Most Suitable Free Anti-virus?

[smargh]

MSE. All my family uses MSE[1].

Also: A beta of MSE was just released which promises scanning inbetween IE (if you aren't sensible enough to use FF+NoScript) & the big bad internet, and "protection against network-based exploits" - http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b...available.aspx



[1]except me. I walk on the wild side.

[Mithrandir]

Microsoft Security Essentials

+ infinity

[jimbo90210us]

+ infinity

+infinity + 1

[Queelis]

+infinity + 1

That's still infinity, though.

[pauldarkside]

MSE here too. Just wish they'd do a server version too.

[superscaper]

May as well add another vote for MSE. I've gone through different phases for preference of free AVs to install on other people's machines, Avast, Antivir, AVG etc, but my current favourite is MSE, seems to be the least intrusive and does quite well in lab tests/reviews.

[Rainmaker]

Wow, I'm surprised at all the support for MSE here given how poor its detection rates are. Not only in independent tests (such as AV-Comparatives) but in real-world tests too. It only scores in the 80-odd percent detection range in comparatives, and I've had it miss several well known ('old') trojans in the real world.

I submitted samples to MS (they were the ONLY anti-malware vendor to miss these samples according to Jotti and VirusTotal), and the reply was frankly astounding. It basically said their paid-for enterprise product had detected that sample since not long after 0-day, and if I'd paid, I wouldn't be moaning about MSE missing samples. It's free, so go away.

I never used it since. If you want free and light, go for Avast Free Edition. Version 5 (the latest) is quite unobtrusive, has better detection than MSE by far, and incorporates a web scanner etc to boot (MSE doesn't yet). It takes a few seconds to register inside the program, and you're done for a year. No hassle at all.

[kalniel]

Wow, I'm surprised at all the support for MSE here given how poor its detection rates are. Not only in independent tests (such as AV-Comparatives) but in real-world tests too. It only scores in the 80-odd percent detection range in comparatives, and I've had it miss several well known ('old') trojans in the real world.

It scored 96.3% in AV-comparitives on-demand feb 2010 test, compared to 97.3% for AVAST. However MSE had a much better lack of false-positives than AVAST.

In the retrospective scan (march 2010) it quite outperformed AVAST, gaining an Advanced+ rating compared to AVAST!'s Advanced, especially in the pro-active detection of new samples (59% for MSE vs 29% for AVAST) still with fewer false positives.

[Rainmaker]

It scored 96.3% in AV-comparitives on-demand feb 2010 test, compared to 97.3% for AVAST. However MSE had a much better lack of false-positives than AVAST.

In the retrospective scan (march 2010) it quite outperformed AVAST, gaining an Advanced+ rating compared to AVAST!'s Advanced, especially in the pro-active detection of new samples (59% for MSE vs 29% for AVAST) still with fewer false positives.

Ah fair enough so it's improved some since I last looked, but the real world performance really isn't that great. I've spent the time cleaning infected machines, and had the Foxtrot Oscar direct from MS for my troubles, believe me. There's no such thing as 100% security, nor a 100% effective anti malware application. But when a product misses samples that are several MONTHS old, and well known, and the vendor simply says "Well you should have paid us for the enterprise suite, then!"... well, that speaks volumes imho.

[andrewuk]

I've used MSE on my Windows 7 install since day one and I'm very happy with it. Like others have said it just does its stuff and doesn't bug you with prompts to download newer versions, upgrade to pro editions etc etc.

I have an old laptop running XP which until the weekend had AVG on it. I have now now replaced AVG with MSE and I must say the whole laptop is much snappier now so particularly for older spec machines the seemingly low overhead of MSE is a welcome change from slow and bloated software!

[usxhe190]

If you want free and light, go for Avast Free Edition. Version 5 (the latest) is quite unobtrusive, has better detection than MSE by far, and incorporates a web scanner etc to boot (MSE doesn't yet). It takes a few seconds to register inside the program, and you're done for a year. No hassle at all.

Yea, but would you want to keep coming back to help your sister in law/grandparents/etc do stupid things like reregister and update...i wouldn't..

[Rainmaker]

Yea, but would you want to keep coming back to help your sister in law/grandparents/etc do stupid things like reregister and update...i wouldn't..

A five second job, once a year? I don't hate my family THAT much!

[usxhe190]

A five second job, once a year? I don't hate my family THAT much!

I dont hate my family but I hate doing these updates for them!

[pauldarkside]

MSE here too. Just wish they'd do a server version too.

Yay, MSE now working on WHS (V1 & Vail)

[qbie]

Another vote for MSE here - I've installed it on numerous PCs with no issues.

I do a lot of Malware removal on PCs as part of my day-to-day job, and I see numerous PCs with various AV products installed, with large amounts of Fake AV apps and Spyware. The moral of that is, never rely on an AV app to protect you fully, some common sense is required too. A lot of people seem to think that AV/Internet Security apps are bulletproof and will never let anything through, I guess thats due to the marketing depeartments of the vendors!

q

[ChrisN]

I recently switched from a (legitimate) avast! pro license to MSSE and haven't looked back. I stopped using avast! when it absolutely insisted on getting in my way whenever it detected a suspicious file, automatically quarrantining or deleting the file without prompting me for action first. I was also noticing a higher rate of false-positives than I used to get with the old 4.8 version. MSSE solves all of these problems, and it integrates really well with Win7 as an added bonus. Can't recommend it enough.