Was hoping someone could help me choose an antivirus to use with CPF 3. My two biggest concerns is compatibility and it has to be free. (Money is tight until I get my degree in June.)
Are both Avast and AVG compatible with CPF 3 using XP Pro? Is there another good product out there that is free?
Thanks for any input
-Mike
Avast, AVG, Antivir are all compatible and free. I use Avast! with no problems and like the ease of use and features; AVG seems to be the most popular for the average user; Antivir has its own fans. All work well with CFP.
I appreciate the fast response sded. I will be doing a clean XP install and I didn’t want to go through all the trouble, only to install antivirus software that doesn’t play nice.
I have just one other question if you would be so kind as to answer. Considering that CPF is installed on a freshly installed OS, and assuming that CPF has things locked down pretty good, is it still necessary to run real-time antivirus protection or will frequent scans suffice?
Thanks again - I will give Avast a shot.
-Mike
I can testify that Nod32 V. 2.7 works flawlessly with the firewall. I haven’t tested 3.0 of Nod 32 but I know it uses a proxy and that creates issues with the firewall logging and most likely informing the user of malware, but I believe some users have found workarounds.
[Edit] Ok, never mind what I said… free… hmmm. In case you still are interested in Nod they do have Student Licenses running around somewhere I think. Those tend to be relatively cheap. Anyway, to the free ones.
I’ve used AVG and Avast. I much prefer the layout of AVG and it has always worked well whenever I needed it. For me, the AVAST look just wasn’t doing it and configuration wasn’t as simple, IMO. Also, at least for me AVG also ran lighter than AVAST. It’s probably not the same on all, but it was on mine. I BELIEVE some options on AVG free are limited (since it is free) like scheduling a specific time for a scan or maybe configuring updates if memory serves me right. I’m not sure of these limitations on AVAST because I could never use it long enough to figure it out (it always ■■■■■■ me off before then).
As far as detection rates go, http://www.av-comparatives.org/, should help you if you care to look at them. I won’t bother to go into it because that’ll just start a war here. Personally, I think AVG’s detection rates are good enough. (A note about A-V Comparatives, I believe the signatures it lists for both AVG and AVAST are for the paid version, but I see no reason why they shouldn’t be exactly the same for the free version).
My father uses antivir free fine with CFP. Though I don’t have much experience with it, I don’t believe it has automatic updates in the free version meaning one would have to remember to press the update button unless it reminds you. He likes it just fine, no muss no fuss on his system.
[YET ANOTHER EDIT] Lol, Sded, you reply too fast while I am still typing. Feel free to disregard what I said if you have already chosen, but I spent so long typing I’m gonna post it! 
Glad you have chosen. Also, to answer your question I would still use antivirus in real time just in case CFP misses something (or you make the mistake of allowing it through). It will save you from having to do scans online weekly unless you want to. I’m in a University, and frankly when school gets going online scans delay me un necessarily.
Dave
Real time antivirus protection will keep you from getting viruses and Trojans; scans will tell you that you have them and often help get rid of them. In the meantime, you can have some damage. Avast!, at least, is pretty transparent in terms of resources used, updating, etc. and I have heard the generally same about the others. The way the real-time scanners work is a thorough (time consuming) pass at what you already have, to confirm there are no problems, then a pretty transparent look at what you download or add the make sure you don’t come up with new malware. I don’t notice any slow down from the real-time scanner, and rarely redo the thorough scan unless I completely reconfigure the system. Some run online scans also with other products, just to get a second opinion in case the real time scanner missed something. Firewalls are really all about connections, virus scanners are about the content of the data that is on these connections, so they are complementary functions.
I use the free antivir
It has daily automatic updates which can be accessed via the scheduler.
Regards,
Mike
Thanks sded and Dave. I think I have the necessary info to make a decision.
Cheers,
-Mike
All right, I’ll go ahead and mark this thread as resolved. PM me or another online Moderator with a link to this topic if you want it opened again.
Also, a tip if you choose Avira; it’ll display an ad after auto-update, but you can block it from running using CFP 3 to disable avnotify.exe from getting executed 
Cheers,
Ragwing