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Best Free Antivirus Software
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In a Hurry?
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 Go straight to the Quick Selection Guide |
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Introduction
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Antivirus software provides an essential layer of protection from a multitude of virus, trojan, worm, spyware, adware, dialer, keylogger and rootkit infections. Traditionally antivirus programs just detected viruses and spyware removers just detected spyware but nowadays the boundary between antivirus and spyware removers is unclear. Most current antiviruses have at least reasonably good detection rates of all forms of malware. Malware includes viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, adware, dialers, keyloggers and rootkit threats that perform malicious activities on a computer. With the huge increase in malware, antivirus software cannot keep up with detecting all of it. But using more than one real-time antivirus uses much more system resources, can cause conflicts and even reduce protection. So I recommend you only choose one antivirus for real-time protection. Instead, you can increase your protection using other security software. I looked at several free antivirus programs which are vital in protecting your computer from virus threats and other types of malware. |
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Discussion
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Avast! Free Antivirus is my new top pick for the best free antivirus software in light of recent developments. Avast has steadily been improving its detection rates over the past few years and now ranks with the some of the best. Avast has the most features of all the free antivirus with full real-time capabilities including web, e-mail, IM, P2P and network shields, boot-time scanning, and a behavioural blocker. The new version 6 brings even more features including an internet site ratings plugin, script malware protection and a limited (non-configurable) sandboxing feature. Although the sandbox is a very useful semi-automated security feature, the default settings involves a pop up to ask whether a software should be sandboxed for not - for the typical average user this can be slightly confusing though it can set to sandbox the software automatically. Lastly Avast is relatively light on resources.
Microsoft Security Essentials is a favorite of mine with great detection rates, particularly for rootkits. Even more impressive is the fact that Microsoft Security Essentials has very few false positives, is light on resources and is good at removal of existing malware. MSE is a great choice for average users because of the minimal user interaction required. It automatically updates and removes threats. No registration is needed, apart from a quick validating of Windows, and there are no nag screens or advertisements. The main downsides are the slow scan speeds and the lengthy amount of time it takes to quarantine malware, though in my opinion these are rather trivial concerns, as for example a scan just be run overnight. MSE also is not available in certain countries so users there will have to look elsewhere. Note that Microsoft Security Essentials requires a genuine copy of Windows to install.
Panda Cloud Antivirus has a behavioural blocker and web protection, which will certainly increase your security. However as you can simply use one of the other free AV's with a separate behavioural blocker (for further details see our Security Wizard) to achieve possibly even better protection, this is not necessarily an advantage. One minor reservation I have is that PCA seems to erroneously detect certain browser/system-related applications, for example VideoCacheView, and because of the automatic quarantine this made it a fraction bothersome.
Avira AntiVir Personal Edition is another high quality free antivirus, and formerly the Top Pick. The primary reason I removed it from its status involved the recent controversy of AntiVir including a re-branded Ask toolbar in their installer, and a temporary spate of advertisements promoting a possible 'scareware' company. In spite of the negative press though AntiVir is still a top notch antivirus scanner with outstanding detection rates of malware, higher than almost every other antivirus according to tests. AntiVir is still a good choice for a free antivirus scanner, particularly for high risk users. However, there are some minor reservations. First, AntiVir does not include web or e-mail scanning capabilities; this is only available in the paid version. The lack of an e-mail scanner is not a disadvantage, it just means that AntiVir won't warn you of infected emails before you open them. But should you open an infected email, AntiVir will still spring into action, so it doesn't mean that you're not protected from email-based infections. Also, AntiVir contains a rather intrusive advertisement every time it updates. Although AntiVir had signature updating problems in the past, this issue seems to be fixed now.
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is also a decent choice for a free antivirus. Although this venerable antivirus has had some shaky results in detection in the recent past, it now offers a high level of protection. This is probably due to the inclusion of a fully-fledged behavioural blocker that is the "Identity Protection" protection. This provides a very important additional layer of protection, on the other hand though a similar protection level can be achieved by using one of the free antivirus above alongside a separate behavioural blocker. Unfortunately AVG free has grown considerably in size, has very slow scan speeds and also advertisements (but they can be disabled). These free antivirus programs are excellent software that provide a real alternative to the major commercial antivirus products. I'll just give a quick mention of several excellent on-demand antivirus scanners: I'll also mention several popular free antivirus programs which I considered but did not include in the review because of low detection rates.
