Reviews of PC Tools AntiVirus Free Edition

1. 
   DeeJone

   Reviewing 6.0.0.19 (Apr 16, 2009)

   I had the same freeze up when upgrading to the new V6. Had to power off the pc, and restart the install. PC TOOLS said to exit the old version of the AV, and to temporarily disable the firewall, and Spyware Dr. too.
   It also wanted to install a trial version of thier Registry Mech., which I declined on one mach and the install froze again, so I accepted.
   After ward, it had to download a large 16mb update and reboot again (3rd time).
   This time it ran ok, and I ran an Intlli-Scan, which found the trojan mentioned in a previous post.
   So far we feel that PC Tools AV is a pretty good product for being free. We have a small business and are trying to keep a pretty tight budget, so some of the other free AVs we don't qualify for (home use only). Along with Threatfire, we feel it gives pretty good protection, as they have worked well. Our pc are used for work oriented web browsing only.
   The firewall gets high rating at MATOUSEC.com too.
   The most recent version of Spyware DR seems to slow the older pc's down quite a bit, so we have reverted back to Windows Defender on those.
   I only give 3 stars due to the install problem, otherwise the prior version I rated at 4 stars.
2. 
   sturgess

   Reviewing 6.0.0.17 (Feb 27, 2009)

   Big fan of PC Tools, had their firewall, their anti-virus, and the greatest of them all, ThreatFire. I updated to the latest version of the anti-virus yesterday, bad move, machine changed from a mean, lean browsing machine to a sluggard. So the anti-virus had to go, and as I was feeling a little peeved, the firewall went as well. Now back with the old guard, ZoneAlarm and Avira and all is well again. Still hanging onto ThreatFire though, now that's never going to be dumped.
3. 
   anomoly

   Reviewing 6.0.0.17 (Feb 26, 2009)

   Based upon others reviews & the fact it would work in win7 whereas agnitum would not, I installed last version (including the fw & threatfire) and all was well EXCEPT the conflict with vidalia. This latest twice the size installer freezes and must be killed. I am back on xp and therefore am again using agnitum and threat fire is gone as well. Back to clamwin
4. 
   ron_marz

   Reviewing 6.0.0.17 (Feb 26, 2009)

   Missed the "virut" trojan on my system, which infected every .exe file on all my drives, coting three days downtime.
5. 
   eclipsingdivinity

   Reviewing 5.0.1.1 (Jan 9, 2009)

   I've always loved how PC Tools gave away security tools for free when it didn't have to. Of course they promote their other products in the free versions, but they provide so many types of free products you can practically build your own suite. Between PC Tools Antivirus FREE, Spyware Doctor STARTER EDITION, PC Tools Firewall FREE and Threatfire FREE edition...you have all your bases covered on one company alone.
   
   As you should...
   
   PC Tools Antivirus didn't catch too many trojan samples I threw at it, and it seems to do only as advertised which is catch viruses. This means you can't expect PC Tools Antivirus to catch the latest form of mutant malware like Vundo, you would have to leave that to Spyware Doctor or some other form of Malware fighting tool.
   
   The poor detection is really the only ouch for me. Since I enjoy having my computer run as lightly as possible, I can only stand to have one program on my PC for malware cleaning and I expect the program to do both. Paid programs like Norton, McAfee do this, and free programs like AVG and Avast all incorporate rootkit, adware and spyware detection to their engines.
   
   With free programs being so advanced, why use PC Tools Antivirus? I'll leave the answer up to you, but I can't get it any less than 3 Stars for being free and easy to use. Minus 2 stars for the lacky of extensive features to keep the user safe.
   
   If you download this, please pair it up with Spyware Doctor Starter Edition.
   
   http://www.download.com/...00-8022_4-10704508.html

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