12 replies to this topic

[TeeJay3800]

I am thinking about switching anti-virus programs and have been using AVG Free for a long time. I have also used Anti-Vir and Avast! in the past. I'm interested in a free (no trials etc) on-demand scanner and have no interest/need for real time monitoring. BitDefender 8 Free Edition looks like a very good program, but I have seen very little mentioned on this forum and wanted to know if anyone has used it before or what people have heard. What input does everyone have?

[XanaTos112]

pretty sure everybody here rates bitdefender very highly.only problem with it was the cost,didnt know it had a free version.id say bitdefender is better than avg imo

[TeeJay3800]

So I tried it and I uninstalled it after 5 minutes. Even though there is NO real time protection, there were still 3 running processes that were using a total of 30MB! That's ridiculous! Needless to say I won't be using it again anytime soon.

[TwistedMetal]

I will be sticking with AntiVir for a very long time.

[rridgely]

I think it may have been updating/scanning or something.
I tried bitdefender free about 2 months ago and don't remember any outrageous ram usage.

I will say that if you want an AV without real time you should get antivir. During the installation you can choose not to install the guard.

[Andavari]

rridgely, on Feb 13 2007, 02:15 PM, said:

I will say that if you want an AV without real time you should get antivir. During the installation you can choose not to install the guard.

My vote is for AntiVir too, although on XP Pro the AntiVir Guard can be disabled in Service.msc and it will act as if it isn't installed - in fact the program will state it isn't installed. Those BitDefender Free services that are resident can of course be removed from startup, all they really offer is automatic updates which can easily be accomplished manually.

[TeeJay3800]

The services were running even after I disabled automatic updates. When I manually stopped them, I couldn't successfully do a virus definition update or a virus scan. I got an error saying something about the program not being able to communicate with another needed service...

I've used AntiVir before but was disappointed by the slow scan speeds.

[Andavari]

TeeJay3800, on Feb 13 2007, 03:09 PM, said:

I've used AntiVir before but was disappointed by the slow scan speeds.

Maybe this will help:
1. Configure AntiVir
2. Tick at the upper left: Expert mode
3. Click Scanner->Scan then change Scan Process to Normal

[Tham]

I appear to have two trojans in my System32 folder.

The free version of Kaspersky, Active Virus Shield,
detected one of them at "Xorpix.m". Bitdefender 8,
their free version, missed it.

Bitdefender 8 detected the other one as
"Worm.Glowa.AR". Kaspersky missed this though.

Antivir, Comodo, Clam, Spyware Terminator,
Super Antispyware, Asquared and Ewido missed
both totally.

I'm not sure if they were false alarms though.

[hazelnut]

Hello Tham

It would be agood idea I think for you to post a hijackthis log in the part of the forum with deals with them Start a new topic here

http://forum.pirifor...hp?showforum=12

Instructions if needed on how to do a log and post it are at the top of that page.

[1984]

TwistedMetal, on Feb 13 2007, 02:40 PM, said:

I will be sticking with AntiVir for a very long time.

me too. i cant wait till they upgrade it for vista so i can put it on my laptop too! its been one awesome antivirus for me, and the first one that i have had NO trouble with yet.

[Andavari]

1984, on Mar 20 2007, 12:15 PM, said:

and the first one that i have had NO trouble with yet.

Lucky you! It was having update problems on my system. Therefore I've switched to AVG which unfortunately takes twice as long to scan all files on my system.

[Tham]

I've given up on Antivir, their free Classic version, that is.

I was using it for some time, until this March 9, when on
downloading a file from the net, it detected trojans and
prompted me for action. In my haste, I accidentally
selected "Ignore" ! My system was badly infected and I
had to spend some two hours using multiple antivirus
(including Bitdefender 8 and AOL's Kapersky),
antispyware and registry backtracker programs to clean
up. Apparently one of them, "Adirka.exe", as described in
Prevx1's database link, is a particularly bad and very
recent infection, being first detected on March 5.

That is the main drawback of the free version - you can't
set the resident shield to "Automatic Delete", which
would have prevented the infection.

You can see my post in the Antivir forum here.

http://forum.antivir...?threadid=19223


This must have been the infection which inserted in the
two trojan horses (Xorpix.m and Worm.Glowa.Ar) in my
post above, since a look at their "Properties" showed
a "Modified" date of March 9, and about the same time.
A manual scan with Antivir, despite its huge
database of 700,000 (probably the largest on the
market), failed to detect them. Kapersky detected
the first, Bitdefender 8 the second. Sending them to
Virus Buster confirmed the first infection.

I've since switched over to AOL's Kapersky Antivirus
Shield as my resident shield, despite its much smaller
280,000 database, with Bitdefender 8 (400,000
signatures) as a manual scanner.