You can increase your protection if you run on-demand scans with another antivirus. On-demand scans can be run regularly to check for viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, adware, keyloggers, rootkits and other malware that may have been missed by your main antivirus scanner. If you have a good preventive security strategy in place, however the extra protection an on-demand antivirus scanner offers is minimal. Please help us by rating this review |
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Tags
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free antivirus, antivirus software, antivirus download, best antivirus software, anti-virus, anti-virus software, avast antivirus, avira antivirus, microsoft antivirus, free anti virus, anti virus software. |
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Have Your Say
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Please visit our freeware forum to share and discuss your views and get advice on free security software, including antivirus software. To post in the forum you need to register first but that's quick and immediate. |
Quick Start Guide: http://www.avast.com/download-documentation
Forum: http://forum.avast.com/
Installation tips: http://www.drtweak.com/index.php?topic=196.0
Forum: http://forum.avira.com/wbb/index.php?langid=1
Online help: http://www.avira.com/en/support/kbsearch.php
Forum for support
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Editor
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| This category is maintained by volunteer editor JonathanT. |
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Tags
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free antivirus, best free antivirus, free antivirus programs, free antivirus program, antivirus software, free antivirus software, antivirus program free, anti-virus programs, antivirus scanner, best antiviros, best antvirus |
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Comments
In the long list(probably the best...) a few free av are listed such as zillya,nano,digital defender etc. May we get a quick look into them (I am not requesting a full review, just quick glance).
Also I'd like to request a full review of Unthreat (I know Anupam and MC gave their quick look into it.)
Thnx and regards
Have Avast! fixed their program's anomaly of not allowing to disable its permanent background running service EVEN when real-time protection is disabled ?
This annoying behaviour in Avast! is the main reason why I gave up on it in the past, since I only require on-demand protection and thus I don't need or want any processes running in the background.
But if Avast! did or do eventually fix this problem, I might reconsider using their product.
IMO It's a bit illogical to expect developers of a real time security product to also code it as an on demand scanner for which it was never designed to be. The self defense components in Avast! are no doubt responsible for this. If your surfing and general usage habits are so secure as to only need an on demand scanner, there are other more than adequate products available in this category.
I guess that comes with each user's perspective, MidnightCowboy.
From my own perspective, it's more than a bit illogical to propose a product on any market that forcibly imposes a specific way of usage on its users, as opposed to make it versatile enough to allow each user to fit his own needs - something which, in the present case, is not a coding issue but simply one of imposed preference by the developer.
It wouldn't prove of any difficulty for Avast! to provide their product with real-time features and any background processes enabled by default, while giving the user the option to disable them, should he wish to do so. Or of providing their product in real-time and on-demand package variants, for instance.
The fact that there are on-demand scanners from different companies out there doesn't change the fact that products such as Avast! are among the top detection rate performers, which is what makes the latter more desirable, at least in that sense. Some of those on-demand scanners are also too simplified in terms of features.
There was a time when the real-time portion of antivirus products in general, and in fact also of Avast!, was offered as an OPTION which could be turned on or off, which I believe is more in tune with satisfying the different needs of different customers and hence of maximizing their target audience - as well as the relationship of trust between the software developer and the user.
See the comments just below my own: people are complaining about performance and compatibility issues on their systems caused by the background processes which products such as Avast! force on them. Some of us have additional reservations: how do I know WHAT ELSE are any unwanted background services doing in *MY* personal computer, which I might not desire them to do ? I really have no way of knowing, unfortunately, when companies such as Avast! force them on me without allowing me to choose.
This is a simple matter of companies saying "it's OUR way or the highway" and "WE control YOUR computer, not YOU, its owner", neglecting the individual needs, preferences and basic rights of we, their customers.
For the time being, it seems I won't be using Avast! on any of my systems, which is a pity because it's otherwise an interesting product.
