Computer Pc Medic has installed free versions of Microsoft Security Essentials, AVG and Avast antivirus programs on our customers computers in Fort Collins, Greeley, Windsor and Loveland. We have found that computer owners, in general, do not like to shell-out for paid versions of an antivirus software. Considering that the scanning engine and virus databases are the same between paid and unpaid versions, we don’t blame them.
First, we began installing the free AVG 8.5. Within the first year of using this product, we met with new customers who were using a paid version of AVG 8.5 and their computer were plagued with viruses. The free version was returning the same results. AVG 8.5 did not seem to be very robust at all.
Toward the end of last year, we decided to use Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) on our customer computers. Our reasoning was that if there was any company that should be able to protect a Microsoft operating system, against a virus attack, it should be the company that created and maintains that operating system. Wrong! After testing it, in our own office, for several months, we noticed that MSE was not updating itself in a timely manner. In general we did not find it very robust against virus attacks.
The last free antivirus tested was the redesigned AVAST 5.0. It has an impressive set of protection features and is relatively easy to configure. After several months of running on client machines, some clients called in with computers that were compromised. AVAST has a pretty “facelift” (user interface) and probably is the more robust of the three free antiviruses.
[UPDATED 01/03/2011] We have been installing Avast 6.0, the free version, this last year, as it was advertised as a total rewrite of the software. We have been pleasantly surprised. We think they did a good job.
[UPDATED 11/03/2012] We have encountered many customer computer installations using Webroot for an antivirus. All of these customers were complaining of slow computer performance and many had their computer compromised by malicious software attacks. We hate to say it, but we believe that Webroot, at the time of this writing, is a poor product for defending your computer and personal identity. If your computer is running slowly, remove it and replace it with AVAST 7.0 and enjoy an increase in performance and Internet security.