Free antivirus from AOL with the Kaspersky engine

[HAN]

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.)

[poppy4]

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..

[HAN]

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.

[SuperSparks]

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?

[104456]

Within minuites so I dont understand the hold up

[LindaHewitt]

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

[HAN]

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!

[HAN]

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?

[104456]

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

[104456]

Just to add further to the offer by AOHell

http://www.computerworld.com

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!

[frebo]

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

[LindaHewitt]

Frebo,

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

Linda

[frebo]

The AOL Kaspersky

[frebo]

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.

[LindaHewitt]

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