Avira Free Antivirus - Pro's and Con's

[jackuars]

With respect to the Best Free Antivirus 2015 competition, I'm starting a thread series where users of the various products will be joining together to state the Pro's and Con's of each antivirus/internet security software and why they think it is a contender or not for the Best Free Antivirus.

The first post will be updated by me with what user's think is good and bad about the product, so an informed decision can be made for newcomers.

Related Threads:
Avast Free Antivirus - The Pro's and Con's
Qihoo 360 Total Security - The Pro's and Con's
Comodo Internet Security Premium - The Pro's and Con's
Panda Free Antivirus - The Pro's and Con's

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THE PRO'S
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• Very light
• Smooth running
• Nice UI
• Great offline engine
• Great cloud engine
• Excellent detection for non-zero day threats
• High quality signatures with frequent updates
• Less false positives
• Deep file scan
• APC helps to improve the overall transmission of samples
• Add-on for Chrome and Opera

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THE CON'S
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• Pop'up's (not confirmed)
• Pointless browser launcher using too much memory
• Poor zero-day protection/behavioral shield
• Weak heuristic protection
• No firewall or web shields
• No sandboxing technology
• Removal tends to be painful for each detections due to repeated scanning
• Real-time file detection causes Luke Filewalker to scan operations taking time and CPU
• Safe file Exceptions need to be added to real-time and on-demand categories

 

[RmG152]

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THE PRO'S
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• Very light
• Smooth running
• UI
• Great offline engine
• Great Cloud engine
• File scan is deep
• Avira addon for opera / chrome is great
• Thinking

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THE CON'S
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• Popups
• UI
• Avira launcher (online instalator)
• When a file is detected by realtime protection "luke filewalker" take too much time scanning things and doing some operations

 

[Hangtooth]

Pros
Excellent detection rate of non-zero day threats
Does not *seem* to slow system (even with Pro and all modules installed)
Excellent high quality signature database with almost no false positives
Frequent updates to the signature database/components
Solid 'build quality' (with one exception detailed in Cons section)

Cons
Lack of day zero protection/comparatively weak heuristic protection vis a vis the competition
No firewall (even Pro just adds on/off switch for Windows Firewall to Avira interface)
At least a year long problem with updating on some hardware unless self-protection modules are disabled (1 machine is fine, other affected)
The launcher - pointless

Overall I love it, but am about to ditch it unless Avira finds a speedy fix to the update problem. It seems to be hardware related and only affects some machines, and the only way to fix it is to turn off the self-protection modules (advanced process protection and protect process from unwanted termination). On one machine it works fine, on the other, it won't update (even after a clean Windows 10 install). Love the product, but this update problem/security deactivation makes me unwilling to stick with it.

 

[Deleted Member 333v73x]

Avira is not a bad product but its heuristics are VERY weak and sometimes you don't have peace of mind with it, but apart from that reasonable detection and good reputation

 

[Kate_L]

Pros
Good protection

Cons
The launcher is useless and it's using way to much memory.
0-Day protection is not that good (week vs non *.exe files).
If a safe file is detected you need to add to real-time and on-demand exception.

Overall = OK product

 

[Pat MacKnife]

Pros

• Good detection
  
• Smooth running
• UI
• Great offline engine
• Great Cloud engine
• File scan is deep
• Very light

Con's

Avira Browser Safety add-on doesn't work that good (Bugs)
Avira launcher (online installer 4 MB)
Popups

Overall very good AV for free

 

[jackuars]

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THE CON'S
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• Popups

I haven't had a single pop-up after installing Avira for 2 weeks. Are you sure you tested it recently? Also the installer,has become free of any adware and the UI from advertisments.

 

[Kuttz]

Avira had high quality signature database and now with cloud scanning makes it stronger. Still Avira free lacks any behavioral shield, web scanning, sandboxing etc making it a weaker Anti Virus in dealing with Zero Day threats. If the Avira File system fails your system will most likely get infected by malware. Chance of getting infected by malware with Avira Free is much higher than Avast Free due to Avira's too much reliance with signature databases. Using Avira Free with other security solutions like Comodo Firewall offers good security though still costing Zero.

 

[Overlord]

Pros
Good detection
Light
Good offline and cloud engine
Less false positives
Cons
Pop'up's
No firewall
Lack of day zero protection

 

[jamescv7]

Pros

• Strong AV protection
• Strong web base protection
• APC helps to improve the overall transmission of samples
• Straightforward as it focus main components.

Cons

• No BB, they fail to implement for newer concept.
• Rely too much on traditional methods.
• Removal tends to be painful for each detections due to repeated scanning
• Browser Launcher is considered unnecessary.

 

[Andrew999]

THE PRO'S
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• Very light
• Great offline engine
• Great cloud engine
• Excellent detection for non-zero day threats
• High quality signatures with frequent updates
• Less false positives
• APC helps to improve the overall transmission of samples
• Has a free Antivirus.

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THE CON'S
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• Pop'up's (not confirmed)
• Pointless browser launcher using too much memory
• Poor zero-day protection/behavioral shield
• Weak heuristic protection
• Slow removal speed for Real time Protection

 

[Deleted Member 333v73x]

Sorry for off-topic: You can install it without launcher, just the AV