ThreatFire AntiVirus Free Edition virus protection free download

ThreatFire offers real-time prevention of virus and malware infections by identifying suspicious behavior ("zero-day" events) as it happens, before malicious code installs itself on your PC. Formerly known as CyberHawk, ThreatFire has made some dramatic and noticeable feature improvements since it was bought by PC Tools.

ThreatFire seeks out rootkits, heuristics-based threats, viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, adware, keyloggers, and buffer overflows. The software real-time protection didn't noticeably slow down our computer, and the customizable advanced settings were excellent. Users can pick and choose their preferred trusted processes and create rules for detection, such as scanning for SCR files created by an e-mail client. You can also avail yourself of the scheduler, and create a system restore point before moving threats into quarantine. The IntelliScan took about 15 minutes on our machine, but it didn't lock us into scanning mode. We were still able to check out other panes in the ThreatFire interface.

The only problem encountered was that occasionally, threats would be detected but without a name label. This made it hard to determine if they were genuine or false positives. ThreatFire has improved markedly, though, and working as a complement to your currently-installed antivirus it should be considered a serious protection tool.

From PC Tools:

Traditional antivirus solutions cannot protect you until after they have discovered a new threat and produced a signature to counter it. ThreatFire does not rely on signatures, but instead provides behavior-based protection. It is designed to be used alongside your existing antivirus software and it fills the gap in protection between your antivirus signature updates. ThreatFire protects you against major security threats including viruses, worms, trojans, rootkits and even some spyware. Its advanced ActiveDefense technology intelligently analyzes the behavior of processes and programs on a system and immediately halts any malicious action. It continuously monitors all activities on your PC at a very low system level and uses a proprietary combination of analytics, risk algorithms, program histories and tolerance thresholds to identify and shut down threats so you are always protected, no matter how new the threat. ThreatFire is easy to use, instantly effective, and very light on system resources.

What's new in this version: Version 4.7.0.17 includes various compatibility and malware detection fixes.