I installed Avast on my computer and I noticed a very distinct drop in performance on the computer. It was very irritating; programs slowed down or wouldn't start at all, the computer would freeze at random - often during start up, and I would need to reboot at least once just after initial boot before my computer worked properly. I took Avast off and all the problems went away. I don't know if it was the programs fault or not but I doubt I'll be using it again anytime soon.
I don't know what you are running for a firewall but both Comodo and Online armor gave me the issues you mention, Online Armor being the worst and Norton is also a very heavy firewall. I put private firewall on with avast on a WIN7 computer not to long ago and it's working great. And PV is a free wall but its light weight and Ive had no security issues. Try a lighter firewall and I think you might find those issues go away while running Avast. Honestly I ran shields up on PrivateFiwal and unlike previous walls I used it passed every test on XP where the others failed including ping. So give that a shot you might like it allot better over all.
I find Avast! to be a bit like Norton. While it does to a good job of detection, it is a resource pig. The loss of performance is particularly noticeable on older PCS.
For myself, the lackluster performance of my PC caused by the Avast! background processes, and slow response - reboot issues, makes Avast! a clear choice for an "uninstall" and delete. I also don't like a virus program that speaks to me, - I know this can be turned off.. but how much resources go into useless talking.
If you have an older PC or bargain variety netbook, with limited resources or processsing power than I would recommend AnVir or AVG, even Microsoft Security over Avast! any day. If you like resource hogs, and have all the processor power to spare, load up Avast!
Most security software will have an effect on performance to varying degrees but the issues you describe are not experienced by the majority of users. It's possible you have a system conflict with another security product or something that was installed previously has left parts behind which are now interfering with the correct functioning of Avast!
I think I have to agree with what you said. I used Avast several times depending on my Firewall I'd run at the time and it always seemed If I had these problems it was because of a sluggish firewall. OnlineArmor being the worst. However because of the issue he raises I think he might be right over all about it being a bit bulky but at the same time running a lighter firewall with avast might be in better interests. Had to use it on a WIN7 laptop here because SpywareDoctor wouldn't allow it to shut fully down and the firewalls on all the computers here are private firewall and Avast works great in combo with Avast. But in the past I tried it with Comodo on XP and wasnt to bad but not great but Online Armor it was horrible. Either way I quit using both of those firewalls because of constant update issues and I think it may be the heaviness of the firewall.
I used to use AVG Free which had two good features: it scanned my email and it posted an icon on Google results pages informing me of the security level of each website listed.
About a year ago, on a system crash, the computer guy installed Microsoft Essentials as my antivirus program. MSE does not scan my emails and it does not inform me of website security levels. As I just had a Blue Screen of Death and a few other strange incidents, I am concerned that my machine is vulnerable and I want to increase my protection.
I see that AVG Free no longer provides email scanning.
I checked Mozilla's WOT and it seems you have to go to a website in order to discover if it is safe or not. That does not make much sense. Is there a free program that provides the info on the Google results page ?
Secondly, is there a way that I can have a second antivirus program on my machine and only run it on demand or on schedule, while my primary antivirus program is running in the background all the time ?
Your summary of Avast states that Avast provides the email scanning and internet site ratings. I just went to the Avast site - no list of features is available at the site.
WOT does show the ratings in Google results too.
For on-demand antivirus, you can use BitDefender free, which does not provide real time scanning. You can use ClamAV too, but its detection rate is not good. Or, you can also use Emsisoft Antimalware free, which has quite a good detection rate, but there may be false positives because of that.
Dont know if scheduling will be there in them or not. On-demand ones generally don't have scheduling feature.
Avast does have a mail shield. And yes, seems like Avast have made it very difficult to find out the features it has. I found it here, after some searching on their site.
http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download#tab3
The link you give takes you to a page that permits downloading of a 21 page pdf Quick Start Manual. Very good and very clear. I appreciate programs that provide good documentation. I hate Help that gives you a window of info at a time.
As Avast! does check emails and does rate web sites, I think I will install it and run it with real time protection.
