Free antivirus from AOL with the Kaspersky engine

http://www.activevirusshield.com/ant...eav/index.adp?

Free, available to all. You do not have to be an AOL member! You do have to furnish a legit email address so that you can receive the activation code.

It's a very mildly stripped down version of Kaspersky 6. (No Web Antivirus, no Proactive Defense and no Trusted/Exclusion zones. All of which IMO, are not must haves.)

There is a screen during the install that asks if you wish to install an AOL browser toolbar (which I would not do.)

IMO, this would be a much better free alternative than any of the existing real-time capable freebies (AVG, aVast!, AntiVir.)

Quote:

---

IMO, this would be a much better free alternative than any of the existing real-time capable freebies (AVG, aVast!, AntiVir.)

---

Except that it comes from A O Hell.. :(

poppy4: I agree about AOL. But I guess my take is that if they want to pay Kaspersky for such a good AV (for me, my friends, family, whoever), I'll let them. (IMO, seems like the least they can do after some of the other stuff they've done.)

FWIW, I have downloaded and installed it to my 98SE PC. Running great so far. As well as anything I've tried on it. (I did not install the AOL toolbar.) I tweaked a couple of settings and then went to eicar.org and tested it against the zipped AV test file. Nailed it on the fly!

I'll followup back here after a few days but based on initial impressions (and the fact that Kaspersky is arguably one of the very best AV's available) this is a very good offer.

In typical AOL fashion I gave a valid email addy, but there is no sign of any activation code :( How long did it take them to send yours?

Within minuites so I dont understand the hold up :(

SuperSparks,

You might go through the process again, except use a web email address. The ISPs have gone wild with blocking email from certain domains. AOL is currently blocking email because they want the other ISPs to pay to interconnect and they also want the ISPs to use reverse DNS.

Anyway, using another neutral email address such as Yahoo could be a double check on the process.

There are probably a lot of people downloading this as well, so their servers could be overloaded, especially since AOL has always taken short cuts on their hardware requirements.

Linda

Yes, mine showed up within just a few minutes. Matter of fact, I initially clicked the download link with FF's NoScript active and thought nothing had happened. So I temporarily turned off NoScript and tried again. I got the download that time and when I went to retrieve the code key, I had 2 of them! One from each click!

I just finished browsing over at Kaspersky's home user forum and the new AOL version is quite the subject. Apparently the word has gotten out. Maybe that's the reason for the delay of the activation key?

Nope just tested it again and it appeared straight away.Maybe its ended up in your servers spam folder?

Just to add further to the offer by AOHell

http://www.computerworld.com

Quote:

---

Although security experts, including Howes, say that Active Virus Shield does not behave in a malicious fashion or serve up unwanted ads, some are concerned that the product's end-user license agreement (EULA) would allow AOL to send spam or serve up adware at some point in the future. "If it actually does any of the things stated in the EULA, we would actually flag it as spyware," said Christina Olson, a project manager at Stopbadware.org.

The Active Virus Shield agreement gives AOL much broader rights to collect information and then to share that information with third parties than typical EULAs, observers said.

A prohibition against blocking ads also caught Olson's attention. "If you have any ad-blocking software up, you're basically violating their EULA, which is ridiculous," she said.

---

Maybe they should change their logo to Homer and call themselves AODoh!

i use it and it actually found malware that spybot and ad-warese missed

Frebo,

Exactly what are you using .... The AOL Kaspersky, Kaspersky AV or the Kaspersky Suite?

Linda

The AOL Kaspersky

ok changed my mind i removed it, it slowed my pc down a lot also could not use system restore as long as it was turned on. while it was running my performance in task manager would spike up and down, just did not set well with my pc.

Frebo,

It has been reported elsewhere that AOL had spyware included to collect data on your surfing habits.

You might want to go to http://www.kaspersky.com/ website and download a free evaluation copy of just the Kaspersky AV and see if you get similar results. I suspect that you will get far improved results.

Cheers,

Linda

The only verifiable possible negative things I have read are related to the EULA, the ToolBar and AOL email spam. Anything else is pure speculation.

