiVirus "used to be" the most popular and well known free antivirus software and they are currently at the second spot after avast! Free Antivirus(Source: CNET). AVG has an updated GUI to match the Windows 8 modern UI. It helps protect your computer from viruses, malicious emails, web-based attacks, and identity theft. The anti-spam, firewall and performance fix functions are excluded from the free version.
I am annoyed by the whole installation process because it takes 3 steps to get it completely installed and updated. Firstly I need to download a small 4MB web installer to download the full installation file. After installation, there’s another 60MB of definition file (Update) to download. They do have the full distributable setup file buried somewhere deep in their website. Pay attention during install as the AVG Security Toolbar will install by default. Which really makes me angry.
3. AVIRA FREE
Avira is well known for its superior detection where it tags everything that moves silently in the Windows operating system. After installing Avira, you should see that most of the features are grayed out and only the button to enable/disable the real time protection against virus, trojan, spyware and malware is accessible.
Avira Free Antivirus used to rank number 1 but has dropped to 4 probably due to them embedding a toolbar and changing the web browser’s default search provider to ASK.com. Although the SearchFree toolbar by ASK.com can be opted out of during installation, it is with a cost of disabling the web protection feature. Moreover the daily notifier popups of recommending you to upgrade is a bit annoying as well.
4. ZoneAlarm
5. COMODO Antivirus
A computer virus can be programmed to do anything such as stealing sensitive information, locking up or slowing down the computer, data loss through corruption or deletion, and etc. With so many brands around and they all claim to be have the best detection and lightest in system resource, it is certainly not easy determining which is really the best. Billions of dollars are spent every year on antivirus software alone by enterprise because they know that computer virus can cause a lot of down time and making the company lose money. For HOME USERS most of antivirus companies offer cheaper versions or even FREE versions for non-commercial use.
After extensive testing on my netbook (Asus EEE 1000H) and my desktop. I have managed to make list of 5 antivirus which are free
1. AVAST FREE ANTIVIRUS
Recently avast! Free Antivirus has gained a lot of popularity and has even taken the first spot in CNET’s Download.com overtaking AVG and Avira. After installing avast! Free Antivirus on our test computer, it didn’t even feel like running a crippled slim down version of an antivirus program because it has all the features from the paid version except SafeZone, Firewall and Anti-spam. The comparison chart displayed on their website says that the sandbox feature is unavailable on the free version but in fact it’s actually still there.
Memory usage is very little for AVAST FREE and comes with extra features such as auto sandbox, boot-time scan, remote assistance, non-annoying browser protection plugins, 8 different real-time shields and cloud reputation service.
2.AVG ANTIVIRUS FREE
The free version of AVG AntiVirus "used to be" the most popular and well known free antivirus software and they are currently at the second spot after avast! Free Antivirus(Source: CNET). AVG has an updated GUI to match the Windows 8 modern UI. It helps protect your computer from viruses, malicious emails, web-based attacks, and identity theft. The anti-spam, firewall and performance fix functions are excluded from the free version.
I am annoyed by the whole installation process because it takes 3 steps to get it completely installed and updated. Firstly I need to download a small 4MB web installer to download the full installation file. After installation, there’s another 60MB of definition file (Update) to download. They do have the full distributable setup file buried somewhere deep in their website. Pay attention during install as the AVG Security Toolbar will install by default. Which really makes me angry.
3. AVIRA FREE
Avira is well known for its superior detection where it tags everything that moves silently in the Windows operating system. After installing Avira, you should see that most of the features are grayed out and only the button to enable/disable the real time protection against virus, trojan, spyware and malware is accessible.
Avira Free Antivirus used to rank number 1 but has dropped to 4 probably due to them embedding a toolbar and changing the web browser’s default search provider to ASK.com. Although the SearchFree toolbar by ASK.com can be opted out of during installation, it is with a cost of disabling the web protection feature. Moreover the daily notifier popups of recommending you to upgrade is a bit annoying as well.
4. ZoneAlarm
ZoneAlarm (now owned by CheckPoint), well known for their firewall applications has added an award winning antivirus engine by Kaspersky. If you don't know Kaspersky, it's a shame. FOR those didn’t know, Kaspersky has always been a shareware that is at the top spots for independent detection rate tests even if they do not take the first place. Thanks to ZoneAlarm, they made it possible for anyone to use the excellent Kaspersky engine from their ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall product. Most free antivirus software offers very minimal functionality other than the real time virus detection and protection but ZoneAlarm wins in this area by offering a really good antivirus engine, identity protection and a firewall for FREE if you need protection against hackers getting in to your computer.
The user interface and settings are straight forward and not confusing. The game mode can be enabled from the Tools menu and you can even password protect the application to prevent against unauthorized access to the program.The reason I did not include Kaspersky to the list (even I am a big fan of Kaspersky) because even with greater protection it does not support offline support for updates. This is the feature still missing from last 4 years. As I always format my PC (don't call me paranoid) it is not feasible for me.
5. COMODO Antivirus
The free Comodo Antivirus is one of the very few that is allowed to be used at any place including commercial, educational and enterprise, unlike most of them are only allowed as personal use at home. It comes with 2 main modules which is the antivirus and Defense+. As for the Defense+, it is an additional protection to further protect your computer against unknown threats by running programs in sandbox, heuristic and behavior analysis, cloud scanning and etc. You can also turn on the game mode from the tray icon and protect the settings with a password.
Pay extra attention during installation because by default it makes a lot of changes to your system. The setup modifies your DNS server settings to COMODO SecureDNS, At customize installation, you will see that it installs GeekBuddy for live support, and Dragon, a secure web browser by Comodo based on Chromium. Make sure you uncheck whatever that you don’t need. The installer itself is already nearly 100MB and the first time update will download a main definition file that’s nearly 100MB in size as well.
CONCLUSION:-
Best Antivirus: AVAST FREE (CNET's No1, offline updates, less memory)
Best Antivirus+ Firewall: ZoneAlarm (Kaspersky engine, Simple UI)
Best Antivirus For Collages, Commercial Organizations: COMODO FREE
POST BY WAR379K ("the war prayer")