I will keep the MS Essentials but turn off the real time protection
while scheduling it to scan my C: partition once a week.
That way I don't get the two AV programs interfering with each other but I do get double sifting.
Thanks for your web site. Thanks for your response.
Both Avast and MSE are fine, you should really choose one and stick with it. Having another AV running in the background may seem beneficial but the risk of the conflicting outweighs any increase of detection of malware. Using common sense and safe practices is far, far more beneficial than doing so. Checkout these links for some more info:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/how-to-secure-your-pc.php
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/safe-computing-under-hour.htm
But of course you can have an on-demand antimalware such as Malwarebytes Antimalware without any problems.
Don't think turning off MSE will prevent issues, but it will reduce interference slightly. There may still be driver level conflicts, which provide little warning at all and you will not notice until after your system has already crashed or a BSOD occurs. Novices think its a bright idea but it isn't and should be avoided. Unless you run a companion AV alongside your primary AV.
For a companion, I recommend Webroot or Kingsoft PC Doctor.
AVG Free still provides email scanning btw. Here is a good setup you can try:
Realtime: Avast or AVG
On-Demand: Malwarebytes
If you feel a second opinion on-demand scanner is needed, you can run a free scan with Hitman Pro once every couple months. Then activate the 30-day trial if it finds malware (watch for false positives). As long you keep Windows, Java, and Adobe up-to-date, and don't fall for those crazy scams, you should be A-okay.
So which software should I get on this page? I am so confused...
The Top Pick would be a good option, in this case it's Avast.
Hi, I live in Long Island and have cable vision as my ISP, we get [edited out] Internet Security Suite for free. How does this stack up against the ones mentioned above.
[edit] This is a freeware site. We do not reference or compare commercial software. Check out the independent review sites such as AV Comparatives, Virus Bulletin, AVTest etc. If the program you've been provided with is not there or doesn't figure in the top five results, I'd choose one of those recommended here instead. :)
Are there any tests in addition to EICAR than can be used for a very quick AV test?
Unfortunately, speed has very little to do with security. Please post what you are trying to accomplish together with your system and software details in our forum and someone will be able to help you. We do not providing individual support here in the comments. Please also read the section entitled Intended Use for ELICAR.
http://www.eicar.org/86-0-Intended-use.html
I have a concern with these antivirus programs being described as "Runs as a stand-alone program." To me, that implies portability, which these programs are not. Why not leave out that description altogether?
Here runs as a stand-alone programs means a program which runs on the user's PC. This is to differentiate from the online web-apps. If a program is portable, its duly indicated in Quick Selection Guide.
I think this section needs to be updated in terms of which AV must be the Gizmo Pick. Avast has been going down on recent tests from av-test and av-comparatives. The results are pretty obvious. Panda is even better than avast in terms of detection rate. Personally, Avira has been steadily live up to their reputation of having top detection rate, and the results speak for it. I think Avira should be again, the Gizmo pick. Just my Opinion.
From my point of view, such a requests to name the best and the only AV is based on common miss concept on how to judge which AV is the best. Sometime, from the spot it looks like detection rate is the only parameter that should be taken into consideration, but in real life it is not a case. Take a look at MidnightCowboy’s comment below – it is very thoughtful from the different aspect of such a judgment taking into account that any AV does not give 100% virus protection. Besides detection rate many other factors state behind any AV behavior, like performance impacting, system usability impacting, etc. We also should remember that different tests have different methodic and the same AV could and usually does have different positions in the different review ratings. If we’re going to stick with idea to follow each test result rating we’ll need to change AV every several days which again not a good idea at all, not saying about the time spending on those changes. So that when you’re saying “The results are pretty obvious.” Then this conclusion is not obvious to me at all.
In other words even having highest detection rate we still need to be able to use the system in the way we need it having good balance between all those factors. As the usage type is very individual, there could be no a kind of universal balance for everyone between all those factors – that is something that everyone should estimate and decide based on own experience and expectations. That’s said, for me it is a good idea to have review like this – pickup the top products based on different factors, reviews, test, personal experience and represent them all trying to highlighting top advantages and disadvantages of each product, warn readers about such disadvantages and make them judge for themselves which set is most suitable for them from the top list.