Admittedly, the EULA isn't the best but if one were to read every single one in detail, most don't read well for the end user. And I have read that AOL may be re-wording it to tone some things down. But at this moment, I don't know exactly where this stands. But I can certainly see why some are unhappy with this aspect of using the product. It is worth pointing out that a EULA is just text. It is not spyware.

As for the ToolBar, all one needs to do to avoid it is to not install it. So IMO, this is really no issue.

As for the possibility of spam, since you must furnish an email to them to obtain the activation code, you absolutely do run the risk of receiving marketing emails from AOL. All I can say to this is that I downloaded the AV the first day and so to date, I have received no spam email from AOL whatsoever.

The other rumour I have seen is that the AV itself may contain something untoward from AOL. Kaspersky has verified in their user forum that this is not so. Active Virus Shield is Kaspersky version 6 with a few less features and a different graphical skin. (I noted the exact differences in the first post up top. There are no other changes. IOW, manual virus scanning is the same as KAV 6.)

Han,

Thanks for your very detailed response. Your expertise is greatly appreciated.

Linda

I've been testing it in a virtual machine for a couple of weeks, and I haven't found any issues at all to be concerned about. It picked up a couple of infected .rar files that I keep around for test purposes with no difficulty (as I would expect from Kaspersky).

And Kaspersky allows a free online scan using their AV.
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

Han--Do you know if this offer includes updates for the virus definitions? And if yes, for how long?

i downloaded again just to see if i could work around the problems i had before, it did the same thing my performance would spike up to 75 percent with nothing running but firewall and antivirus and the normal other processes, i tried to do a sytstem restore and it would not work, could not use any previous dates, my arrow pointer would jump around when the performance was spiking like a bad battery or something. so removed again cleaned out reg. and everything back to normal dont know why it wont work for me.

frebo--[QUOTE]with nothing running but firewall and antivirus [QUOTE]
Does that mean you had two AV's running? That can cause conflicts.

With AOLs track record, I question anything from them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by greengoose1

With AOLs track record, I question anything from them.

---

See my other thread. :eek:

no jim just one it made me delete my other before it would download but something is running in that program that drains my pc. i have a gig of ram and as soon as i download it my pc performance will start spiking up to 75 percent and just start dragging, my pc is clean so it is not spyware or viruses and i didnt download the toolbar.
guess it is just not for me.

Update...

The license is showing up as a 1 year period of time. I haven't read anything anywhere that says what will happen after that.

The Active Virus Shield (AVS) EULA was modified by AOL on August 10th. http://www.activevirusshield.info/eula.html In it's current form, I no longer see much to be unhappy about. They even offer the ability to opt out of any AOL marketing emails you might receive (which to date, I have not received.)

Again, to keep any direct AOL software off your PC, it is important to NOT load the toolbar during the initial installation. (If memory serves, the option is toward the end of the installation.)

As for frebo's high CPU usage, I have looked around some and just haven't seen this being a common issue. Under normal circumstances, Kaspersky 6 (on which AVS is based) does use a little bit of CPU power. But from what I've seen on my XP PC at work, it's minimal. Maybe a 5% average.

As for my test on my trusty, old 98SE laptop, AVS ended up being just a bit more than it wanted. The CPU load average was higher in this case than my XP is with KAV 6 (at work)... In the range of 10 to 15 percent. So, I went back to my old standby, EZ antivirus 7.0.8.1. To be fair here, EZ has been the only AV that my 98SE PC really likes. And this includes tests I've ran with AntiVir, aVast, AVG, Dr. Web, F-Prot and several others.

Bottom line, IMO, if you are looking for a quality, free antivirus, AVS should be on your short list. Just don't expect to run it on 7 or 8 year old PCs without issues.

FYI
AOL has dropped Kaspersky in favor of Mcafee and no longer offer the free anti-virus program with Kaspersky.

That sounds about right - a crap AV solution to go with a crap company :D

Nick beat me to it again.:)

Double jeopardy and the user loses. :( :(