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Thread: Win7 free A/V software

  1. #1
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
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    Win7 free A/V software

    Have the free versions of antivirus software been updated for Win7 by now?

    My son's inlaws have a new Win7 system which came with a 60-day trial version of Mcafee. I suggested they consider running the free version of AVG or AVIRA but I don't know if ether of them support Win7. If not, are there other free A/V packages that have Win7 support?

  2. #2
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    Avira does and I would NOT recommend Avast anymore.

    Also, MS Security Essentials is getting good reviews and from users like you and I.
    Both are free.

    Do not forget to use McAfee removal tool.
    http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?id=TS100507

    Just in case, be remember , when it is uninstalled lots of junk is left behind, so they came up with the tool.

  3. #3
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    MS Security Essentials is free too.

    http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

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    Ultimate Member CrazyCrusher's Avatar
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    Id have to agree MS SE is very good, I found its light on your system and finds malware and virus;s pretty well, wroks good along side Malwarebytes
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    Senior Member rockinup1231's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Train View Post
    ... I would NOT recommend Avast anymore..
    I don't mean to hijack the thread or anything, but why do you recommend not using Avast? I use it on my PC and used it on my old laptop and it worked well both on Windows 7 and XP. It served me well.
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    Extreme Member! BipolarBill's Avatar
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    Avast is definitely good for at least one thing - it can do a startup scan where the free competitors cannot.
    MS MCP, MCSE

  7. #7
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
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    I installed MS SEcurity Essentials on my system to give it a try and I notice that starting any new tasks, opening files or email seem to be taking a long time. Task Manager is showing MsMpEng.exe and the largest memory and CPU user. I understand it is a component of Essentials.

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    Ultimate Member CrazyCrusher's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gwlogue View Post
    I installed MS SEcurity Essentials on my system to give it a try and I notice that starting any new tasks, opening files or email seem to be taking a long time. Task Manager is showing MsMpEng.exe and the largest memory and CPU user. I understand it is a component of Essentials.

    Never had any problems like that, when you first install MSE it runs a scan and updates, I have installed that on a number of computers without problems. take a look at screen shot below and that's while running a scan. when its not its idle at %2
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  9. #9
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
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    I had to uninstall MS Security Essentials. The system runs fine now. I'm going back to my old A/V program.

  10. #10
    Ultimate Member CrazyCrusher's Avatar
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    AVG is way more of system hog than MSE, considering MSE is only 6MB compared to AVG's 67MB or something like that, you may need to look at something else causing problems. that just docent sit right using that much system resources .
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  11. #11
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
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    I just downloaded AVIRA from the CNET downloads site and I notice that Win7 is NOT listed in the spec's. Is there another version for Win7 or have they just neglected to upate the description of the system specifications?

  12. #12
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
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    I can't explain what the problem was. All I know is that the system was virtually unusable with MS Security Essentials and it runs fine with AVIRA.

    I wouldn't know where to start looking to find the cause of the problem with MSSE.

  13. #13
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
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    Does that McAfee removal tool work win Win7?

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    Should as it worked for me in Vista.

  15. #15
    Ultimate Member gwlogue's Avatar
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    Worked fine. They are running and very happy. THanks for your help.

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