Avira AntiVir Personal 8
Avira AntiVir Personal 8 was released today and I thought it would be nice to write about this new release since AntiVir is one of the most popular free antivirus applications available. The most important question is of course about the new features in this new release of AntiVir. The homepage of the developer Avira is unfortunately not very informative when it comes to those information, the table that displays the features of the free version and the two commercial versions of AntiVir is showing several entries that are new.
The personal free edition of AntiVir 8 has two new features or improvements listed on that page. The first is a raised scan speed which is always nice obviously and the second a redesigned visual appearance. The other versions of AntiVir contain a new system to create Rescue-CDs and the Security Suite a new option to backup data.
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is supported now as well and there is an option to choose between software updates and updates of the virus definition lists. The size of the download is roughly 22 Megabytes and it is still possible to perform a software update right after installation which I would recommend.
Update: Avira AntiVir Personal 8 has been updated and renamed. The latest version of Avira's security software is now called Avira Free Antivirus. The product offers the following features:
- Protects the system from infections by viruses, worms and trojans
- Heuristics to detect malicious code that is not known yet
- Antibot module to protect against hackers that try to take over the computer
The free product does not offer web protection, or live support. Those features are only provided by the commercial Antivirus Premium 2012. You can try the commercial software for 30 days before you either need to uninstall it or buy a license that is valid for a year.
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This article got me to think about re-examining my anti-virus choice. So I did a google on “anti-virus comparison” and found http://www.av-comparatives.org/
Looks like Avira is way up there.
When my Anti-Virus (AVG) decided to go pay for the new version, I also ended up doing a lot of research for anti-virus software. The thing is, when it comes to Anti-Virus software, I don’t mind paying if the product is actually good. After a lot of research and talking to various people, I actually settled on NOD32.
That’s funny… I was a faithful NOD32 user for years through version 2.7. The newest version (3.0) seemed to be heading in the direction so many great av’s go down… bloated and trying to do too many things.
I switched over to AntiVir free and have been quite happy with it.
Martin: do you know if the trick to prevent avnotify from popping up will work with the new version 8 of AntiVir Personal?
Dan
Yep, the trick still works. Luckily Avira (probably) doesn´t care about it :)
uhhhh… what “trick”????
Dante,
This one:
https://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/20/hide-antivir-scans-updates-and-advertisement/
Dan
Thanks Dan. But I don’t appear to get pop ups??? I’ve loaded Avira alongside McAfee and ZoneAlarm and I had set all to update manually.
Oops. Just got the nag :)
Thanks Dan. But I don’t appear to get pop ups??? I’ve loaded Avira alongside McAfee and ZoneAlarm and I had set all to update manually.