i feel that free ones are better than nothing if you need it... even if you use the commerial version, there is also no guarantee that it will remove 100% malware from your system...
He's talking about layering to detect more malware, when in honesty a great majority of people are already layering their protection and detection by using a multitude of programs. It's been known for years that using one security program (antivirus, antispyware, etc.) can't be fully trusted to be 100% effective all the time, however even using one program (free or pay) is better than nothing at all.
Yep! What I thought was interesting was the % of security achieved with freeware softwares in comparison with commercial products AND choice of freeware product used in his findings.
I'm sure a lot of us are following the above method. In my case, I don't know where I actually stand in terms of security compared to commercial products.....now I know
For Ad-Aware, Avast, AVG, Ewido Security Suite that's true they use the same definition files, however with incremental updates high-speed updating isn't much of an issue whereas server overload is.
I'm using Avast Home Edition, its free as you know.
Just wanted to share with everyone that with a freeware anti virus and a good layering , you would be well protected ( not 100 % , but very well protected )
So, in summary, altho products like Nod32 has good ratings, you can still make do almost equally well with a decent freeware anti virus with proper layering.....sound familiar isn't it ? Yes it is, it's been told many times I guess, just that I found a link showing me figures in comparison with freeware and commercial product. That's all.
Having said that, one persons test doesn't mean a lot , but it gives me a good idea the margin of difference between both.
I read through all 4 articles. I wish he would have tested AntiVir.
Also what is the time gap between his tests for article 2 and 3? When he switches from testing the free products to useing the paid products, I hope there is not really a one month difference in testing is there? Becuase obviously useing the def files from a month later would provide better results. I am referring to time lapse in testing between article 2 and 3.
Additionaly when you look at his test results here. Although he says he used 104 samples there are many duplicates. It looks like he actually used less than 25 different malware samples.
I agree that the best pay products are better thant he best free products BUT I think his testing and documentation of his testing are sadly lacking.
I would like to see A-squared included in some tests. It never seems to be included, I suppose because it doesn't fall neatly into the category of AV or antispyware, since it's both, and more.
I installed the free version after hearing about it on this forum, but I have yet to see any test that demonstrates how well it works.
While I respect the opinions of the users here who recommended it, it would be nice to have something more than anecdotal evidence for its effectiveness. I can't tell, I use Firefox, and rarely get any malware.
I havent come across any bugs with ewido yet (what have you heard). The scanner is free, so after your trial is over you can still update and scan just no real time protection.
One bug I encountered is when updating the definition files it will sometime's crash when trying to apply them or initiate them (unsure which one it is), however that rarely happens.
It seems to be generally agreed that the online help is not very good, for one thing. Read the reviews at Download.com, they're extremely mixed.
One loves it, another says "Ewido is worse than a virus", says it broke most of his links and disabled all his other security programs. Lots of complaints about slowness, one user said it kept just quitting, and had problems updating. Of course, you can't tell how many of the problems are user error, but even the editor's review only gave it 3 out of 5 stars.
Another site, don't recall which one, while praising it's advanced features, described it as very promising. That sounds to me like the description of a work in progress, not a finished product.
I'm glad to hear you use it without problems, I agree that it does sound promising. I wasn't aware that the scanner was free, that's good to hear. For now I'm gonna stick with what I've got, though, already got more security than I need.