Good Free AVG Replacement?

[Vanquisher71]

So I've used AVG free for years after being recommended by a friend when I was young and I've generally had no problems with it. Lately after a reinstall on my PC I've had some slight performance issues and the only thing I can find it to be is AVG (specifically the AVG UI).
I don't really want any way to fix it or anything like that, I just want to know a good and free replacement (I know, maybe asking a lot but I trust the people here to be of some help ) I'd like something ASAP so I can replace it and move on from it quickly. Thanks in advance for all your help.

 

[azaran]

Go with Avira or BitDefenders free options. Both are good, tho I believe Avria has a smaller performance footprint.

 

[madmatt30]

I've just moved from avast free edition to bitdefender , couldn't be happier, much much lighter on resources.

 

[azaran]

I've just moved from avast free edition to bitdefender , couldn't be happier, much much lighter on resources.

I stand corrected then. How is bit defenders popup situation? Avira's latest offering, while not terrible is a bit more than they've had in the past. I've just put up with it on some builds because their engine is one of the top performers.

 

[BringerOfTea]

I just run paid malware bytes and windows defender, couldnt be more happier.

 

[madmatt30]

Bitdefender popups ? Barely any - I'm comoaring this to avast though which ive used for 5 or 6 years.
Avast was always a firm favourite , ita just gone completely overboard now with all it's shovelware addons & popups.

Was killing my little lenovo mini htpc half the time with obscene memory & CPU usage.
Most I've seen bitdefender use ram wise is 35mb & 2% CPU usage.

 

[azaran]

Yeah Avast was my go to recommendation for a long time and then they and AVG went full tilt toward the add on pop ups. Avira used to be low to no popups but the current version has started doing it more than I'd like. I just leaned toward Avira over Bitdefender because I thought it was a lighter footprint.

 

[Vanquisher71]

I'll be sure to check out both (probablt bitdefender first if it has a lower number of ads). Thanks for all your help

 

[CyberBlade]

Currently I am using avast and I have turned off all the pop up options in the settings. Now there is no annoying pop ups. And as far as I know avast is the best free antivirus.

 

[azaran]

Currently I am using avast and I have turned off all the pop up options in the settings. Now there is no annoying pop ups. And as far as I know avast is the best free antivirus.

Just looked in to this years released tests from AV-Comparative, Avast isn't bad but it's beaten out by BitDefender on protection and false positives. Avira looks to have taken a bit of a downward turn as has AVG.
https/www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/avc_factsheet2017_02.pdf

 

[Matthew_198]

I would highly recommend 360 total security. It provides lots of features including the option to use avira and bitdefender scan engine. It also catches malicious scripts before they run. Would definitely recommend since it's a free package. Check it out. https/www.360totalsecurity.com

 

[Avast-Team]

Currently I am using avast and I have turned off all the pop up options in the settings. Now there is no annoying pop ups. And as far as I know avast is the best free antivirus.

Just looked in to this years released tests from AV-Comparative, Avast isn't bad but it's beaten out by BitDefender on protection and false positives. Avira looks to have taken a bit of a downward turn as has AVG.
https/www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/avc_factsheet2017_02.pdf

Thanks for mentioning us everybody.

Vanquisher71 -- if you can get in touch with more info on the issues (do you have screenshots or logs?) you had with AVG, I'd be happy to have our team investigate those.

azaran -- Our prevention rate according to AV-comparatives was 99.7% -- important to note that the 0.3% was "user-dependent," from what I have read in the "full" reports which explain this, that means that the threat was detected, but manually allowed through by the user (either by disabling a setting or allowing the threat to proceed despite the warning) We're pretty proud of our next-gen protection in the 2017 versions of Avast and AVG, including the new Behavior Shield.

You can find more details on the AV-comparatives methodology in their "full" reports, which aren't available yet for 2017, but are on the site for previous time periods. Those are the yellow bars in the results, and the dynamic graph might not explain exactly how that is different from the red bars

 

[azaran]

Currently I am using avast and I have turned off all the pop up options in the settings. Now there is no annoying pop ups. And as far as I know avast is the best free antivirus.

Just looked in to this years released tests from AV-Comparative, Avast isn't bad but it's beaten out by BitDefender on protection and false positives. Avira looks to have taken a bit of a downward turn as has AVG.
https/www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/avc_factsheet2017_02.pdf

Thanks for mentioning us everybody.

Vanquisher71 -- if you can get in touch with more info on the issues (do you have screenshots or logs?) you had with AVG, I'd be happy to have our team investigate those.

azaran -- Our prevention rate according to AV-comparatives was 99.7% -- important to note that the 0.3% was "user-dependent," from what I have read in the "full" reports which explain this, that means that the threat was detected, but manually allowed through by the user (either by disabling a setting or allowing the threat to proceed despite the warning) We're pretty proud of our next-gen protection in the 2017 versions of Avast and AVG, including the new Behavior Shield.

You can find more details on the AV-comparatives methodology in their "full" reports, which aren't available yet for 2017, but are on the site for previous time periods. Those are the yellow bars in the results, and the dynamic graph might not explain exactly how that is different from the red bars

Glad to see you guys are active on the forums!

