Free Anti-Virus Software, Can You Trust It?

I have recommended in previous post several anti-virus free software programs. Some are better than others, but all that have been recommended here have one thing in common: they all can be trusted, however, the degree of performance and effectiveness may vary greatly from one to another.

Today I am going to respond to a question posed by one of our viewers, Mr. Luis Nabais from Portugal, who asks whether he should keep buying expensive anti-virus software, when, as he has read in this blog,   he could instead use other programs that do basically the same thing and  are free of cost.

Not all the programs I have referred to are as efficient as the big names of the industry, (that I am not going to mention), except one that by all records known can be favorably compared to them.

This anti-virus software program that can be downloaded and installed at absolutely no cost is called:
                                 
 Avira Antivir Personal.

This program was rated #1 by PC WORLD magazine, (which in my opinion is the premier computer field technology magazine published today).

I quote from their test results as follows:

Avira's Antivir Personal surpassed all competitors, thanks to its excellent malware detection and impressive scan speed.

The program test scores were the  following:

PERFORMANCE SCORE:                          SUPERIOR
OVERALL MALWARE DETECTION:        98.9%
HEURISTIC DETECTION WITH TWO
WEEK-OLD SIGNATURES:                      52.7%
ROOTKIT DETECTION, (ACTIVE
AND INACTIVE ROOTKITS)                    100%
ROOTKIT REMOVAL:                              100%
DETECTION OF ADWARE SAMPLES:  92%
SUCCESSFUL ELEMINATION
OF MALWARE:                                        50%
ON- DEMAND, (IN SECONDS):             17
ON-ACCESS, (IN SECONDS)                 28
DESIGN SCORE:                                    GOOD

The program excellent detection, desinfection and scan speed, earned the top spot of all programs tested.  The strong performance continued in desinfection, where Avira Antivir Personal found and disarmed all the rootkits and other infections tossed at it, but (like all the free software here) it tended to leave remnants, such as relatively harmless Registry changes, in place.

Avira's program was not just the most thorough tool, but also the fastest. It led in speed tests for both on -demand scans, (which you schedule or start), and on access scans, (which ocurr automatically during tasks such as copying files).

If you viewers want to use this anti-virus program you can download it at the following address:

http://www.free-av.de/en/trialpay_download/1/avira_antivir_personal__free_antivirus.html

Just copy the above and paste on your browser.

The company has a premium version that costs approximately $20.00, which eleminates "pop-ups" ads for Avira's paid ID -theft protection programs, but other than that this version is basically the same as the free version.

George Freire