Rising AntiVirus 2008 (free) v 2009 (trial)?

A few days ago my main anti-malware / real-time virus protection program, Rising Antivirus 2008 Free, updated itself to the 2009 version, which is only free for another month. At the time I didn't realize I was about to end up with a trial version, otherwise I would have stopped the update.

I assume the 2009 version will simply stop working in 31 days unless I pay, rather than reverting back to what I had before it, right?

Is the 2008 Free version still fully supported in terms of virus definitions? (Anyone here using it?)

Is there a recommended way or a removal tool for uninstalling Rising AV 2009 so that the user doesn't end up with a bunch of leftover crap as is often the case with AV programs? In particular, I'm concerned about leftovers that might complicate the re-installation of the the 2008 version, or just clutter up my system in general. Should I enjoy the trial version until it runs out, or would that make it harder to remove?

fwiw, I may just pay the $20 fee for a 1-year Rising AV 2009 license if I'm super impressed by this trial version. alternatively, there's always AVG8 Free, but I had been liking the Rising AV 2008 better (for my needs)...

 

http://www.majorgeeks.com/RISING_Antivirus_d6034.html
http://www.freerav.com/
Looks like there is still a free 2009 version available,
For software removal Revo Uninstaller works for me
http://majorgeeks.com/Revo_Uninstaller_d5706.html
Looked at the companies main page and did not notice this version in any links.
I use Avast on XP and Linux, AVG on WIndows 7. Rising is rated a 4.23 by users here, sounds like it does its job.
Other information on Rising here:
http://support.rising-global.com/

 

Hi~
I use avast anti virus home addition it is totally free & it scans everything....I "HIGHLY" recommened it! It updates on it own..and doesn't slow your computer down.....

http://majorgeeks.com/Avast_Home_Edition_d1968.html

this is the link from majorgeeks site.

 

I spent some time 'testing' Rising AV (read this thread) and found it to be "fair" protection at best. There are several other free AVs that offer MUCH better protection, and MUCH better detection and removal abilities. I personally use Avira's AntiVir and I have for years, and have never had a serious infection on my home PC.

[dlb]

 

Thank you everyone for the links and suggestions.

I thought Rising had discontinued the free version since MG didn't have it (2009 version), and it wasn't on Rising's site either; unless of course the ~30-day trial version turns into the free version at the end of the trial.

I suspect Rising gets a bad rap because it's not the best at finding malware during regular scans. In my experience, based on numerous scans of suspect software downloads, Rising detected fewer malicious files than free versions of A-Squared, BitDefender, Kaspersky, and AVG8 - I haven't tried Avast or AnVir. However, I've also noticed that it may catch those 'misses' later on, plus it runs discreetly on my relatively fast laptop, uses less system resources than AVG8 (may dependent on settings too), and look well-designed to survice potential outbreaks, so that's why I continue to use it.

I recently scanned a bunch of suspect exe-files with both a2-squared free and Rising AV. a2-squared found several trojans, Rising did not. I decided to select the files to delete them, but I accidentally double-clicked on one causing it to run; that's when Rising detected the trojan and blocked it. I'm guessing its algorithm is more lax on manual scans to make it faster, less intrusive for real-time protection, or something...

The bad? Well, there the false positives. In particular, Rising is very sensitive to Registry utilities and key finders. for example, I had to white list RegScanner and RockXP4, and just today Rising blocked WhoLockMe 2 because of something involving 'virtual memory property modification' (no clue?) - should be fine after I reboot because I added it to the white list, but there are those types of issues...

 

UPDATE: My 31-day trial period ran out. I was hoping it would revert to the free version, but it didn't. The update function just stopped working; or it would display a pop-up message saying to buy the program to get updates...

I uninstalled the expired 'trial version', then (re)installed the 2009 free version from Bugballou's link: http://www.freerav.com/

Seems to work fine. I cannot see any obvious difference between the free and the trial version, except the free version doesn't threaten you with a trial period. That said, I archived a copy of the main program directory before uninstalling the trial version, and that was about 300MB compared to the freshly installed free version size of 150MB - clearly something is gone.

Having to uninstall and reinstall was a PITA because AV's are tricky to get rid off, and I wanted it to leave my settings (whitelist, etc). Revo is great, but less so if the main program needs to reboot to get rid of some files. i.e. it'll leave removal instructions behind, but then Revo cleans those too if you let it run, but maybe that's better than letting the program decide want to leave and what to remove post-reboot... - I used Revo, but had to do a little manual cleanup after reboot.

Note: I don't mean to bitch about Rising AV too much; obviously I like the program enough to have reinstalled it, so it has its strengths.