I did notice they were listed as user dependent. But after many years of one on one interactions with the average user, and many years of cleaning up machines that had either AV that didn't protect, or allowed the user to allow intrusion through, I generally only recommend software that has a minimum of known paths of intrusion. This includes when that path in is user dependent, as is the case with these tests, and also when there's a higher than 0 number of false positives. It's no insult to your software, Avast has long been a staple in the realm of reliable free AVs. I was really pleased to see you'd beaten out Avria and Symantec for compromises, and frankly smoked McAfee and Microsoft. But when someone asks for a recommendation for security software, I do my best to offer a solution with the least amount of ways for the user to be compromised. Which in this case, and in these tests, lead to Bitdefender being recommended.

 

[Avast-Team]

Currently I am using avast and I have turned off all the pop up options in the settings. Now there is no annoying pop ups. And as far as I know avast is the best free antivirus.

Just looked in to this years released tests from AV-Comparative, Avast isn't bad but it's beaten out by BitDefender on protection and false positives. Avira looks to have taken a bit of a downward turn as has AVG.
https/www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/avc_factsheet2017_02.pdf

Thanks for mentioning us everybody.

Vanquisher71 -- if you can get in touch with more info on the issues (do you have screenshots or logs?) you had with AVG, I'd be happy to have our team investigate those.

azaran -- Our prevention rate according to AV-comparatives was 99.7% -- important to note that the 0.3% was "user-dependent," from what I have read in the "full" reports which explain this, that means that the threat was detected, but manually allowed through by the user (either by disabling a setting or allowing the threat to proceed despite the warning) We're pretty proud of our next-gen protection in the 2017 versions of Avast and AVG, including the new Behavior Shield.

You can find more details on the AV-comparatives methodology in their "full" reports, which aren't available yet for 2017, but are on the site for previous time periods. Those are the yellow bars in the results, and the dynamic graph might not explain exactly how that is different from the red bars

Glad to see you guys are active on the forums!

I did notice they were listed as user dependent. But after many years of one on one interactions with the average user, and many years of cleaning up machines that had either AV that didn't protect, or allowed the user to allow intrusion through, I generally only recommend software that has a minimum of known paths of intrusion. This includes when that path in is user dependent, as is the case with these tests, and also when there's a higher than 0 number of false positives. It's no insult to your software, Avast has long been a staple in the realm of reliable free AVs. I was really pleased to see you'd beaten out Avria and Symantec for compromises, and frankly smoked McAfee and Microsoft. But when someone asks for a recommendation for security software, I do my best to offer a solution with the least amount of ways for the user to be compromised. Which in this case, and in these tests, lead to Bitdefender being recommended.

You're very welcome and we appreciate your feedback and kind words as well. We're constantly working on ways to improve If you're installing Avast for friends or family, you can "lock down" the settings further such as turning on Hardened mode, scnaning for PUPs, telling CyberCapture to "always block it" instead of "allow user to decide," just for some examples! The study didn't specifically say what settings were used, unfortunately.

 

[azaran]

Currently I am using avast and I have turned off all the pop up options in the settings. Now there is no annoying pop ups. And as far as I know avast is the best free antivirus.

Just looked in to this years released tests from AV-Comparative, Avast isn't bad but it's beaten out by BitDefender on protection and false positives. Avira looks to have taken a bit of a downward turn as has AVG.
https/www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/avc_factsheet2017_02.pdf

Thanks for mentioning us everybody.

Vanquisher71 -- if you can get in touch with more info on the issues (do you have screenshots or logs?) you had with AVG, I'd be happy to have our team investigate those.

azaran -- Our prevention rate according to AV-comparatives was 99.7% -- important to note that the 0.3% was "user-dependent," from what I have read in the "full" reports which explain this, that means that the threat was detected, but manually allowed through by the user (either by disabling a setting or allowing the threat to proceed despite the warning) We're pretty proud of our next-gen protection in the 2017 versions of Avast and AVG, including the new Behavior Shield.

You can find more details on the AV-comparatives methodology in their "full" reports, which aren't available yet for 2017, but are on the site for previous time periods. Those are the yellow bars in the results, and the dynamic graph might not explain exactly how that is different from the red bars

Glad to see you guys are active on the forums!

I did notice they were listed as user dependent. But after many years of one on one interactions with the average user, and many years of cleaning up machines that had either AV that didn't protect, or allowed the user to allow intrusion through, I generally only recommend software that has a minimum of known paths of intrusion. This includes when that path in is user dependent, as is the case with these tests, and also when there's a higher than 0 number of false positives. It's no insult to your software, Avast has long been a staple in the realm of reliable free AVs. I was really pleased to see you'd beaten out Avria and Symantec for compromises, and frankly smoked McAfee and Microsoft. But when someone asks for a recommendation for security software, I do my best to offer a solution with the least amount of ways for the user to be compromised. Which in this case, and in these tests, lead to Bitdefender being recommended.

You're very welcome and we appreciate your feedback and kind words as well. We're constantly working on ways to improve If you're installing Avast for friends or family, you can "lock down" the settings further such as turning on Hardened mode, scnaning for PUPs, telling CyberCapture to "always block it" instead of "allow user to decide," just for some examples! The study didn't specifically say what settings were used, unfortunately.

Really good tips. Hopefully they'll say what the user settings were that let stuff slip through with the detailed report when its released.