The Free Software Store - Antivirus Programs

Anti-Virus Software

Background: Antivirus software is a generic term used to describe a program that attempts to identify, neutralize and/or eliminate malicious software.

The earliest anti-virus programs were designed exclusively to fight computer viruses. but most modern antivirus software is now designed to combat a wide range of other threats including worms, phishing attacks, trojan horses and other malware.

Most antivirus software programs use a combination of two different techniques to accomplish this:

Examining files to look for known viruses that match definitions in a virus dictionary, which is usually updated on a regular basis by the antivirus manufacturer, and
Identifying suspicious behavior from any computer program which might indicate infection.
Typically, antivirus programs also do one (or more) of three things if a virus is found:

Attempt to repair the file by removing the virus
Quarantine the file so it becomes inaccessible to other programs and its virus can no longer spread, or
Delete the infected file completely

Because viruses are never-ending, anti-virus programs require constant updates and this (in turn) requires human time and effort. So most anti-virus software is commercial and incurs an annual maintenance fee.

However there are some humanitarians out there who loathe the twisted people who create viruses so much that they make excellent anti-virus software available for free. Here's who they are:

Popular Antivirus Software

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition: AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is part of a wide suite of antivirus and anti-malware software produced by Grisoft. It was voted Software of the Year at the 2007 PCPro Awards (along with Mozilla Firefox) and it's a completely free, industrial-strength antivirus program for non-commercial use. AVG performs as well - and sometimes better - than the leading commercial programs. It will automatically scan incoming emails; can be set to perform routine hard drive scans; will also automatically scan every file you open, execute or save; and can be set to download virus definition updates on a daily basis if you wish. The Free Edition doesn't offer protection against spyware or spam and has no technical support either (you can consult a help area on Grisoft's site if you need that). But having used this software on one of our home computers for two years we can say from personal experience that this will certainly provide all the anti-virus protection you'll probably ever need. The Free Edition runs on all versions of Windows from Win98 to Vista - but if you want a version for Linux you'll need to buy one. Get AVG Anti-Virus.

Avast Home Edition: Alwil's Avast Home Edition guards your PC with multiple shields that scan executables and files, and it offers all the protection of well-known commercial programs at zero cost. It's highly configurable (eg: you can select parameters for scanning - even wildcards to exclude specific file types) and it provides full scanning protection for downloaded files, instant messages, e-mails and many P2Ps. It also has a very fast boot-time antivirus scan (which an be bypassed if you're in a hurry). And if malicious contents are detected, Avast also has a great range of virus cleanup tools. You can also set it to block certain URLs and file operations, such as writing to files or renaming, deleting or formatting them. Avast has won some glowing reviews and a string of awards and just like AVG (above), the Home Edition is for non-commercial use only - if you're in business you should buy one of the many other antivirus packages that the company makes. Avast runs on all versions of Windows from Win95 to Vista and regular virus definition updates are included. Get Avast Home Edition.

Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Classic: Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Classic may have a tongue-twister of a name but it's a reliable, free antivirus solution that constantly and rapidly scans your computer for malicious programs (such as viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, hoaxes, worms, dialers etc) and monitors every action executed by the user or by the operating system. This makes it able to react promptly when a malicious program is detected. Avira will allow you to repair and/or delete, block, rename or quarantine infected programs or files and just like AVG and Avast, its completely free for personal home use only (otherwise you should buy one of the company's many commercial anti-virus products). Avira runs on all version of Windows from Win95 to Vista and is also a multi-award winner. Get Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Classic.

Norton Security Scan: Symantec's Norton Anti-Virus is well-known commercial software and we used it happily for several years until Norton suddenly stopped upgrading the version we'd purchased (and regularly upgraded) a few years ago and demanded that we buy another version instead. So we became an ex-customer at that point. And we've stayed that way ever since. Norton now make Norton Security Scan available free as part of the Google Pack - perhaps in the hope that it may win back people like us who now happily use competing products and find them just as good (or even better). This is an on-demand scanner (ie it doesn't provide real-time protection) but it's a very good backup to have if your main anti-virus scanner ever fails. And it's free. Symantec also claim that it will happily co-exist with any other virus scanner you've installed. Google Pack software runs on Windows (XP and Vista).

A Warning About Antivirus Scams

Sadly there are a lot of scams operating on the Net - and one very malicious one is to offer you a supposedly free antivirus scan. The way this scam works is that you download what you believe is a free anti-virus program and install it. You then run the software and it informs you that your PC is infected by a variety of viruses or similar malware. You then discover that what you thought was a free anti-virus scanner isn't really free at all: only the scan was. You now have to pay the software company money to upgrade your download so that the "viruses" it supposedly found can be removed.
This scam is being run by a variety of people and while some versions of it are little more than harmless time-wasters (ie you simply uninstall the downloaded scanner and get on with your life), some are genuinely malicious (ie the scanner proves extremely difficult to remove if you don't buy the upgrade and/or causes some damage to your machine).
The software we list here is all legitimate, comes from reputable companies and the truth of what we say can easily be verified by searching for these products on Google and seeing what the consensus view is. We suggest you do exactly the same if you run across any other supposedly free antivirus software (ie Google it and see what the majority say).

Other Antivirus Resources

Last updated: 06-Feb-2008