Hi all
I’ve been a fan of Avast since 2002 and have watched the rise and demise of a number of other free-home-use AV programs (I still miss the elegently simple InoculateIT Personal Edition) but PC Tools AV is the first (that I can recall) that is offered free for commercial users, not just home use. Any comments?
If there AV is anything like their free Firewall (see a forum topic on pc tools firewall in these forums), I doubt it is as good as avast free or paid for.
In business I see no problem in paying for any software you require for the business, as such it is a legitimate business expense and tax deductible. So I would see no reason to chose this over a paid for version other than it had to be better, not because it was free. Your business has to be worth more than that.
As far as I know, PC Tools Antivirus uses its own scanning engine (but I’m not sure), and don’t know how effective it is, but at least PC Tools Antivirus gets the Anti-Virus Level 1 certificate from West Coast Labs.
I used to try PC Tools Antivirus Free Edition not so long ago, it’s a real full-features antivirus with quite clean and easy-to-use interface, PC Tools Antivirus Free Edition has the real-time file scanner, mail scanner and real-time HTTP/FTP scanner, schedule scanner, etc.
PC tools AV???i’ve tried it…not very gd…it has nice features and its very easy to use…but not as effective as other freebies like AVAST or Antivir(i don’t like Antivir but it has very gd detection rates)…and it uses lots of system resources…
Hi, great to get your responses.
My passing interest in PC Tools mainly stems from:
a/. Long-time very satisfied user of their “Registry Mechanic”
b/. PC Tools is Australian, like me!
While I personally agree with DavidR in regard to security matters,
Business is getting used to the idea that free stuff will do the job.
(e.g. telegrams/faxes vs email, MS Office vs Sun Open Office)
Indeed it was my boss, who is by no means an IT Guru but does pay the bills, who posed the question, “If this free program is adequate, can we use it?”
Maeng seems to have got my point and her comments indicate how a non-Avast-enthusiast might think.
It’s not that I, we or anyone on this forum would want to change from Avast. But if (and when) the PC Tools free product works well enough, people will use it.
And if it remains free for business users, in the long-term, who knows what might happen. It may ultimately force down the price of some retail AVs which may lead to there being fewer of them to choose from.
As for the scanning engine, PC Tools AV 3.1 was released on 22/12/2006. Its basis could be something called “ViruScape” from a now-dead company called “Terainnovations” http://www.terainnovations.com/
cheers