Free antivirus

I have been using AVG free antivirus for some time - but I see that they now want to charge for it.

Are there any good free alternatives? What about Avira Free antivirus?

I am with Virgin broadband and they offer a free one. But its rubbish - it used to bring my maching to a grinding halt on a regular basis. I have used AVG Free with several machines, with Win 95, Win 98 and Win XT, and feel that it has been very good. The earlier version would tell you what it was doing and what it found and what type of a threat it was. And it did find things. But the current AVG version which is about to be dropped doesn't communicate at all. I just assume it does a good job like the previous version.

 

I understand from a colleague who had this trouble that you have to scroll down the page to find the FREE AVG link now.

There is also Clam AV.

 

I'm using AVG, but I haven't noticed any change?

 

I would agree with Marley Farley.

I changed from AVG to Avast. It's better software because AVG let a few viruses through before but since changing to Avast, no problems at all.

 

Many thanks to you all for your replies. I probably posted this thread a bit early. Because afterwards I had a good Google and I now believe that the new AVG 9.0 is still free. But originally I kept being directed to a free version, which later went on to say that it was only free for 30 days.

However I am greatly encouraged, Marley and Kindredspirit, by your experience of Avast and think I might try that. However I think a bit of backing up first is in order - though I don't expect any trouble. These days I back up onto a USB hard drive. Floppies and CD roms are not much use except for a few key items. The problem with backing up is to identify everything that needs to be kept, rather than the process itself.

I have never had to do a restore - so I am not sure what things are kept. But I feel safer if I know what I have backed up, and can access it with explorer to confirm that it really is there.

 

Interesting... I have been using AVG.9 (Free) for some time both on the desk top, lap top and netbook, and at the moment have no bugs/viruses that I know of. It is set to auto update on startup and scan once a day. If a plug in my two external 500GB and 1TB HDs it will take several hours to do a full scan. But so far.. no bugs have done any damage.
Guess I`m lucky and I hope that continues.

 

I too have avg 9 and yes its free.

With regard to backups and external hard drives, these can give up too.

 

Having just splashed out for a new PC I now have 3 AV programs.

Norton - came free for 55 days

AVG 9 - downloaded the free edition - used on previous PC

AVAST! - based on recommendation here. So far I prefer it. especially telling me its updated and the options for scanning.

thanks all

 

I have just had my computer professionally cleaned as it was running so slow, i have always had some sort of cover ,paid or freebie,
When it came back they said it was clogged with bits of stuff left over when programmes get deleted. They had installed Avast and in their opinion it was the best out there, I have a McAfee subscription but when that runs out i shall keep to Avast

 

Well I am using avast anti virus. Its really good with my PC.

 

I swapped to avast from avg after reading this thread. It picked up a trojan that avg had missed and my computer is running much more quickly now. So another vote for Avast from me. Thanks for tip Marley.

 

Avast may be good, but as far as I can see you cannot actually download the program itself (Correct me if I am wrong with an address for the prog itself). As far as I can see you Download an installation program which them installs the rest of it. Great for Broadband users but when it says it is going to take over 22 hours on my machine then it is a bit of a no go really.