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Best Free Virus Scanner

ztecztec Member
in Help

Hello Guys,

Thanks for clicking my topic.

I'm looking for a free and good virus scanner that I can recommend to my tech-retarded friends. I have close to none experience with virus scanners because I believe common sense is the best virus scanner.

But just in case: What is the best (free) virus scanner?

Thanks again.

«1

Comments

  • AdducAdduc Member

    With regards to Windows, I've heard a lot of good feedback about Microsoft Security Essentials. Anywhere else, clamav (or clamxav for mac) is king.

  • upfreakupfreak Member

    Microsoft security essentials will be my first rec. However personally I would choose zone alarm free antivirus + firewall. Its firewall is one of the best and it uses kaspersky engine for antivirus.

  • SpiritSpirit Member

    Free anti-malware Malwarebytes can be good addition to above recommended MSE.

  • Dragoon0309Dragoon0309 Member

    I work in a computer repair shop and we always put MSE in the machines.

  • WebSearchingProWebSearchingPro Member

    Microsoft Security Essentials - as its quite light weight compared to many of the paid offerings.

  • CNJeremyCNJeremy Member

    Microsoft Security Essentials also.

    McAfee and Norton have gotten to bloated with crap.

  • awsonawson Member

    MSE.

    inb4 "common sense" and "linux"

  • ztecztec Member
    edited August 2013

    @WebSearchingPro said:
    Microsoft Security Essentials - as its quite light weight compared to many of the paid offerings.

    I think this is the best option.

    Thanks guys!

  • klpowellklpowell Member

    I agree that Microsoft's Security essentials is the best. I have also recently been testing Panda Cloud AV, which has a free edition, it is very light weight since the processing is actually done of Panda's servers instead of your local PC. This of course adds some privacy concerns ...

    I use to be a big fan of AVG free edition and Avast! Free, but both of these have gotten more bloated as time has gone one.

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran
    edited August 2013
    1. Cant be processing on panda servers, that would mean sending all your files there which is impractical.
    2. While common sense is king, drive-by infections even on updated machines are not uncommon, or more common than most people think and those are the real deal that steal data and remain hidden.
    3. MSE does a good job, but also Avira is lightweight (annoying pop-ups a few times a day are a drawback, but seems to score better than MSE at detection, at least from my PoV).
    4. For scanning now and then, malware bytes is ok, if infected, however, your best bet is Combofix. That because one infection doesnt come alone, usually, but invites friends too, some of them can be dangerous rootkits that many AVs cannot remove, in particular MSE sucks badly at that chapter.
  • NetxonsNetxons Member

    I would recommend avast anti virus.

  • klpowellklpowell Member

    @Maounique said:
    1. Cant be processing on panda servers, that would mean sending all your files there which is impractical.

    That is what they claim. They market the scanner as a "thin-client model" where scanning is performed on their servers and only basic detection is done at the client level.

  • NeoonNeoon Community Contributor, Veteran

    It dosen't exist " the best" but with Avast you are not the least. I saw some test results.

  • MagiobiwanMagiobiwan Member

    I prefer Microsoft Security Essentials + Windows Defender (included w/ Win8 and available for Win7 for free). They're great at detecting and removing anything not zero-day. While some articles online say that MSE sucks because it didn't pass a certification test, where it wasn't strong was with zero-day viruses; on the other 2 categories it did very well. Zero-day's are just plain HARD to catch, requiring heuristic scanning methods, which bog down the system.

  • GunterGunter Member

    Avast is awesome.

  • asterisk14asterisk14 Member

    Does MSE check if you have genuine XP?

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    Yes, however, XP is out of support now. I saw it still updates MSE.

  • MagiobiwanMagiobiwan Member

    Nah, XP still has until April. Then it's time for it to GO AWAY ALREADY!!!!!

  • nagugnagug Member

    MSE is the one good product from Microsoft

  • CheapVPSCheapVPS Member

    Another vote for MSE on Windows

  • klikliklikli Member
    edited August 2013

    Bitdefender gets my vote. Light on resources yet high detection rates. :)

  • r0t3nr0t3n Member

    I always use comodo, one of the best free all-in-one packages, i would never use MSE or anything else like avast/mcafee again.

  • asterisk14asterisk14 Member

    @Magiobiwan said:
    Nah, XP still has until April. Then it's time for it to GO AWAY ALREADY!!!!!

    Old is GOLD! I will stick with XP probably for next 5 years or so.

    "Windows XP (38.73 percent) continues its steady decline, but its share of web usage is still remarkably high for a product that will reach its official end of life in just over a year." ZDNet

  • SpiritSpirit Member

    @asterisk14 said:
    I will stick with XP probably for next 5 years or so.

    XP 64-Bit Edition? :P

  • asterisk14asterisk14 Member
    edited August 2013

    @Spirit said:
    XP 64-Bit Edition? :P

    No 32 bit, SP3, slipstreamed by eXPerience for super fast, low overhead Windows goodness. I still have a P2 350Mhz, Celeron 700MHz, Duron 1300Mhz, P4 1.6GHz/2.5GHz, Athlon ?1.2Ghz, Celeron 1.5Ghz, C2D 1.4Ghz, C2D 2GHz so need to keep going with XP.

  • BogdacutuuBogdacutuu Member

    @asterisk14 said:
    need to keep going with XP.

    or linux?

  • asterisk14asterisk14 Member
    edited August 2013

    @Bogdacutuu said:
    or linux?

    No, tried all the linux, even the so called lightweight ones and they all crawled with loads of disk swapping (or had problems with drivers if I chose the older versions). With TinyXP by eXPerience, eerything just works even the P2 which I was using for a voip pbx server, NAS, bit torrent, usenet, rdp. The P2 has the lowest power consumption, something like 15-20 Watts and it was doing all those tasks under XP!

    Everything worked out the box with XP (besides loading the odd driver or two), linux is just a pain. XP is best on these slow machines.

    I'm not using the P2 anymore, as I don't need it. But I've still got it and if I wanted a similar setup, XP would be my first choice.

  • SpiritSpirit Member
    edited August 2013

    How do you plan to deal with security issues once MS drop support with XP. Or do you think that there won't be new vulnerabilities discovered in future? Not to mention application lever vulnerabilities.
    It won't be just XP support dropped but also most XP applications support as much as they aren't already. Do you use flash? Or any other third party application? Vendors don't invest their time and money to patch products for EOL operating systems. Every new vulnerability will be 0day for you all the time.

    edit
    Forget about my question. I see that you already use some home baked fork of windowsXP which wasn't updated since 2011 or so. Good luck with that!

  • itgodsitgods Member

    Avast!

  • NeoonNeoon Community Contributor, Veteran

    Avast is also good for people they generally speak with his computer, avast answers you :D

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