Old School AV without cloud?

Anyone know of a free, lean, AV that is not full of useless features that have to be disabled, and does not use cloud services, or where you can disable them?

What about BD free? Does it use cloud svc? Or can they be disabled?

Have been using AVAST but ever since the W7 SP1 update, it has caused extremely slow boots. (Re-installing, etc did not help and I only have 3 programs run at startup, AVAST, Comodo and Stickies. AVAST is the problem as without AVAST boot is 42sec.) TIA.

Tookeri said:

I'm not updated on MSE but I don't think that uses cloud services as much as some other AV's. I know there are lots of people using MSE here so they will be able to give you a better answer.

Personally I wouldn't use an AV without a cloud service. You need the information in the cloud for a good protection. I think the HIPS functionality in an AV is very important, and that wouldn't work without the cloud.
But I prefer non-free AV's simply because I think the paid ones offer better protection, so I'm probably not the best person to give you advice here.

Thanks for the reply... I should have said "except MSE" :) Not a fan of MS (except for the OS and Word).

HIPS has been around much longer than cloud services. Anything that can be done in the cloud can be done locally. I respect you prefer to use cloud services for your AV protection but some don't. Thanks again for the feedback though, appreciate it!

Tookeri said:

No, I can't agree with you there. Some cloud functionality won't work only locally. Examples: web protection that checks every site you visit in the cloud. And checking programs during launch to get reputations from the cloud. Even though the AV scans with real-time, I want it to check its reputation from the cloud and warn me if the program isn't considered "trusted" = known as safe and is used by many others.

These kinds of functions won't work locally because it's impossible to store and update information on every client computer about all web sites + all programs and versions that exist.

And those are the exact functions I disable. I don't want websites checked, or program reputations checked. Just scan the file and that's good enough. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and preferences. And everyone has their own reasons for their opinions and preferences.

Just looking for an old school AV... if one exists anymore...

"The cloud" is more of a marketing lie from AV vendors more than a reality. Actually, if you examine them carefully you'll find that almost every function of it works locally, using "the cloud" for fetching updates of signatures. Naming cloud sounds so much futuristic and non tech-savvy people are fooled into thinking it's superior, while it's technology we we're using since many years ago.

Regular filesystems scans work entirely local (making it "cloud" means uploading your entire HD, which will take ages and ruin privacy). Website protection uses a kernel-mode driver to route all internet traffic though the antivirus for scanning before allowing it. Again 100% local. WOT like, reputation-based "scan" uses mostly a locally cached DB to block DNS requests, that data is fetched during the regular DB update, not on-demand.

The only thing that completely requires "the cloud" is signatures update, a totally reasonable request. The AV downloads signature files from the vendor server and adds them to a local database for use in subsequent scans. That's nothing new, such methods were available since years ago!

Now, about particular products. In that sense, MSE is more like what you want. It's extremely simple, with very few features, about only file scans, updates, real-time protection and that's about it. Very lean program. Bad thing about it is that it has normally poor detection rates compared with other AVs.

"I only have 3 programs run at startup, AVAST, Comodo and Stickies."

I run Comodo 'free' AV--you already have Comodo--Comodo what? AV, firewall ??(running Avast and Comodo might be the problem)

I am running Comodo 5.5.195786.1383 and it works perfectly--boot time is approx 30 seconds

It's a different name for the same thing!!!!!!!
We already know technologies like that since the last decade, if not more, but now they name it "ask the cloud for information" instead of "update virus signature database from our servers" that has been so widely used in the 90s and 2000 decades.

The only different thing I can get from all is that data is collected from users and reputation is added to their databases, but they barely mention how to figure out is it's malicious or not. My guess is that data is collected from your installed programs and visited websites and their own (traditional, signature and heuristics based) analysis results are uploaded.
That's the only novelty, a signature database with counters on how many users use it and have it infected. At most, more frequent updates, perhaps real-time if bandwidth and CPU cycles allow, hardly a different paradigm, but minor tweaks over long existing methods.

BTW, do you really know what kind of info is being sent about you? Having such spyware piece running on my PC is not something I would like. Everyone has "good intentions", but it's freaking to have something collecting potentially private data about you without you realizing (or worse, with you approving).