Additionally, but Avast Antivirus also incorporates an alternative to scan your system for prospective protection dilemmas, plus the capability to block URLs that is rid and harmful of unwanted browser add-ons.
Title says it all. Years ago, I lived and died by AVG. When i was in tech school, our firewall didn't work well with AVG so we were forced to use Avast. I liked the features and user interface of Avast better (AVG started becoming a bit bloated too if i remember correctly). Now the time comes again to recommend something. Avast needed an email to register and this user is the type to call me for every prompt, so I decided to give her AVG.
Once again, I am finding that I like the one other than what I am using better. I have never used Avira and Panda just seemed to basic at the time i tested it. So the question is, what is your favorite Antivirus? If you are posting based on an OS, please give the reasons why so the community knows. I also use linux at home and I have seen very many threads with Mac users asking for a free antivirus solution. I'm all for avast, either paid or free.
I use it on my main workstation and one several W7 VM's I have running as servers or test machines. I've never gotten a virus on any machine since I've started using it (back at v4 so almost a decade ago). The interface has been steadily getting better and better. Features like the software checking to see if things are out of date (like Foxit Reader or Flash) are useful.
The program is also very lightweight and it's secure enough that I don't have to run scheduled scans. I just let the active protection do its job. The only problem I have with avast! Is that the free version can be kind of pushy sometimes about updating.
Generally though, if you tell it no it will keep quiet for awhile. I too usually installed AVG over Avast due to the e-mail registration requirement but that is in the past.
I now use a combination of the two depending on the level of expertise the has. I find AVG's newest user interface fairly easy to navigate at the expense of feeling a bit 'heavier' on system resources. I find the comment earlier about Avast becoming more sneaky with getting people to upgrade humourous. AVG has been doing this for years but at least recently they have allowed the option to downgrade back to the free version without having to do a complete remove/install.
Looks like so far AVG is the winner. I never knew that SOPHOS had a free home license and I like their previous involvement with the Spiceworks community so I will definitely consider dropping it on one of my many windows machines. Bit defender I read a bad review of back in the day, but my local IT buddy swears by it. Panda Cloud I have not used since it was standard Panda and as I mentioned the interface was a bit basic, but I feel that I should branch out and try all of the ones mentioned here (since I already tried AVG and Avast and know what I am walking into with those). The other thing that sparked my interest in creating this thread was when a mac user/coworker of mine asked about an AV solution after hearing about the SSL bug. I pretty much broke the news to her about the bug, but it sparked my interest in a free AV solution for macs. I saw here on spiceworks of all places that Avast had a mac version and that was the first thing that came to mind.
This user that I was helping still had MSE on her pc and I was like. Yeah, that has to go. AVG was my choice and I thought it would be time to finally part ways with Avast and see if anyone else could contend.