Should I go for Avira free?

**Manthan G** · 08-05-2012

well according to me there is no need of having any active antivirus on my system. right now I am having paid version of Avira on my computer. I know that it is better than that of online scanners as well as Bufferzone Pro. I am not having major security issue as I am having normal surfing habits. I used to scan all the programs by means of Virustotal and Jottie before I install them on my computer. I am having an external router and I think I am going to use Comodo firewall. So Avira prompted with some warnings particularly for java stuff only. So I don’t think so there is any kind of malware issue on my system. tell me if there would be any issue if I am go for free version or stick with the paid version only.

**Zared** · 08-05-2012

You should not go for free version in my opinion. Though if you prefer to go for free version then also you are going to get enough protection on your system. if you are not having any major issue then you should stay with the antivirus itself. In order to avoid the scary situation in future.

**Jugo** · 08-05-2012

Well according to me you will be able to do well without installing AV real time on your system. I had already used my system without AV real time. You will not have any slowdown of your computer as there is no active guard. I did not seen any malware issue even after uninstalling AV real time. However if you don’t wanted to use Avira guard module then you should remove from the computer. it will simply load Avira on tray in terms of scanner. However it wont be ready to do file scanning. I know that there are people are getting malware issue because they are not supposed to update there antivirus at regular interval.

**Captain Samuel Salt** · 08-05-2012

I have not noticed any major malware issue on my computer by using any antivirus program. My friends computer seems to really slow at the time of startup. The slowness mainly caused by Toolbar or PC-Tools Spyware Doctor. I used to clean up my system at least once in a week. I used to visit all the sites and clicking on the link which is saying scan the computer to get the security risk any. Any fake av installations seems to beat all avs at any given moment of the time.

However if you are aware of what you are doing on your system then it is not necessary to have any antivirus on your computer. so to have router and comodo firewall would be sufficient enough in my opinion. I know that people are more interested to install racks, run keygens and they are risky things until and unless you are aware of what kind of source you are using to download them.

**Bhuvana21** · 08-05-2012

As far as my opinion is concerned there is no need to have any security software on my computer. I used to do 98% clean surfing and I am not sure about rest of 2%. May be that 2% is sufficient enough to infect my computer. I have noticed that computers of many users are getting infected with reliable websites. Though they are having firewall it does not seems to be reliable thing according to me. it would take around 30 minutes to infect entire computer of yours. if you are having 1TB of hard disk than you will be in lots of trouble while scanning the entire hard disk. I don’t scan my computer in every month. To make use of online malware scan are not much reliable thing to use. I noticed that some antivirus scanner able to detect threats where as many of them were not able to do the same. as far as current version of AV is concerned they are not light weighted at all. as they are not able to work well on single core CPU. It would simply add at least 3 to 4 seconds into shutting down as well as startup on your system. I am not having any issue if I am getting great security even though I am losing some seconds. If you are not looking to install any kind of antivirus on your system then I would recommend that you should go for Linux.

**Reese-R** · 08-05-2012

Well we are aware of that security applications are used to implement security policies on your computer. they are good in terms of enforcing policies on your system. they are number of combinations as well as variations associated with the same and they can be mentioned as follow.

Default-Permit.
Default-Deny.
Containment.
Reboot to restore.

Default-Permit means that allow anything which is not malicious or undesirable. It is one of core policy of AVs, anti-malware apps. Main advantages are convenience and it requires minimum user interaction. Disadvantage is reactive in nature. It is working fine against of known threats and weak enough against of unknown or new. It is used heavily on older system and it should be updated at regular interval of time.

Default-Deny ids totally opposite as compared to the Default-Permit. It means that if you have not mentioned anything then it would be blocked. It is also well known as whitelisting. Windows has a built in tool which you can utilities to impalement the same. Classic HIPS can be used for enforcement of default-deny. It gives better control Operating system which you have installed on your computer. they are also compatible with your computer as well. this particular policy is strong enough against of both known and unknown malware and you will not require to update the same at regular interval. It is lighter than that of other antivirus. The biggest issue is that it is not convenient at all. the end users need to provide lots of input as well as information if you are supposed to install, remove lots of applications on your computer. it seems to be worse with classic HIPS until and unless ruleset is finished. You will need lots of knowledge to built classic HIPS ruleset. Mostly it is implemented on the system where it gets changes in less amount. default-deny could become anti-change policy where updating system supposed to be an administrative task.

Containment should be based policies confine changes done by applications, users, malware to sandboxes or virtual environments which is apart from real operating system you have installed on your computer. Containment software ranging from sandboxing software which supposed to confines your actions on the basis of specific application running to virtual operating system you are using or virtual computer. as far as I know demand supposed to vary such as light application sandboxes like SandBoxie to full virtual systems like VirtualBox. If you wanted to use Full virtualization then there should be strong hardware installed on your computer as you are going to use couple of different operating system. if they are updated effectively they will be able to prevent unwanted changes on your system. it wont work with keyloggers and it will not be able to prevent capturing sensitive information which you are going to enter into virtual environment. However it can be controlled by simply recently booting virtual system or beginning with cleaning the sandbox. Lots of information required as well as input from the back end users as compared to default-permit based solutions as the time of while making initial setup. It should be used on the system where lots of changes, installs, updates are happening.

As the name implies regarding Reboot to restore. After a reboot the system of your should be same as when you have started your computer. it is same as that of automated system restore options.. they are same as that of virtualization where you are not saving changes until and unless you are not instructed to do the same. you will noticed an issue when you are supposed to save changes on your computer. if you are doing an installation of software or change compromise and you are saving the same then antivirus will not be able to detect the same. so remedy is that you should have knowledgeable input from user when you wanted to save changes and when should not be.

So you should have a look on all the above mentioned core polices and figure out there advantages and disadvantage on the basis of the same you should figure out what app, settings would be most efficient for you.

**Eeshwari3** · 08-05-2012

I do agree if you are going to use any Linux based operating system on your computer then there will not be any need of AV. however if you are using Windows then I could not understand ‘ready to go AV free’. you will not require any antivirus program on your system if you have successfully implemented all the measures in order to avoid all virus as well as malware issues on your computer. according to me make use of AV should be an option which should not be ignore by anyone. It does not seems to be a wise thing if you are going to remove a layer of security from your system until it is causing conflict with software’s which you are using. However there are another solutions are available in the market apart from that.
Personally I am not going to use paid version of the AV. I will not be able to afford to pay for software which is going to eat all my resources. I think if your system as well as software which you are running updated then you should have a look on the things which you are downloading.

**Kakashi Hatake** · 08-05-2012

The basic thing you should aware of what kind of security policy you are supposed to impalement on your system. app as well as system should work on same policy. If you are have not implemented the core policy then you might have conflicting configuration, gaping holes into on your system. you can give a try to cloud AV running on you system.