- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows XP/2003/Vista/Server 2008/7
- Date added: January 20, 2010
- Total Downloads: 2,251,003
- Downloads last week: 32,684
- Product Ranking: #10 in Antivirus Software
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- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 374 votes
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CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: Seth Rosenblatt on November 23, 2009
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.
Publisher's description
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.
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User reviews
- All versions: 3.3 starsout of 374 votes
- 5 stars
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- 1 stars
- Current version: 3.4 starsout of 58 votes
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- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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5 stars
5 out of 5 people found this review helpful
Version: ThreatFire AntiVirus Free Edition 4.7.0.17
"i just cant believe what i'm reading here"
Pros: actually fairly light on system, nice clear warning with multiple choice response. has beaten my anti-virus to the draw several times with warnings.
Cons: not a thing . have used it for a long time. i highly recommend it.
Summary: have used threatfire for awhile now, and with TWO different anti-virus, and on two different o.s.' (vista and windows 7. both x64 home premium) and have had absolutely no problems at all. it plays extremely well with both avast and avg.( both free editions) have had very few if any false positives. it installed as easy as pie. it updates automatically. multiple scan levels*you can make your own if you please* this is a piece of software i told my family about! haha. i heartily recommend this excellent free program.
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4 stars
5 out of 5 people found this review helpful
Version: ThreatFire AntiVirus Free Edition 4.7.0.17
"Very trustfull, user friendly, has a lot of features."
Pros: Very practical, it has a lot of otpions so one can decide how sensible you want it to be, it warns on time and prompts for action to take, you don't have to worry about it because you can program auto updates and scans that are suitable for everyone.
Cons: It's a little annoying for unexperienced users or begginners due to the use of high sensitivity or advanced settings whic cause too many pop-ups to appear but once oeople gets confident and finds the correct settings it's perfect!
Summary: It's and easy to use, user friendly well explained and multifunctional antivirus which is enhanced with excellent extra features like disk usage, community alerts, etc. etc. I really recomend this program it's great!
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3 stars
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: ThreatFire AntiVirus Free Edition 4.7.0.17
"sufficient."
Pros: stops apps at the very beginning.
Cons: interupts your motions
Summary: I like it because it is very thorough. It will e ven stop your internet from connecting if it thinks it is risking your computer. I also like the idea of being able to make it more sensitive to changes.
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1 stars
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: ThreatFire AntiVirus Free Edition 4.7.0.17
"worst then my ex"
Pros: none that i know
Cons: i ran into some issues with it so i removed it from program files in program manager or so i thought untill it continued to run in backgorund even after sytem restarts.
Summary: it runs in stealth and wont let me erase the exe file in my drive.I get an "access dinied" response.too unmanageablethis program has taken over my pc and refuses to be removed by any means. I managed to get it to stay out of the way but behibnd the scenes it has dramaticaly slowed down my computer and caused great emtional pain to say the least. in over 10 years of experience with anti virus software i have never had the adverse experience that i have with this program. somebody at cnet better contact me and let me know how to remove this beast from my pc quick!!!!!!
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2 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: ThreatFire AntiVirus Free Edition 4.7.0.17
"used to be great"
Pros: before the day of pc the company that bought this little software it used to be great and worked wonderful now not so much look at the cons
Cons: I have a hp pavilion with a Tera byte of hard drive and 650 GB of ram basically it can handle a lot more then most plus some with a quad core processor and this thing slowed it down, plus made it so it took longer to even render webpages
Summary: it is a computer killer dont try it I removed it after a days worth of use it isnt worth any money at all and even for free it isnt worth it a good firewall and AV now days will do just fine for most all situations
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5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: ThreatFire AntiVirus Free Edition 4.7.0.17
"Works great"
Pros: Automatically quarantines trojans and viruses and letting you know about it immediately.
Cons: I love this product.
Summary: I absolutely love this product.
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2 stars
3 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Version: ThreatFire AntiVirus Free Edition 4.7.0.17
"needs patches"
Pros: Yes, it was easy to install.
Cons: but after 1 day of use i must say it was confused on some the programs that I was installng,and I myself was confused that there was any actual threats.
Summary: This might be a problem and users might have to reinstall software with this product being suspended while doing so.
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4 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: ThreatFire AntiVirus Free Edition 4.7.0.17
"Nice product."
Pros: Quick updates, good heuristic learning, small footprint.
Cons: Some small false positives, easily dealt with if you know what your computer is about.
Summary: decent program, worth using to replace ad-aware if your system is a little old and having trouble with running the bloated ad-aware
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5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: ThreatFire AntiVirus Free Edition 4.7.0.17
"Works as advertiswd"
Pros: No system slowdown
Cons: Have not found any bugs yet.
Summary: Works great with Vista and McAfee
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2 stars
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: ThreatFire AntiVirus Free Edition 4.7.0.17
"slows you down"
Pros: different type of protection to the norm
Cons: slow my pc down, kept interupting cd rom games they would'nt load correctly,kept flagging up normal ops as malicous
Summary: see above
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