7 replies to this topic

[swagger]

I just tried BitDefender but it seems to be a little bit bloated. Does anyone have any suggestions? Needs to be free, good detection rate, and light on resources. I am currently using ClamWin for my on-demand scanner at work.

swagger

[exile360]

You can use Avira as an on demand scanner since it's portable. To figure out how to make it work (as I did) you can download UBCD which includes it, download the newest version of Avira and install it, copy it's installation folder to somewhere else, then uninstall it and delete the unneeded realtime protection files to save space (referencing the version on UBCD since they remove the unnecessary stuff for portability and space saving). Once you do so you have to update it manually by downloading the definitions here, opening Avira's avcenter executable to access the GUI, then clicking on the Update menu on the top and selecting Manual Update (you'll get a UAC prompt in Vista, just click Continue) and browse to where you downloaded the zip file containing the new defs. You can do on demand scans and customize the scanning options, but no drivers load on boot, no tray icon runs, no processes, services or splash screens, just a good on-demand, and quite portable scanner .

When the free license expires, you can download a new one here. Just place it in the Avira folder that you saved.

[swagger]

Just to confirm you are referring to the UBCD for Windows, correct? Seems like a fair amount of work to make it portable I will try this when I get home though. Thanks exile

swagger

[swagger]

Well... After looking at the folder on UBCD for Windows and comparing it to the Antivir folder on my Vista laptop, the sizes are completely identical. 61.4MB. Same amount of folders and everything... So... What do you suggest?

swagger

[exile360]

There's quite a few exe's that can be deleted if using Avira as an on-demand scanner, such as avguard. Here's the list of files and folders in my portable Avira folder (no subfolders etc listed due to dir command's limitations but there isn't anything I altered/deleted there anyway).

 dir.txt   1.77K   99 downloads

[szgr]

I recommend the free DrWeb CureIt for extra on demand scans: http://www.freedrweb.com/cureit/
It can remove a wide variety of nasties and is much better than ClamWin.

[exile360]

Agreed, I LOVE CureIt, and also AVPTool (Kaspersky). The reason I recommend Avira is because you can update the defs without having to download a new copy of the program like you do with CureIt and AVPTool. AVZ is another good one (now owned by Kaspersky) and it has some nifty tricks of its own for the more advanced users.

[victimized]

swagger, on Apr 10 2009, 07:21 AM, said:

I just tried BitDefender but it seems to be a little bit bloated. Does anyone have any suggestions? Needs to be free, good detection rate, and light on resources. I am currently using ClamWin for my on-demand scanner at work.

swagger

You can download AVG Free from free.avg.com. This antivirus barely uses any resources because this free version only has one thing on it for real time protection and tracking cookies. Or you can try SuperAntiSpyware Free or A-Squared free just to name a few.