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The Best FREE Anti-Virus Options

by: Katie | last updated: August 21, 2009
Category: Smart Shopping | Tags: anti virus, free anti viruses, anti virus reviews

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The Best FREE Anti-Virus Options Some of the top free anti viruses are much better than most of those paid for versions. So why pay for something you can get for Free and is sometimes better? Here's the Pros and Cons of the best Free Anti Viruses out there.

Tip: Never run two real time anti viruses at the same time. They cause conflicts.

AVG Anti Virus 8.0.1 (Free Version)

Pros: AVG has finally came out with a new version of AVG Anti Virus that now offers a built in anti spyware giving it too better detection of spyware. AVG 8 also seems to be a lighter anti virus on memory usage. The AVG developers have also added a new feature called "Link Scanner" which turns out to be a Web Shield detecting viruses that are actually embeded in websites. AVG 8 was one of the first anti viruses to detect the Alicia Keys myspace virus with Link Scanner.

Cons: This isn't too big of a con, but it's updates download kind of slow. The heuristics engine is not that good on detecting unknown malware and viruses compared to Nod32 and others.

AVG Anti Virus 8.0.1 (Free Version)

Avira Antivir Personal 8.1 (Free Version)

Pros: Avira Antivir offers a strong heuristic scanner to detect some of the newest and unknown malware and viruses based purely on the behavior. Avira also has a very fast virus scanner, they have also added an anti spyware feature to it's free version thus giving it too better detection of spyware and also better overall detection.

Cons: Myself and many others have come to the believe that Avira must put it's free version updates on some of the slowest servers, depending on the time of day it can take up to 3 minutes to even connect to the update server, even then it takes another 2 minutes to download the updates because the speeds tend to be around 2-7KBPS (this download speed could be an issue only with me and a couple others though). And it also has an annoying popup each time it updates asking you to purchase the premium version.

Avira Antivir Personal 8.1 (Free Version)

BitDefender Anti Virus 10 (Free Version)

Pros: BitDefender 10 has a very sophisticated heuristic engine which will detect new malware and viruses that other Anti Viruses can not detect. It's paid for version has hourly updates which is a great thing for an anti virus. Another really good thing that i believe is a pro is that BitDefender uses virus signatures and a heauristic engine to detect viruses, spyware, malware and trojans.

Cons: BitDefender 10 is only an on demand scanner meaning, it will NOT give you 24/7 protection from viruses, it will only detect what is already on your computer. I suggest it should only be used as a second virus scanner and not your only anti virus.

BitDefender Anti Virus 10 (Free Version)

ClamWin Anti Virus 0.93 (Free Version)

Pros: ClamWin is an open source anti virus built by the open source community, it offers good detection of new and old viruses. ClamWin is built on ClamAV technology and has just recently reached 1 million signatures in it's database. ClamWin provides an automatic update feature that lets you know when your database is out of date and needs updated. It also has a nice feature that will allow you to scan your memory (processes that are currently running) for viruses and other infections.

Cons: ClamWin is only an on demand scanner meaning it will not detect if you download a infected file until you manually scan that file, just use it along with your every day real time anti virus.

ClamWin Anti Virus 0.93 (Free Version)

Dr.Web Anti Virus 4.44 (Free Version)

Pros: Dr.Web Anti Virus is a very small anti virus with a very big punch, detecting some of the nastiest viruses in the wild to date. It is an on demand scanner for home use only, it also makes a great secondary virus scanner along with your real time protection anti virus. Dr.Web also has a fast scanner with low memory usage.

Cons: The only con i can really come up with at this time is that it is only an on demand scanner and will not protect you from viruses, only detect and remove them or even try to "cure" the infected file.

Dr.Web Anti Virus 4.44 (Free Version)

PCTools Anti Virus 4 (Free Version)

Pros: PCTools Anti Virus 4 offers realtime protection which will protect you from even being infected by alot of different viruses and types of spyware. It offers a good heuristic engine and also a signature based engine to compliment the heuristic engine, it also offers a very simple interface that even a new computer user would not have trouble with.

Cons: PCTools also is the owner of the famous "Spyware Doctor" Anti Spyware which used to be a great program till they started to turn it into bloatware that isnt as good as other anti spywares, why this is a con for their Anti Virus is because they could do the same to their Anti Virus and ruin another good thing. Right now it seems highly unlikely they are going to do any major changes to their anti virus which is good and bad, they also have a very slow scanner that takes a much longer time then alot of other anti viruses. (pro) But i know alot of people who say they like when they scanner takes longer because it could possibly mean it's doing a deeper scan.

PCTools Anti Virus 4 (Free Version)