AntiVir Personal Edition 10.0.0.592

Rated 20/50 by Flemens at Aug 16, 2008

Good AV but low rating for not being available for 64bit.

Rated 50/50 by spacemarine at Aug 16, 2008

@Skyfrog: It is a free AV an has among the best detection rate of any AV out there. So what do you expect ? I mean, I find it absolutely OK that the developers added a little nag screen. There are several (dead easy) ways of getting rid of the nag screen for good. But you have to search for yourself, I'm not posting this here. Bottom line: ------------ This is the best free AV out there, and beats most paid AVs when it comes to the detection rate. See www.av-comparatives.org for detection statistics. The scanning itself is *very* fast and the background guard does NOT bog down your computer as is the case with some other AVs (Kaspersky *cough* *cough* ;)). Five Stars hands down. PS: Of course there are always some weirdos, morons and plain old idiots out there on the net who simply don't recognize an excellent application when they see one... :(. This is NOT directed to anyone in particular, it is just intended as a general remark, so please, nobody should feel addressed directly. No hard feelings ;) --Spacemarine

Rated 30/50 by Anonymous at Aug 16, 2008

The problem with trying to find ratings on this is that all the tests use the premium edition and not this free edition. Now whether or not it makes a difference is open to debate. As far as the premium edition, it beats AVG and NOd32 in tests. I do think that, at the end of the day, no matter how good your anti-virus or firewall is in testing, if you don't combine that with just plain old good common sense, you will see a problems with any software.

Rated 50/50 by immortal223 at Aug 16, 2008

Flemens I have 64-bit OS and Avira works well. Don't understand your complaints...

Rated 50/50 by some guy at Aug 16, 2008

the best free one out their period!

Rated 30/50 by Anonymous at Aug 16, 2008

The problem with trying to find ratings on this is that all the tests use the premium edition and not this free edition. Now whether or not it makes a difference is open to debate. As far as the premium edition, it beats AVG and NOd32 in tests. I do think that, at the end of the day, no matter how good your anti-virus or firewall is in testing, if you don't combine that with just plain old good common sense, you will see a problems with any software.

Rated 50/50 by mfarmilo at Aug 17, 2008

Excellent program, I always recommend it to my customers - although where possible I recommend the premium version, which also includes Antispyware and is very reasonably priced. On a sidenote - the version currently being downloaded here is still 8.1.0.326, not 8.1.0.331.

Rated 50/50 by cyclone22 at Sep 1, 2008

Very good program.Detected every Autorun virus in my computer which AVG free version could not detect at all.

Rated 50/50 by aruprc at Sep 4, 2008

Every tests they throw at it works out in Avira's favor and it keeps coming out with flying colors consistently. Also the fact it hardly ever creates issues in your system with updates speaks volumes of its developers. Best AV keeps getting better day by day.

Rated 50/50 by pep086 at Sep 4, 2008

the best one, i tried avg, avast, nod32,mc affee, not even close to this one, and its 4 FREEE, i still need to find a license for the premium oneee xd

Rated 50/50 by madmike at Sep 4, 2008

Top Rank, the best

Rated 50/50 by vailr at Sep 5, 2008

A fresh install using the version offered as "8.1.0.367" actually results with version "8.1.0.331" [dated 8/12/2008]. Doing the "update" requires about 4 Mb and 9 updated files. After which, the version number remains as "8.1.0.331". Note: the file that MajorGeeks.com offers produces the same installed version: "8.1.0.331".

Rated 50/50 by legion at Sep 5, 2008

Great piece of soft :)

Rated 40/50 by DudeBoyz at Sep 5, 2008

Update: Still no auto-update in the app to get to this "newer version". It lists .331 and that's it. No .367 to be found, it seems. I hope someone fixes this. Original Post: I too have found that there may be a problem with updating to this specific version. My installation, though updated, still lists .331 as the product version. That potential issue aside, I'm finding AntiVir to be an increasingly impressive program. Yes, daily updates trigger a nag screen each time, but that is about the only reason that I have for rating it a 4 instead of a 5. Perhaps the lack of live Email scanning bugs me just a bit, but I'm finding that if I lock-down Outlook Express 6 (restricted zone, plain-text only, etc.) there are no problems. Each and every attachment can be scanned as they are saved to disk, so that may end up making my concerns a moot point. I just had to "re-think" my expectations about how email works and should behave. It may not scan attachments as they arrive from the mail server, but it does scan them if you save them, so isn't that pretty much the same thing since all scripting and HTML coding is disabled? It was hard to leave AVG 7.5 behind, but this program feels lighter, tighter and certainly seems to be more effective than almost any other app in terms of detection rates, configuration flexibility and the protections it provides. I hope they continue the good work and do not lose sight of the lean efficiency that makes this product so worthwhile.

