A Little Economic Stimulus: Free Antivirus By Rob Pegoraro
Thursday, February 12, 2009; D02
Using Windows has traditionally required paying a tax of sorts. Not to
Microsoft but to the vendor of the antivirus program you install to
protect your PC.

This tax has come not just in the form of purchase prices and annual
subscription fees but also in the time needed to maintain increasingly
complicated security tools.

But you don't have to pay all those bills: A few antivirus programs
are free for home, non-commercial use. And thanks to their relative
simplicity, they also demand less care and feeding than the security
suites sold by McAfee, Symantec and others.

Consider this option an economic stimulus package you can implement by
uninstalling one program and loading another -- subject to some
issues. With few exceptions, these programs screen only for viruses,
not other threats (although both Windows XP and Vista already include
firewall software, the most important line of defense). Two of the
three leading contenders run only on Windows 2000, XP and Vista. They
also provide minimal or no tech support.

You may, however, have trouble distinguishing among the three. Even
their names sound alike.

Avast Antivirus Home Edition, AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition and Avira
AntiVir Personal operate in about the same way, scanning files either
as they arrive or when you try to do anything with them and
downloading updates automatically every day. Most of their functional
differences surface at the margins.

Of the three, Alwil Software's Avast (http://avast.com) is the sole
option for people still using pre-2000 versions of Windows; it
supports everything from Windows 95 on. Unfortunately, large parts of
its interface look like they haven't had an update since Windows 95.
Its primary screen appears to have been modeled after a car stereo,
and it has the odd habit of informing you of everyday events with
spoken-word recordings. ("Virus database has been updated.")

You'll hear the same recorded voice, plus a siren, whenever Avast
finds a virus -- such as when I downloaded a few test viruses off the
Web. But it ignored a flash drive with a folder full of viruses until
I opened that folder, so this program may not stop you from
unintentionally passing along viruses on those cheap devices.

Avast's bigger issue, however, may be its requirement that you
register with the Czech company through e-mail, then renew that
registration once a year. That's just enough of a chore that
distracted users may let their updates lapse.

AVG Technologies' free edition (http://free.avg.com) requires no extra
registration work, but it may tax your tolerance of pushy
salesmanship. The Dutch company's regular home page makes no mention
of the free version's existence, and downloading it from
http://free.avg.com requires clicking past two screens urging you to
opt for AVG's paid version.

This program's installer, in turn, prompts you to change your
browser's search engine to Yahoo and install a browser toolbar. This
Firefox and Internet Explorer add-on helps you adjust a "LinkScanner"
that warns you of dangerous sites in search results but also promotes
the paid release.

AVG users should also read the company's pop-up notifications of major
new releases carefully. Twice in recent years, readers have complained
that these upgrade-now alerts either ignored or barely mentioned the
free version in favor of advertising the paid edition.

AVG worked and looked better than Avast, with two exceptions. It
needed almost an hour longer than Avast to complete a full scan of a
Windows Vista system, then incorrectly labeled "tracking cookies" --
tiny text files left on the computer by some online ads -- as a
security issue. (They're a privacy issue, and a minor one at most.)
Like Avast, AVG ignored a flash drive loaded with viruses until I
navigated to the right folder.

Unlike Avast and Avira, AVG won't check for "rootkits" -- malicious
code buried deeper in Windows than normal viruses.

Avira's AntiVir Personal (http://free-av.com) exhibits some of the
same obnoxious "upselling" habits as AVG's software. Its installation
features a full-screen window pushing the German firm's paid software,
and every time it updates itself, it treats you to yet another pop-up
urging you to pay up. (Run a Web search for "Avira pop-ups" for help
disabling that nag.)

But aside from that, Avira seemed to do its job quietly and
effectively. It was even faster at scanning the Vista system than
Avast, taking just 44 minutes to inspect its contents. It jumped all
over the virus-infected flash drive a moment after I'd plugged it in,
offering to quarantine the offending files. And it was free of goofy
spoken-word prompts or gimmicky interfaces.

All of these programs could be improved -- and they'll have to later
this year, when Microsoft plans to introduce its own free antivirus
program. This influx of free antivirus choices may make life even less
pleasant for developers of "payware" security tools. But for people
looking to trim their computing costs in any way possible, it can't
happen fast enough.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/11/AR2009021103622.\
html