Avira AntiVir Personal is not just another free AV solution. This application may just be the best free application for monitoring interactions with your operating system, to ensure that if a malicious program is detected it will be stopped dead in its tracks! It’s certainly the most popular in its class, and with good reason.
Avira AntiVir Personal offers effective, on demand scans for viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, hoaxes, worms, dialers and other malicious programs. It’s simple interface provides easy access to a command structure, that makes it easy to repair, delete, block, rename and quarantine programs, or files.
I’ve been testing Avira in one release or another for years, and I continue to be impressed with its performance. I have come to rely on it as my primary anti-virus application on my test platforms.
If you’re a typical, or an average user, you should find that Avira AntiVir Personal will meet, and even exceed, all of your requirements.
As an indication of this programs popularity, Download.com reports almost 70 MILLION downloads, making it the leading antivirus software, offered for download on this site.
Fast facts:
Highly Configurable
Protection from viruses, worms and Trojans
Protection against expensive dialers
Protection from hidden rootkits
Protection from phishing
Extensive malware Recognition
Monitors every action executed by the user or the operating system
Reacts promptly when a malicious program is detected.
Automatic updates of antivirus signatures, engine and software – I have to admit, I love this feature
Now in Version 9.0.0.415
Quick Summary:
Easy to download, easy to install, easy to configure, easy to use, and very effective.
System requirements: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Win 7, UNIX
Download at: Download.com
Note: Free for home-users only.
If you need more convincing, watch the CNET video review of Avira AntiVir Personal – Free Antivirus ( 2:17 mins.)
If you find the nag screen annoying, take a look at “Disable Avira Notifier”, on this site.
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Hi Bill,
I’ve been using this excellent program for a few months now, after reading another review by yourself. It is absolutely terrific, and has saved my bacon on a few occasions now. I used to use AVG before that, but I honestly think that Avira is the superior product. I found AVG used to hog system resources somewhat, whereas I hardly ever notice Avira there, except when it alerts me to threats.
Cheers
Hey Mal,
Good to hear it jumped into the fire for you. LOL Once again, you’re right – it’s very easy on resources.
Bill
I have used Avira AntiVir for 2 years now and never had problems
Thanks Jakup – glad to see you agree.
Bill
Avira – FTW!!
Awesome virus protection in my most humble opinion.
Hey G,
I read your latest on your A.G. tonight – you do NOT have a humble opinion. LOL!!
Great piece thought – I hope it gets some action for you and your folks.
BTW, was thinking of running FreeRip later this week – if that’s OK.
Talk to ya later,
Bill
Hi Bill,
I’m a fan of Avira as well, though it does suffer from the occasional false positive. I got rid of the nagging popup by paying for the Premium version and getting much more frequent updates. I don’t regret this small expense for the extra functionality, and will probably renew it next year.
Regards,
Dave K
Hey Dave,
I hear you on the false positive issue – just got through dealing with a reader who had this.
Thanks,
Bill
The Avira Forum has decided to deny me “community membership”, so I can’t post in their forum discussions. As a responsible AntiVir user I resent this enormously, so I shall be dumping Avira and switching to MSE. I simply wanted to let another user know that I’ve been getting the same false positives as he was. Never before have I come across a user forum which denies access to paid-up users, so they’ve lost my custom from now on.
Hi Dave,
Following receipt of your comment, I took a quick look at the Avira Forum general rules, and saw nothing unusual – pretty typical stuff.
Like most forums, Avira’s is staffed by volunteers and in my experience, volunteers can be fairly sensitive to implied criticism – justified or not. Nevertheless, I’m very surprised to hear that a paid-up user would be banned from what is ostensibly, a help and support group.
Avira’s corporate office may be able to help you with this unusual problem. It would be appropriate, I think, to contact them directly.
Bill
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