This week, in my ongoing series about what I believe could be the top 10 free antivirus programs available in 2010, I am looking at Avira Antivir.
Through the official site, linked to above, you have the option of either downloading the basic version for free or taking a trialpay offer in order to get the full version for nothing.
Like many of the other antivirus programs I’ve been looking at recently, Avira Antivir is downloaded via Cnet.
If, as I assume, the system requirements for both the free and premium versions are the same, then I would imagine almost anyone could download and install Avira Antivir.
System requirements -
- Windows XP 32-bit SP2
- Windows XP 64-bit SP2
- Windows Vista 32-bit SP1
- Windows Vista 64-bit SP1
- Windows 7 32-bit
- Windows 7 64-bit
Windows XP users will only need to have 256 Mb of RAM whilst Vista and Windows 7 machines need to have 1 Gb.
Download and installation of Avira Antivir was very quick indeed.
After I finished installing the program it launched itself into a quick scan which only took a few seconds.
It looks like this was a check of the registry but I’m not 100% certain of that – the program could, perhaps, have done a better job of explaining what it was doing at that point as some people may think it had just performed a full scan when I’m pretty sure it hadn’t.
After that you get to see the interface of the program for yourself.
Your view on the interface may be influenced by your skill level – I personally liked the fact that it looked quite bare as that made it very quick and easy to navigate around it.
Computer novices, on the other hand, may need a bit more hand holding in order to get the most from the product.
Avira Antivir Personal Performance
After starting a full scan with Avira I was surprised to see that the various elements of the program were using about 95 megs of memory which is significantly more than any of the other free antivirus programs I’ve looked at recently.
In terms of processing needs, however, Avira seemed to be exceptionally good with CPU usage of less than 10% for most of the scan.
Whats more, a full scan of my system was concluded in about 40 minutes which is very impressive.
Multitasking whilst running a full scan with Avira was smooth and, from a subjective point of view, the best I have experienced thus far during this recent testing of free antivirus programs.
Overall I like Avira which seems to be a very lean and quick antivirus solution.
I’m not sure everyone would like the interface but other than that its all good.
Read about the other contenders for the best free antivirus programs 2010.
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Article by Lee Munson
Lee's non-technical background allows him to write about internet security in a clear way that is understandable to both IT professionals and people just like you who need simple answers to your security questions.
Lee has written 2878 awesome articles for us at Security FAQs
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Avira is good! I always recommended it before MSE was released. I love both Avira and MSE.
Assuming you have used it for some time, would you agree that it is better suited to a user who is somewhat computer savvy?