Antivir has what seems to be a significant advantage in terms of predictive, behavioral-based “heuristic” detection (for brand new threats that are so new they have not yet been added to the antivirus program’s database). AVG, however, lags behind the other two somewhat in that area (although it is still by all means an excellent program). Not only are these on par with the best commercial program, Antivir in fact has the best detection of any program free or paid according to ’s numbers. Summary of findings: Antivir and Avast and both have excellent and comparable detection rates. Having said that I would have personally liked the addition of at least two more: Comodo Antivirus and Rising Antivirus(both of which have a lot of fans).īy way of comparison and to provide some perspective I will also include some of the numbers for two of the best paid antivirus programs: Kaspersky and ESET NOD32. The reason I am not expanding this discussion to other programs is because it is much easier to limit the scope to software tested in ’s tests, where there are hard numbers to back up any claims. They are also most likely the top three best freeware antivirus programs. The choice of programs: Antivir, Avast and AVG are the most used and most well known freeware antivirus programs, and I use or have used all three for long periods of time. It is somewhat difficult to reference these as sources because the av-comparatives site disallows direct linking to the test results and requests that all links be to its root domain (presumably because new tests are always published and they do not want links to results that may be obsolete). The findings presented here are not my original work but come from a single source: ’s antivirus comparison tests conduced in Nov 2008 (test #20) and Feb 2009 (test #21), which are the latest as of this writing. The objective is to go beyond the ubiquitous “I have used program x for y years now and it has kept me completely virus free” to a more substantial comparison. This posting will explore this issue more closely. There’s been a vigorous debate going on in the little “cbox” message box (in the sidebar) over which freeware antivirus program is best.
My conclusion: all three are very worthy contenders that can hold their own or surpass any heavyweight for-pay antivirus however Anitvir and Avast are definitely in the first tier, while AVG is a close second tier.
This posting will discuss which of the following three programs deserves the title of “best freeware antivirus program”: Avira Antivir, Avast, or AVG.
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