Could You Recommend A Cost Effective Antivirus Software

[mtnbluet 0]

I gave a pentium 3 computer to a friend who doesn't know much about computers. Lo and behold her family comes to live with her and they start playing games, entering into chats and myspace. Of course, now system doctor from Internet Explorer is telling her she has a dangerous level of viruses on her computer.Could you recommend the most cost effective antivirus software for her?Thanks in advance,Cathy S.

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

If you ask me - I'd recommend you to use BitDefender.. my personal favourite for past 3 years. It's pretty cheap compared to many of the major / well-known AVs with a way better virus detection engine. Also far less resource hungry than the likes of Norton.

 

It's been topping the list on Top Ten Antivirus Review for past 3 years consecutively. In case you don't want to pay for it, version 8 of the product has been declared FREEWARE and can be downloaded from the official Bitdefender Site.

[dhanesh1405241511 0]

I've never used BitDefender but would love to try it once. Seeing it on the Top Ten Antivirus list gets me greedy . I used to use Norton Antivirus till i shifted since 3 months now to Kaspersky. Its served me well but i just find it a little hard to configure and the application pop-ups are just too annoying at times lol.It is costly, but u might want to d'load a demo and try it out first. OR take m^e's advice and go for bitdefender. And since its free, i'd want to give that a try too ;)RegardsDhanesh.

[Abhay 0]

I have used norton, pc-cillin and AVG free. Out of these three norton is very resource hungry. Pc-cillin is good but paid. Now i am using AVG free edition for more than a year and i am satisfied with it.It is not so resource hungry daily updates are available on the net.

[niran 0]

Hi,

 

I'm using "Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic" for last 1 year!

Its one totally free anti virus, and it wont eat memory resources!!

I think, its the best FREE antivirus, I came across till date!

I had tried many anti virus programs before!~ But most of them uses much memory resources!

Its having easy user interface, and if u try it once, u will stick with that! Im sure about that!

You can get more details about Avira AntiVir here:

http://www.avira.com/en/free-antivirus-windows

 

Download it free from here:

http://www.avira.com/en/download/product/avira-rescue-system

 

Regards,

Niru

 

[hovis 0]

You could try this out http://www.avg.com/de-de/free-antivirus-download

I use it on one of my machines and seems ok, at least it's free so 'cost effective'.

[mtnbluet 0]

Thanks for all the suggestions. It was a tie between Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic and Free AVG until I went to free-AV.com and heard this weird noise.At first it sounded like some little engine. Then I watched the sponsor's ad that had some insects flying around. Then I noticed a bee that was literally buzzing and flying around. It sounded so real---too real. That settled it--didn't want to hear any insects where there was none, so Free AVG won hands down. (It may be an understatement to say that this may not be the most scientific way to have made my choice.)

[iGuest 3]

I would like to Recommend AVAST due to the following reasons :

 

* Free for home use.

 

 

* Supports Windows (including Vista) , Linux.

 

 

* The latest version of avast! anti virus kernel features outstanding detection abilities, together with high performance. You can

 

expect 100% detection of In-the-Wild viruses (viruses already spreading between users) and excellent detection of Trojan

 

horses.

 

 

* The kernel is certified by ICSA; and frequently takes part in the tests of Virus Bulletin magazine, often yielding the VB100

 

award.

 

 

* It can scan inside the following archives: ARJ, ZIP, MIME (+ all associated formats), MAPI (Outlook pst files), DBX (Outlook

 

Express archives), RAR, TAR, GZIP, CAB, BZIP2, ZOO, ACE, ARC, LHA/LHX, TNEF (winmail.dat), CPIO, CHM, RPM, ISO, 7ZIP

 

and SIS. It also supports a number of executable packers (such as PKLite, Diet, UPX, ASPack, PeShield, FSG, MEW etc.).

 

 

* The Simple User Interface is used to start on-demand scanning, work with the results and change various options. Basic

 

resident protection settings can be modified here.

 

 

* avast! Home Edition contains resident protection of the computer file system and a resident module for e-mails and news.

 

* Avast features a module for the protection of IM (Instant Messaging, "chat") programs, and a module for the protection of P2P

 

(peer-to-peer) programs. The list of supported IM and P2P programs is extensive with more than 30 programs currently

 

supported.

 

 

* A new resident protection module was added to avast! 4.5: the Network Shield. This module provides protection against known

 

Internet worms/attacks. It analyses all network traffic and scans it for malicious contents. It can be viewed as a lightweight

 

firewall (or more precisely, an IDS (Intrusion Detection System)).

 

 

* Web Shield is a unique feature of avast! that enables it to monitor and filter all HTTP traffic coming from the Web sites on the

 

Internet. Since an increasing number of viruses (and other malware, such as adware, spyware and dialers) are being distributed

 

via the World Wide Web, the need for an effective countermeasures has also increased. The Web Shield acts as a transparent

 

HTTP proxy and is compatible with all major web browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, FireFox, Mozilla and Opera.

 

 

 

* If your Internet connection is persistent, the updates are performed completely automatically at fixed time intervals. If you

 

connect to the Internet only occasionally, avast! watches your connection and tries to perform the update when you are online.

 

 

* avast! antivirus features outstanding integration into your system. A scan can be started directly from Windows Explorer, by

 

clicking a folder or a file with your right mouse button and selecting the corresponding choice from the menu.

SO GO FOR AVAST

 

Notice from WeaponX:

Completely copied from https://www.avast.com/index

 

You MUST use quote tags if it's not your own words

[Zlash 0]

I agree in choosing AVG free antivirus. A lot of people i know use it and have no trouble with common viruses. Me myself have used it before, but then i got Pc-Cillin which i think is better(but then again it is paid for so it should be). Norton Antivirus slows down your pc a bit after my experience and the startup is slow(mainly because it checks the pc for problems at startup which is good, but having a pc shouldnt be a that big burden).

[eminus 0]

If you have a budget then there is no reason to choose BitDefender but if you want a free Anti Virus software then I would opt to choose AVG.both Anti-Vir that I have mentioned are effecient because they can detectalmost any new viruses (provided that your virus definition is updated) alsoit eats a little memory on your system and it is easy to use.

[webmessia 0]

I would recomend Grisoft AVG because it does not clog up the system, but works effectivly.

[Killer008r 0]

I'd say to use AVG or Nod32. Out of them all I like Nod32 the best, If Avg cant find it Nod can. I've never had a virus that Nod Couldn't take out. It's way better than its competitors like Norton or Kerio

[ethergeek 0]

I would use AVG for the antivirus, and Windows Defender for the anti-spyware. Both are free.On the other hand, you could just put Linux on that box and not worry about viruses and spyware in the first place

[Killer008r 0]

No not linux maybe Linspire since it's like the compatibility of windows and the 1337ness of linux.

[ethergeek 0]

No not linux maybe Linspire since it's like the compatibility of windows and the 1337ness of linux.

Please tell me you're joking...

What kind of compatibility are you talking about? Application-level? Data-level? Hardware-level?

It doesn't really matter what distribution of Linux is used in my example...any of them will do, depending on the user's needs.