Avira: The Free Anti-Virus Software

Now granted, I'm not exactly a computer or software expert, so I'll probably get torn to shreds by the real tech afficionados out there, but here's what I've picked up so far on Avira. It's a free protection software you can download, distributed by a German company known as Avira GmBh. What does GmBh stand for? Hell if I know. It's probably kraut for "limited" or LLC or "Inc" or something. That's beside the point. Recently I downloaded this software due to my extreme hatred for Norton AntiVirus. It came preinstalled on my Toshiba P300 series laptop, which, for the record i love. I'd have preferred 3 gigs of RAM instead of 2 but whatever. It's a kickin' li'l laptop and, for the price, totally worth it. So back to why Norton sucks. Well, for one thing, i payed $60 for it for the year, starting this January, and I somewhat doubt it's worth it for a few reasons. Come ride with me as I elaborate.

I first started exploring all things free and opensource like half a year ago due to the fact that most Adobe products are way too expensive, and less than awesome. This realization nailed me while reading a freebie PDF I'd downloaded from lewrockwell.com, a neat little libertarian, market freedom oriented website i frequent from time to time. I tried downloading and the little fucker froze on me while trying to open Adobe. I'd had it. This was the third time or so in a day such a thing had occured. This aint 2003. I expect not to have firefox crash every goddamn time i want to read a document. I solved it with a download called Foxit, a free PDF reader (note: doesn't read PDX files), that doesnt do everything with the urgency of a glacier mired in molasses in a tar pit. Sumatra is also an alternative to Adobe, FYI.

I was ecstatic that a free download worked so much better than the mega-corp alternative. So I looked at other crap on my computer I could replace with free open source alternatives. Next I got Songbird, to use over my crappy default Windows Media Player.

Then I looked into free antivirus software. Using the forum known as reddit to get a feel for whateveryone else that knows whats up is using, and Avira came highly recommeded. So I figure what the crap, I'll give her a go.

Since I had my paid Norton already, I decided to use both that and the freebie anti-virus, y'know see how shit stacked up. One thing that irked me about Norton was that it would tell me about either real or possibly real threats, then have me go through this whole fucking song and dance to download "complimentary" tools to fix said viruses. Hey thanks for the complimentary fix norton. Or, considering I paid for your service, you could say the virus-fixing tool i manually downloaded was not really complimentary, considering I had to part with money for it.

Avira on the other hand doesn't nag me about manually fixing shit it clearly identifies as a virus. It takes care of it, the way you'd expect such a software to act. Also, it didn't cost me anything. It also has a database of all known and suspected virus names and types on its websites, emails me about new updates and overall is rather well behaved and in fact picked off some viruses norton failed to get.

Long story short I'm not renewing my Norton subscription at the end of the year. Nor am I trying any other paid security software for my personal computer. Just aint worth it. I suggest you give Avira a try if you haven't. You've pretty much got nothing to lose and I'm pleased with it overall.

So yeah, I have no stake in promoting Avira and for all I know like half of America has it. Didn't bother looking into the stats or download tally, as that stuff is boring. But for what it's worth it seems to be taking decent care of my PC security, as well as anything else. Here's a wordpress blog to keep you apprised of updates and miscellania related to Avira.

Long story short, I'm a fan of this software. I mean, it's not like I want to make out with it or anything, but it's solid. From what I've read, it has some issues detecting certain spyware, but no one security program is totally 100% foolproof. So give Avira a go, I'm willing to bet it won't impact your life in a negative way. Cheers, y'all.