The list provided in the review already has a kid of rating based on “best balanced product” point but as I said this criteria is the best but at the same time is individual. Using this comments users are trying to share their own experience with each product and by this way influence on the product position in the list using much more parameters then just a detection rate. But even this rating is a kind of artificial as well. The bottom line is – I’d prefer stay away from the reviews that are saying: “This is the best AV, take it and that’s it”.
As I've said before in the comments, and hopefully it is obvious from the article, you can use any of the AV's listed and be safe. Whether you get infected with malware or not isn't dependent on the 2% difference or whatever from the latest test, but on common sense and safe computing practices. So IMHO, all the AV's provide a similar level of protection and the differences basically comes down to subjective factors such as user friendliness, etc. I belief Avast is currently still the best choice for the average user (which IMHO is the most important target audience), though obviously you can use Panda/AntiVir, which I have given the same rating as Avast anyway.
The product overall should be good & effective. Panda Cloud cannot neutralize many threats & recommends online help which is quite uncomfortable for average/novice users.
I have mentioned this prob to panda staff & they replied they are aware of the prob & have fixed some in 1.5.1 & some in 1.9.1 beta & if not all most will be fixed with 2.0 release.
I guess Avira is down in the order here coz of the ongoing things with Avira. But the reviewer has mentioned that its the top detection AV.
Avast overall is quite good & effective especially for average & novices.
I would like & request the reviewer to test & review UnThreat Free here as its a good & effective product overall. New Free AV's should be tested & given a chance here. Similarly a request to test Comodo AV as it has improved a lot.
With regards to Comodo AV, I tried it a few days ago and I personally did not find it intuitive or user friendly for the average user, at least with default settings with the Defence+. Anyway, I would be much more comfortable with recommending AV's that have been tested consistently and scored well in tests such as AV-Comparatives.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. The editor has expressed his :)
So your saying that most review articles here are just based on a writer's opinion? His own testings and review? arent they suppose to base their reviews from reliable sources (EXPERT TESTING COMPANIES) and not just user experience?
So what are you saying? The words of companies that could be paid under the table to say one product is better then the other are the only ones worth listening to?? I got 2 firewalls based on JD power reviews and based on their own so called "user reviews" and both of them turned out to be a total headache and FAILED the most essential shields up tests after several runs and trying several different settings on each, Even when one said that a certain setting was supposed to suppress XP ping and it FAILED with flying collars. I now use what was said to be less protective and have sense had absolutely NO problems and it's passed every test I threw at it, even tried a couple more online testers just to make sure. Those so called pro testers are all on the take. I'll trust other users anyday that actually go out and TRY these products over the "pro's" anyday of the week. I've used allot of different products as well and honestly a few here I have used and I gotta agree with this guy on a few. Though there are also a few I won't use or never tried he seems pretty legit.
Depends on what you term as reliable resources. Some folks commenting here believe we should include cnet comments and YouTube :D
All of our editors take a variety of factors into consideration when compiling their reviews. This includes data researched from external sources in addition to their own experiences with the software concerned. Ultimately though, this being their review, they will express a personal opinion which not everyone will agree with.
It always amazes me regarding antivirus programs that folks are continually searching for something that will protect them from everything (including themselves) or swapping to another product on the basis of a different set of test results or because "a" scores 2% more than what they're using at the moment. In the real world, even if you exclude chance, mis-configuration and user error, very little of anyone's test content will match your own usage environment. Despite suites supposedly trying to plug some of the gaps with multiple components, true PC security begins with the users own habits and their willingness to apply a range of measures to stay safe, particularly online.
The amount of infected machines I used to see with top line paid products installed tends to suggest that nothing is infallible. On this basis, many of our editors choose to rate programs that are easy to configure and manage more highly than those that may have a supposedly higher performance. Working with a security program that you can understand is more likely to keep you clean than relying on something else to do this for you just because their marketing guys have chosen to include "360" somewhere in its title.
We value everyone's opinion here, editors and visitors alike, but at the end of the day this is just what they are, mine included.
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