Is there one? Or maybe one that's close to it? Free, obviously . . .

take the worst distortion vst you can find,
but it will be better than Big Muff...

There's one in Line 6's GearBox pack but no free ones. In general, digital distortions are too raspy to pull off the smooth fuzz of a Big Muff but you'll get close enough to fool the average KVRer by running the JCM900 plug-in, gain all the way up, with all the mids and much of the highs filtered out.

I can't even begin to tell you how much I agree with that...much of my "guitar thinking" goes against today's conventional wisdom so it is no surprise that this one does too. Honestly in the 70s and 80s around here no guitar player over the age of 15 that I knew would admit to using one. In fact EH itself was considered by many to be toy makers. I often compare it to Hondo guitars of that era, but bear in mind that when I thought like that I was in my late teens and early 20s. I threw my Big Muff out a window with great glee, these days nostalgia has made EH more than it ever was.

Keep in mind that at one point there fuzz was a new concept and there was not the vast choices we have today for pedals. Quickly though Dunlop, Maestro, Morley and MXR made their mark and EH was the "el cheapo" models.

On top of that you had to like fuzz to begin with, as a kid I was of the thought it was the only kind of distortion available for guitar. When I got my first tube amp I finally learned that overdrive was much better for my needs than fuzz.

A lot of people do not know that there was two other versions in the Muff series, the little big muff and I think the other was baby muff or mini muff...I really can't remember but a little googling will find it. It actually had a 1/4" plug coming out of it and you plugged the whole box into your amp jack. I put the guts from one of those in my guitar and it was my first (and worst) pre-amp. The best of the muff series was the little big muff.

I imagine Rene that you could make a fuzz vst better than the any EH in your sleep, unfortunately a lot of people like to romanticise that crap and do not understand that technology has improved distortion for guitars by leaps and bounds since the original Big Muff.

Okay KvR shoot me down now, it always happens when I say this about EH...but back in the day it really wasn't all that

No, I would guess not. But since we're not back there, I'm looking for one that's close.

I love fuzz and I loved my hardware Big Muff

I think they sound great (possibly my fav.), especially the triangle knob ones with the volume on the guitar turned down.

David Gilmour and many others would also disagree!

for the uk, it was the emergence of bands such as nirvana and mudhoney that brought the attention of the eh stuff(at least as far as my generation is concerned) and while they may not be the same as other distortions or fuzzboxes for me that was and is part of their charm, theres something about the eh sound that is unheard anywhere else.
whether thats a bad or good thing surely depends on taste?

Give over daft lad.

asolutely spot on vurt, I wasn't a Nirvana fan then (Denise has changed that some since) but when EH started coming back around I was somewhat surprised. The best thing I ever used for fuzz though was either the fuzz on my old Polytone amp or probably even better was when I was 13 or 14 I discovered that my radio shack 8-track recorder with the needles pegged gave me "the Hendrix sound".

And the commercial version of your amp sim is where?

How am I supposed to even trust your taste in tones if that's your response to this question? The Big Muff does one thing, and one thing only, but damn does it do it well.

Anyway, Gearbox has a Big Muff, and Amplitube Metal may also feature one as well. The Gearbox one actually sounds pretty solid and close to the real deal IMO, and if you find a cheap Line 6 interface on sale, you'll get Gearbox silver for free.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any freeware versions.

Free VST fuzz, not a Big Muff emu though...

http://www.audiodamage.com/downloads/product.php?pid=ADF001

It will be better distortion but you do realize the Big Muff is a fuzz pedal and surely the maker of an amp sim knows there is a difference between distortion and fuzz, no?

Already mentioned, now seconded - the Audio Damage free fuzz is pretty good.

Could you explain the differences?

Oh man, just f**k off, seriously, you stupid f**king dumb person. How can you POSSIBLY have any backside left to f**king talk out of?

Is this board absolutely fed up with this Village Idiot or what?

Though this classifies fuzz as a type of distortion but in definition seems distinctive enough (as well as overdrive, which I'm not so sure shouldn't also be classified on its own):

http://www.kvraudio.com/wiki/?id=Distortion

That'll give the differences in easily-digestible form.

Edit - and yes to Sickle's question. Oops now I'll probably be taken off the "beta" list for that most recent vaporware of his. Oh noes!