- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000
- Date added: April 14, 2008
- Total Downloads: 30,369,878
- Downloads last week: 658,460
- See full specifications
A newer version of Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus is available.
(Download doesn't provide access to previous versions of this program.)
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 2840 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. Its 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. Definition files are available at Avira's Web site if needed, and the help features are excellent, as well, with a description box relaying mouse-over information on each feature. Version 8.0 has introduced a faster engine and a faster definition file update, both of which are instantly noticeable improvements and yet still a bit slow.
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 no longer numbingly slow, but it will pauses midscan to let you know when it's found a threat. That's good for killing nasties, but it also means that the scans needs baby-sitting.
Despite these hang-ups and the nag screen that follows updates, we found AntiVir to offer such effective protection with such a well-rounded set of features that as long as the definitions file updates keep coming, this app is our first line of defense.
Watch the CNET video review of Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus:
Publisher's description
From Avira :Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus is a comprehensive, easy to use antivirus program, designed to offer reliable free of charge virus protection to home-users only. Avira offers: Extensive Malware Recognition of viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, worms, etc. Automatic incremental updates of antivirus signatures, engine and entire software. Permanent virus protection, with Virus Guard real time monitoring. Install and configuration in just a couple of steps. Virus protection against known and unknown threats, using an advanced heuristic system. Scheduler where you can set the scanner to make automatic virus scans or updates on your system. Forum and phone support, Knowledge Base with virus descriptions available on web site. Vista Support. Rootkit Detection and Removal. Version 8 adds an enhanced interface, a modularized AV-search engine for improved scan performance, an integrated failsafe security system, and SMTP support for AntiVir MailGuard.
What's new in this version:
Version 8.0 adds an enhanced interface, a modularized AV-search engine for improved scan performance, an integrated failsafe security system, and SMTP support forAntiVir MailGuard.
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User reviews of Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus 8
- Average user rating: 3.9 stars out of 2840 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 284 user reviewsSee all 284 user reviews
This software version | All versions -
22 out of 23 people found this review helpful
Version: Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus 8
"The best free virus protection on the market"
Pros: Simple to use, great detection rate, and daily updates.
Cons: The huge nag screen asking you to purchase, that pops up during daily updates, will drives you crazy.
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11 out of 13 people found this review helpful
Version: Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus 8
Pros: This version doesn't appear to be as complex as previous versions.
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29 out of 34 people found this review helpful
Version: Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus 8
"Good but flawed compared with the competition"
Pros: Excellent user interface, small system footprint. Fast scanning times, excellent detection record in all AV comparative tests, very fast definition response time to newly identified threats.
Cons: Painfully slow update procedure (one suspects it may deliberately be throttled to encourage paying for the premium version), rather complicated to set initial configuration, scheduling, etc. Very annoying emphasis on selling the paid-for version, from the prominent "Free Version" labelling on the interface to the intrusive nag screens that accompany updates. If you compare all this with avast! and AVG, the otherwise technically superb Avira product doesn't come through too well. Oh, and there's no POP3 or SMTP scanning in the free version, so unless you stick to Gmail or another web-based service, there's no desktop level email protection.
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11 out of 13 people found this review helpful
Version: Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus 8
Pros: Best & Free, much more than AVG Free 8
Cons: Resident shield is effective, Install this and forget about VIRUSES.
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24 out of 27 people found this review helpful
Version: Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus 8
Pros: This found 4 viruses that avast 4.8 missed, and found viruses on two different ipods and deleted them without fuss or bother.
The free version doesn't state whether it protects email clients.
Very fast scan.
Cons: The updates are painfully slow, it took nearly two hours to update the definitions, delaying updates is a risk on it's own and avira really need to address this issue,an issue thats been ongoing for a few years now.
Shame really and for this reason I will be trying something else.
The retail version updates very fast indeed and has more features, so the very least avira could do is give a few more update servers for the free version.
This is also "Nagware" asking you to upgrade to the retail version.
Come on avira sort your updates out, your losing out to shoddier antivirus programs like avast and avg.
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