In life, normally it’s safe to say what you pay for is what you get. Today however I’m going to talk about a FREE Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware client where that rule doesn’t apply. Avira AntiVir although Freeware, is actually quite good. After a lot of testing, I feel comfortable enough to give it a thumbs up and recommend it to the readers here at GroovyPost. I found Avira to be reliable, maintains a small footprint on my machine, and is easy to use.
The only negative aspect of the application is the small Advertisements which are displayed from time to time (during updates for instance.) So perhaps that’s why they say Nothing is Free 😉
So where is it? I’ve found it can be a little tricky to find at times so, here’s a quick How-To on grabbing a copy.
Once at the site scroll down and click the big red Download Your Free AntiVir image button
That button will take you to the next page where you will have to click on another image button which says Recommended Download Download NOW! Cnet Download.com
The next page it takes you to is the actual link to the downloadable file; go ahead and click the green arrow that says Download Now (23.92MB)
A download prompt will appear; click Save, then select your Desktop as the location
Now that the program is on your desktop you can double-click its icon to begin the installation. Proceed through the install as normal; there are not many surprises. I do recommend however that after your initial install, Click Yes when prompted to update the Software. This action will update all the Virus/Malware signatures to ensure your fully protected.
All done!
Enjoy the free anti-virus software from Avira. If you do find it useful I suggest buying the retail edition; it is even stronger than the free version.
Avira works great, and it’s really easy to use. You can disable the advertisements really easy by doing Start > Run “secpol.msc” Then navigate to Software Restriction Policies, then under Actions hit “Create New Restriction Policies.”
Next right-click Additional Rules and select Choose New Path Rule
Add a rule saying that “C:\Program Files\Avira\AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic\avnotify.exe” is disallowed.
WinRAR provides the full RAR and ZIP file support, can decompress CAB, GZIP, ACE and other archive formats.