Freeware Focus - Avast! Antivirus Home Edition
Here's a look at a free, lightweight antivirus program for Windows.
Welcome to the second installment of Freeware Focus. If you're new to this blog, the purpose of this series is to highlight some of the best free software available. As a college student, I know I'm extremely conscious of price- and software can be quite expensive. Hopefully you'll find some of the free alternatives I discuss to be worth trying, and maybe even using regularly.
This week's title is Avast! Antivirus for Microsoft Windows (2000 and later.) Avast! is one of the most prominent free antivirus programs, and offers comprehensive protection for your computer. It employs a modular engine with several separate providers for specific types of internet traffic, as well as on-access protection. It is capable of running both inside windows and as a boot-time diagnostic; compatibility also ranges all the way back to Windows 2000 so even old systems can be fully protected from threats.
Avast is surprisingly light on resources, and can run comfortably on machines with low performance processors and memory. It is further divided into 7 separate providers, which can be turned off at will to further reduce protection to only the areas you need it (so that, for instance, you can turn off P2P or IM protection when you are not using those services.) This isn 't really advisable from a security standpoint, but can be handy when you're using a computer that's stretched thin on resources- for instance, a netbook.
The only issues I have with Avast are its registration system and interface. Avast's free registration must be renewed once a year to continue receiving updates, which is a minor inconvenience. Its scanning interface is also extremely odd, as it is designed to resemble a media player rather than an ordinary security program. Once you get used to it, it will be easy. The fact that the program is free also makes it a good choice for secondary computers like netbooks, especially if any paid programs you use only have a license for one machine. Avast is free for private, noncommercial use only, but a paid Professional version is also available.
If you're interested, check out Avast! Home Edition at its official site.
Note: A version of Avast! for Mac OS X is also available, but is not free. I have not used that edition.