Protection of a computer is essential, though i never believed that i had to be serious in protection of PC’s until i was hit by viruses and once a virus gets through there are spy ware’s, Trojans and God know what else in the package. So now i do recommend that we should all protect our PC’s. When ever we buy a new PC i.e. laptop or a desktop it is usually packed with softwares of course if your are buying a Windows based machine. Initially they all have a 60 day trial period for Norton Anti virus or Symentic Anti virus and we are in peace and hardly bother about the issue of PC protection.

But once those 60 days are over there is message “Your trial period is over please purchase” at that point you have two options either uninstall the app and continue your work and wait for a virus attack, or pay 35$ - 50$ anually for a basic protection or you can spend - 0$ and get hold of one of the free anti virus softwares we have mentioned below.

Avira AntiVir personal edition Classic
http://www.free-av.com/

Avira Anti virus personal classic edition is my personal favorite, i have installed it on my shinny new laptop with Windows Vista Home edition and it performing real good.

Things i like about it is

• Its Fast & very easy to use
• Very less use of computer resources
• Very Good detection rates
• Good auto updater and live updates twice a day sometimes
• Available for all platforms Win XP / Vista / Linux
• Real time protection (computer viruses, worms, trojan horses )
• Protection against expensive dialers
• Detects and deletes root kits
• Its FREE ….

Con’s of Avira

• Annoying full-screen pop-ups when you update advertising Avira’s paid software apps
• Does not provide e-mail protections which you hardly need if you use gmail its required with Outlook or Thunderbird
• No Protection against spy ware and ad ware.

Benchmark Results:
94.26% : total running time: 14 min, 23 sec; total files scanned: 182,215 (source Yahoo)

So far Avira is the no1 free Anti virus application so far.

Download Avira AntiVir personal edition

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.5
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/us/frt/0?prd=aff

AVG Anti-Virus is the most configurable anti virus software. The installation is bit complex if you don’t use the default button as it asks to many questions. It has no cost for home users or no commercial users and provides high level detection capability to protect the computer. Apart from that AVG integrates with Outlook, Eudora, and The BAT! to scan incoming and outgoing e-mail; users of Outlook Express or other clients can configure the Personal E-mail scanner manually

Things that are good

• Real Time Protection
• On-demand scanner
• E-Mail Protection
• Auto Updates at slow speed
• Virus Vult for quarantining
• Rescue Disk
• Heuristic Scanning.

Cons

• Takes too much of computer resources
• Limited support for compressed/archive types
• Higher than average rate of false positives
• No Protection against spy ware and ad ware.

Benchmark Results: no tests performed yet

Download AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.5

avast! 4 Home Edition
http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html
Avast is yet another great free anti virus software, its free edition is available for home users but there is a catch, once you download it will work for 60 days after which you need to register by providing your e-mail address and you will receive One Year Registration free of cost without giving any credit card info. After one year you need to re register it. Its interface is quite weired and looks more like a Winamp or a multimedia player and is a bit complex to use. Apart from that it has a basic Anti Virus Kernel, automatic update and P2P and IM shields for blocking virus transfers.

Pro’s

• Good Anti Virus Kernel
• Protects against virus  transfers from other devices like IM, P2P
• Generic SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 scanner
• MS Outlook plugin for protection of e-mails from Outlook
• Repairing executable files using Virus Recovery Database (VRDB)

Con’s

• Requires e-mail and Registration for One years free license only
• User Interface is of no good complicated & quite slow in loading
• PUSH updates for pro version only means you wait for your turn to get updates
• No Script Blocker

Download Avast 4 Home Edition