- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/NT
- Date added: September 27, 2004
- Total Downloads: 30,369,878
- Downloads last week: 658,460
- See full specifications
A newer version of AntiVir Personal Edition is available.
(Download doesn't provide access to previous versions of this program.)
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 2957 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff
For a free antimalware and antivirus app that also runs in your system's background, AntiVir works surprisingly well.
AntiVir's scans are flexible, allowing the user to fully scan all hard drives, choose a preloaded scan--for rootkits, for example--or customize a scan. Combining the antimalware with the antivirus is a luxury in a free scanner. After testing on several machines no viruses turned up, although several malicious hidden files did rear their heads. The heuristic scan can be turned on or off completely or partially, with three different intensity levels.
The quarantine is extensively thorough, too. The spreadsheet layout displays all relevant information about the quarantined file, and gives you options to scan it again, restore, delete, and more. The scheduler is fully customizable. However, the updater slowly chugs along, but thankfully updated definitions files are available at Avira's Web site. The help features in AntiVir were excellent, as well, with a description box relaying mouse-over information on each feature.
Initial concerns about the real-time Guard protection hamstringing system performance proved groundless. Although we could shut off AntiVir and its Guard, there was no way to remove the icon from the system tray or stop the occasional ad placement by Avira. The Complete Scan is numbingly slow, but it will stop midscan and let you know when it's found a threat. That's good for killing nasties, but it also means that you have to baby-sit it.
AntiVir's volume of features might take a while to get used to, but as long as the definitions file updates keep coming, this app's a keeper.
Watch the CNET video review of AntiVir Personal Edition:
Publisher's description
From Avira :Even though viruses have now grown very numerous, one thing hasn't changed: our commitment to provide you with all-round protection. The reliability of AntiVir is demonstrated in numerous comparison test and references featured in independent trade journals.
The AntiVir Personal Edition offers the effective protection against computer viruses for the individual and private use on a single PC-workstation. In order to make possible an easy operation, the AntiVir Personal Edition is developed to the essential points.
AntiVir detects and removes more than 80,000 viruses, is always among the winners of comparison test featured in computer journals, the resident Virus Guard serves to monitor file movements automatically (e.g. downloading of data from the internet), scanning and repair of macro viruses, protection against previously unknown macro viruses, safeguard against cost generating dial-up program protection against trojaner, worms, backdoors, jokes and other harmful programs, easy operation, Internet-Update Wizard for easy updating, and protection against previously unknown boot record viruses and master boot record viruses.
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User reviews of AntiVir Personal Edition 6.27
- Average user rating: 3.9 stars out of 2957 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 217 user reviewsSee all 217 user reviews
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15 out of 17 people found this review helpful
Version: AntiVir Personal Edition 6.27
"very goood antivirus , download it now"
Pros: its the Best antivirus i use, before im useing kaspersky antiviurs personal , but when i try antivir i feel my computer more secure and safe, its find 3 viruses kaspersky cant find it in my pc. So antivir is the best. and its not take any thing from your memory of ram. its very lite. what are you waiting for its free download it now. Nod32 2.50.7 is very good too but its beta. any way antivir is the best until now.
Cons: antivir good antivirus but i dont know why its not automatic update.
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2 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Version: AntiVir Personal Edition 6.27
Pros: This is a good free antivirus edition, if u still searching for a good av but not thinking to buy any, get this!
Cons: Time of updating takes longer for dial up users.
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11 out of 12 people found this review helpful
Version: AntiVir Personal Edition 6.27
Pros: i will give antivir 5 stars. its better than any antivirus in the world.
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9 out of 9 people found this review helpful
Version: AntiVir Personal Edition 6.27
"its fantastic antivir is the BEST"
Pros: Antivir antivirus is the BEST , its free and very strong to find any virus in the world. its better than kaspersky antivirus. its very fast and easy to use and find many viruses kaspersky antivirus dont know about it. i love you antivir.
Cons: No mistakes with antivir.
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17 out of 21 people found this review helpful
Version: AntiVir Personal Edition 6.27
Pros: Fast, good detection rate, easy to use. Daily updates. Finds more than just viruses. Light and unbloated. Works better than AVG and just half the size. Can't beat the price too. I tried running my machine with it disabled, and I didn't notice any difference in speed, so it's great for being light on memory and resources. If you miss AVG 6, then this is a good replacement. In my own test of viruses which are up to 10 years old, it found 587 out of 593, which is 99% detection rate.
Cons: Unattractive interface. It's scanner is called "Luke Filewalker"...come on! Each update is 2MB. That's 10 minutes for dial-up users which may be a turn off, especially every day. Always forgets it's status in XP's system tray (I want it always hidden but after a reboot or logon it is showing it's umbrella icon again)
- See all 217 user reviews Write review
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