Another antivirus program which has been making waves in the free antivirus front is the Avast Antivirus. It can be termed as the most light and yet most effective free antivirus program currently available on the market. It does its job quite effectively without cluttering our memory much. The database updates can either be programmed to be done automatically or manually whichever way we wish. Although it does not catch much viruses when you compare it with the paid antivirus software currently available in the market, this was tested when once switched from Avast to a paid antivirus software, it does quite a decent job when it comes to finding and removing viruses.
Avast Antivirus software is worth its money, that is, worth it being free. They have a professional edition which is paid while the home user edition is for free to use without any commercial interest. It recently achieved the distinction of reaching 80 million users. One major drawback of Avast is its skin and looks, which has a bland or dull look and without much option change it too.
The free edition comes with free updates, web as well as P2P protection, and anti-rootkit and anti-spyware option. You will need to register at their site once to get the free edition downloaded and installed at your PC.
Just like the McAfee Security Center another anti-virus software which has been creating huge waves in terms of performance is the Kaspersky Antivirus software. It is the most light and heavy, in terms of fighting viruses, software that is available in the market. Although a bit costly than any other software, it is worth its money. It offers complete protection for your PC from all sorts of viruses and malware. Similar to McAfee Security Center, this also has three different options to protect your PC. One is the file antivirus which is nothing but the regular antivirus option to scan and identify and destroy any viruses found on your PC. The second option is the web antivirus, which is nothing but protecting your PC from direct web based virus attacks.
Finally the last one is the Proactive Defense which actually monitors the activities of various applications that you run or that runs from behind to find whether any suspicious activities takes place or not.
The updates are pretty quick to use and you can download a particular virus database within minutes. But its scanning speed is not worthy to mention here, as it takes nearly 30 to 45 minutes to get your whole computer scanned and this is the only drawback of this otherwise excellent antivirus program.
This is very strong antivirus software you would ever get at least for free that comes loaded with most of the laptops at the moment. At least even that free is only for the first year. It is the only protection you would ever need for your laptop or computer that connects to the internet. It comes with SecurityCenter, VirusScan, Personal Firewall. It protects your computer and the files just like a regular antivirus software and the internet and network protection which now almost any other regular antivirus comes bundled with. And the other protection is the E-mail and IM protection. The last but not the least is the parental controls which is nothing but just like a child lock to your TV, with this option you can protect your kids from browsing certain websites or general protection for your kids who just might inadvertently get access to such websites that is not suitable for them.
This McAfee Security Center also comes bundled with the regular firewall option and thus making it the only protection you will ever need for your computer instead of having separate tools or software for each application e.g., for virus protection, spyware protection, and firewall. And also the most important aspect is that it does not slow down your PC or laptop considerably. Thus making it the ideal software you would need for complete protection for your PC.