Rated 50/50 by JustinUT79 at Sep 5, 2008

Yes, I can confirm what vailr posted. It does NOT appear that version 8.1.0.367 has actually been released or the vendor failed to update the version information tab in the program (very doubtful). I believe this is why http://www.filehippo.com has NOT updated Antivir to version ".367". Also, the file size for the so called ".367" version is the exact same size as the ".331" version. I wish all software vendors would always clearly post version numbers and release dates on their official website.

Rated 50/50 by UPieper at Sep 21, 2008

I switched from Kaspersky to Avira about 1 year ago and I never looked back. There were some problems with the speed of the update-servers for the freeware version, but it looks like they upgraded their servers as I didn't experience any problems since months now.... Avira is using a proprietary engine(ie. it's not using the Kaspersky engine) with very good heuristics and it's constantly getting into the top 3 ranks with its detection rates.... ...and that's all for free! PS: It seems that version .367 is only for the premium version. The free version is till at .331 See here: http://www.free-av.com/e...ad/download_servers.php

Rated 50/50 by Undesired Username at Sep 24, 2008

@cowgaR: AntiVir uses its own engine. It doesn't and never has used the Kaspersky engine. This is the freeware Avira product, AntiVir Personal, which as you point out, lacks spyware/adware protection. AntiVir Premium (and AntiVir Security Suite) both have spyware/adware protection. I point this out because you mention buying licenses. But if you're buying licenses (and thus getting spyware protection), why rate the freeware version and complain about lack of spyware protection? AntiVir is tops with me. Look at the August, 2008 av-comparatives.org results: AntiVir Premium (which I realize is not AntiVir Personal) rated best with "highest settings", and second-best with "default settings" (bested only by a product that uses two engines and offers agonizingly slow performance). Fanboy favorite NOD32 fared quite a bit worse (apparently, Eset thinks it's OK to miss 8% of trojans, and 15% of script malware). I also find AntiVir one of the very few anti-malware solutions that does not impact performance so much that it drives me nuts. This is a huge point with me, as I will not put up with crapware that makes my system crawl. My only real complaint with AntiVir is that it has too many false positives (as you can see on av-comparatives.org). You can mitigate this somewhat by not using heuristics, but then, obviously, you lose the benefit of heuristics.

Rated 20/50 by Alexander-GG at Sep 30, 2008

"They are watching you!!!" Booooooo!!! The quick updates are only for Premium product users. You should suffer as much as possible, cause you are free product user!!! The Premium version is absolutely different. Avira will try it's best to make you not to forget that you are a free product user!!! Upgrade to Premium version or you will be die!!!

Rated 30/50 by Anonymous at Oct 14, 2008

I give this a 3 because of 2 reasons: 1) I am not sure that you get the same quality updating as with the paid version and 2) I have not been able to find any tests done using this free version. Instead all tests use the premium edition which is rated as the best by AV comparitives. But comparing a premium edition to a free edition is sometimes like comparing apples and oranges. As far as the nag screen- no big deal. I would be happy to get the premium edition but not until the company opens an office in the US and I can call in my order and not give credit card info. over the internet. So, I have mixed feelings about the free edition but I am considering changing to another Av that is free and barely lost out to the premium edition of Avira. Still, in the end, it comes down to using common sense because no Av will ever be ahead of the curve as far as virus protection but will always be in a reaction-type mode. That's the nature of the beast. On the positive, there are no driver conflicts as with some other Av and Firewall programs so a good adware/spyware real time protection and good firewall and common sense will protect you the best.

Rated 50/50 by some guy at Oct 23, 2008

ok for free this is the best now if your going to pay money it still out ranks the others test score can be seen here http://www.av-comparatives.org/