Virus protection free

We all know that virus protection is important and this whole site is dedicated to virus protection, mostly free virus protection. But what exactly is a virus? Let’s check out what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Antivirus (or anti-virus) software is used to prevent, detect, and remove malware, including computer viruses, worms, and trojan horses. Such programs may also prevent and remove adware, spyware, and other forms of malware.

Of course the main goal of antivirus protection programs is to protect computers from viruses. They started to appear rather early in the age of massive computer use but the real expansion started with the use of internet which gave viruses the possibility to spread fast and easy.

But it has not stopped there – today viruses represent only a small portion of threats that lurk on the internet to infest your computer. Mostly there are worms and trojan horses, adware and spyware. They are technically not viruses but the bottom line is, you do want them on your computer.

Some of the free virus protection programs we have reviewed on this site also provide some protection against other forms of malware, not only viruses. However, most of them offer advanced protection in their full versions, which cost approximately about $30 a year for a home user licence. If you are not certain, that free virus protection is enough for you, you might take a look at some of the paid products.

I’m writing this because we have received some questions from users asking exactly this – is it smarter to use the paid solution? Does the difference in protection justify the money?

I cannot give you a simple answer regarding this question, so I have decided to start posting reviews of paid virus protection programs to help you decide, whether you should stick to free versions or invest a few dollars into extra protection.

This time we will take a look at the free antivirus program from the Microsoft called Microsoft Security Essentials.

You can download it from the official Microsoft site. The program is completely free, the only thing it validates is if you have a legal copy of Windows – you must run genuine Windows on your computer to install Microsoft Security Essentials.

The installation is pretty straigthforward, as one would expect from a program written by the same company that created the operating system, but if you are stuck, there is a help guide and an installation video available on the website. It should also be noted that Microsoft Security Essentials runs on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

Now how about the protection of your system – is it good? Actually it is very good. It does its job of protecting your computer from viruses and it does not require a lot of your attention (meaning it is not asking you constantly what to do with various threats). But it can be a bit on the slow side when running a scan or quarantining a virus or other threat.

If you like Microsoft products and are looking for an easy to use free antivirus which only requirement is that you have a genuine copy of Windows, Microsoft Security Essentials might be the right choice for you.

We have covered the AVG free virus protection program in our first review, but I have received some questions on how to actually install the program. I understand this might be a problem to some users, so I found this video with instructions.

So if you need help on downloading and installing free virus protection, hope this helps.

The next really free virus protection program that we are going to discuss is the Comodo free antivirus. Actually, the free antivirus is now bundled together with the free firewall. You have to download both of them – the package is called Comodo Internet Security – but no worries here, you have a choice to install one of them or both. So if you need a free firewall too, install both, otherwise just skip the firewall installation.

The truth is that most home users just use the Windows firewall so I guess the free firewalls are not in so much demand as the free virus protection programs. Nevertheless, the Comodo free firewall is an excellent piece of software and provides very good protection for your computer. If you want a free substitute for your Windows firewall I can strongly recommend the Comodo firewall.

Now about the free virus protection that Comodo offers … on the internet you can find many users expressing their regards or disregards about the Comodo free antivirus. In comparison to, for example AVG free virus protection, where the wast majority of users has posted positive reviews, here they are not so unified. A majority of users still praises the product, but there are some who do not like it. The real reason for the latter is that with the Comodo free antivirus a user has to “teach” the antivirus, which programs are potentially harmful and which are ok. The learning curve of the program is perhaps a bit longer than with some other programs that offer virus protection for free.

But if we forget about that, the program does its work very good. Comodo free antivirus offers your computer protection on level with other free virus protection programs that are available.

All in all Comodo Internet Security is a great product that demands a bit more input from the user, but in return offers you a completely free and excelent firewall. The choice is obviously yours.

Another free virus protection program that we are going to discuss comes from Germany, and it’s called Avira.

As most other antivirus software, Avira comes in multiple packages, one of them offers free virus protection for home non-profit users, and this is the one we are going to discuss today.

Avira AntiVir Personal is an exceptional program for detecting viruses and other malware. Some studies (and users) indicate that this free virus protection program is even better in virus detection than some other non-free virus protection software.

However, there are reports that among threats there is also a number of alerts, that are not really viruses (so called »false positives«). Also the removing part of the Avira is not quite as good as virus detection.

Depending on your system, set up and options, there might be a slow-down of your computer when using the free Avira, but with uncheking some of the options this can be fixed.

Despite some negative points Avira AntiVir Personal is still a great free virus protection software and if you are looking for virus protection that doesn’t cost a dime you will not miss with it.

Another free antivirus for non-commercial home personal use is Avast antivirus Home Edition.

Offering really free antivirus protection (much like AVG Free we already discussed) it is a viable choice for anyone looking for home virus protection for free.

So how does the program hadle protection against viruses? Rather good, I should say. The virus detection possibilities are on par with AVG Free which means, that if you are a normal everyday computer user Avast Free should take care of your virus protection needs just fine.

Avast has also received many awards for its virus protection products and it has been around for a while so you can be pretty sure you will get a good service, if you choose it for your antivirus.

A nice feature of Avast, which does not have much to do with virus protection, is the option for a user to change the skin of the program. Three free skins are already included in the download and you can get more, if you want.

As other virus protection programs, Avast also offers payable computer protection which you can try for free for a limited time period (in Avast case 60 days), but if you are looking only for free virus protection I would recommend that you choose only the installation of the free product during the installation process.

As mentioned in the introductory post on free virus protection, we will take a look at various free virus protection programs that are available on the Internet. Some of them to the job spot on, and other should be left alone.

The first free product we are going to discuss is AVG Free virus protection program. It is in my experience one of the very best virus protection programs out there and is also free for home users.

I’ve been using AVG Antivirus Free Edition on my home computer for a couple of years now and I am very satisfied with it. In all this time I have never experienced any problems, related to virus activity. If AVG free virus protection finds a threath of some sort it deals with it in standard way – either it moves it to a vault or asks you, what you want to do with it.

You have to be a bit careful with installation, because several times during the installation of the free virus protection program, the installer suggest you should rather use the full AVG Internet Security, which is giving you many more options for protections and is free for the first 30 days, but you have to pay for it after this period. So if you want to install the free virus protection, do not just click the first option you see during the installation.

AVG Free Edition is actually one of my favourite programs I use and if you are looking for a good free virus protection program, I can recomend it to you wholeheartedly.

Welcome to a blog, where we will discuss virus protection programs and techniques. We will take a look at various virus protection options, but will focus on the free ones that are available on the internet.

There are several virus protection programs available for home users that are available 100% free. And the best part is, they are in many cases right on par with payable programs. But of course, you have to know, which ones are good to test and which ones are better left alone.

Expect new information and advice on this blog in coming weeks and months.