Introduction
To begin with let me say this: there is no best antivirus out there. Why do I say this? Any product that you take will behave differently against various virus samples since the AV engines and other components incorporated in them are of different technologies.
While one product might have higher detection ratio, another might have better malicious URL blocking or virtualization techniques, yet another might have lesser impact on system performance and so on.
Read more about Antivirus Engine and other related details at the end of this article.
Rated Products

Kaspersky Free Antivirus/ Kaspersky Security Cloud
The paid security giant forays into free category and outsmarts its rivals

Platforms/Download: [field_blackberry_download] | Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: 2019
George.J
Our Rating: 5/5 |
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- Similar signatures & cloud features as its paid counterparts
- Performance impact is decent on higher end systems
- Strong behavioral blocker
- Attractive GUI with no ads
- Top-notch detection and always up-to-date
- Thorough malware removal and disinfection process
- Privacy policy (complies with GDPR)
- Default settings cover most users
- Bundles with Kaspersky VPN (can be uninstalled)
- Fairly good web protection
- Powerful exclusion settings (even for specific modules)
- Extensive scan logs
- Protection settings are locked with presets in Kaspersky Free Antivirus (KFA) [is available in Kaspersky Security Cloud]
- Long but thorough system scans
- Performance hit becomes worse on lower end systems
- Slow update installation
Read more...
- Similar signatures & cloud features as its paid counterparts
- Performance impact is decent on higher end systems
- Strong behavioral blocker
- Attractive GUI with no ads
- Top-notch detection and always up-to-date
- Thorough malware removal and disinfection process
- Privacy policy (complies with GDPR)
- Default settings cover most users
- Bundles with Kaspersky VPN (can be uninstalled)
- Fairly good web protection
- Powerful exclusion settings (even for specific modules)
- Extensive scan logs
- Protection settings are locked with presets in Kaspersky Free Antivirus (KFA) [is available in Kaspersky Security Cloud]
- Long but thorough system scans
- Performance hit becomes worse on lower end systems
- Slow update installation

Avast Free Antivirus
The only antivirus with a fully customizable installer and selection of user preference components.
Platforms/Download: Mac OS | Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: 11.1
Gizmos Freeware
Our Rating: 4.5/5 |
- Extremely light on the system with a modern and clean UI
- The only antivirus with a fully customizable installer, selection of user preference components
- Works best in hardened or lock-down mode, which blocks all unknown programs (medium-expert users only)
- Top notch detection capability, many secondary components to offer variety to a wholesome software
- Excellent malicious URL blocking, network protection, outdated software checking, integrated password manager, and comes with a rescue disk.
- Deep screen technology that includes Sandbox and Safe machine components for protection
- Bloated default setup, some ads and pop'ups
- Account creation for further protection after a month
- Lack of an anti-ransomware module, and Deepscreen disabled by default
- Cloud reputation, Malware signatures and HIPS module needs improvement
- Offers Google Chrome and various bloated secondary components during install [Choose custom install]
Read more...
- Extremely light on the system with a modern and clean UI
- The only antivirus with a fully customizable installer, selection of user preference components
- Works best in hardened or lock-down mode, which blocks all unknown programs (medium-expert users only)
- Top notch detection capability, many secondary components to offer variety to a wholesome software
- Excellent malicious URL blocking, network protection, outdated software checking, integrated password manager, and comes with a rescue disk.
- Deep screen technology that includes Sandbox and Safe machine components for protection
- Bloated default setup, some ads and pop'ups
- Account creation for further protection after a month
- Lack of an anti-ransomware module, and Deepscreen disabled by default
- Cloud reputation, Malware signatures and HIPS module needs improvement
- Offers Google Chrome and various bloated secondary components during install [Choose custom install]

Comodo Internet Security Premium
Provides a multi-layered protection scheme with HIPS, sandbox, antivirus and firewall.
Platforms/Download: [field_blackberry_download] | Linux | Mac OS | Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: 8.2
Gizmos Freeware
Our Rating: 4.5/5 |
- Feature-rich with lots of options for customization along with setting tolerance against prompts
- Tweaked settings gives the best 0-day protection among the pack
- Multi-layered protection scheme with HIPS, Sandbox, Antivirus and Firewall
- Industry grade firewall with options for learning and behavioural blocker
- Low on resources with various graphical skins available and a clean user interface
- Painful for beginners to use it, not very newbie friendly
- Av-module is a bit weak especially the signature based detection
- Auto-sandboxing happens for various legitimate files, troubles with FPS games
- Too many tweaks needed for better protection
- Buggy software and updates are released slow.
- Chromodo browser, Yahoo search engine, custom DNS and Geek Buddy offered during default install. [Click customize installation during install]
Read more...
- Feature-rich with lots of options for customization along with setting tolerance against prompts
- Tweaked settings gives the best 0-day protection among the pack
- Multi-layered protection scheme with HIPS, Sandbox, Antivirus and Firewall
- Industry grade firewall with options for learning and behavioural blocker
- Low on resources with various graphical skins available and a clean user interface
- Painful for beginners to use it, not very newbie friendly
- Av-module is a bit weak especially the signature based detection
- Auto-sandboxing happens for various legitimate files, troubles with FPS games
- Too many tweaks needed for better protection
- Buggy software and updates are released slow.
- Chromodo browser, Yahoo search engine, custom DNS and Geek Buddy offered during default install. [Click customize installation during install]
Platforms/Download: [field_blackberry_download] | Mac OS | Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: 8.2
George.J
Our Rating: 4/5 |
- Totally free, light on resources, extremely fast scan times and pre-configuration protection modes
- Smooth running installer with no adware, pleasing UI and comes with many themes
- Fast updates/fixes and excellent customer service with immediate replies
- Great signatures with multiple engines and in-house cloud protection
- Web protection addon, browsing locking, webcam, sandbox and usb protection modules
- Online shopping protection, malicious URL protection and network threat blocking
- Includes Glasswire Firewall and Windows patch-up components
- Great detection rates, with very high zero day protection
- Speedup and clean-up tools might not be for everyone (not present in Essentials version)
- Bitdefender or Avira engines not enabled by default
- Might encounter few false positives
- PUP [Potentially Unwanted Programs] detection needs to improve
Read more...
- Totally free, light on resources, extremely fast scan times and pre-configuration protection modes
- Smooth running installer with no adware, pleasing UI and comes with many themes
- Fast updates/fixes and excellent customer service with immediate replies
- Great signatures with multiple engines and in-house cloud protection
- Web protection addon, browsing locking, webcam, sandbox and usb protection modules
- Online shopping protection, malicious URL protection and network threat blocking
- Includes Glasswire Firewall and Windows patch-up components
- Great detection rates, with very high zero day protection
- Speedup and clean-up tools might not be for everyone (not present in Essentials version)
- Bitdefender or Avira engines not enabled by default
- Might encounter few false positives
- PUP [Potentially Unwanted Programs] detection needs to improve

Avira Free Antivirus
A free antivirus with high quality signatures, very fast updates and less false positives.
Platforms/Download: [field_blackberry_download] | iOS | Mac OS | Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: 15.0
Gizmos Freeware
Our Rating: 4/5 |
- Pretty light on the system and runs smooth without system slow-downs
- Clean ad-free GUI, Ad-free installer, No pop-ups or ads
- High quality signatures, very fast updates, excellent detection on non-zero day threats
- Deep file scans with very less false positives
- Avira Protection Cloud makes for an excellent cloud engine
- Browser safety Add-ons available for major browsers
- Zero day protection (heuristic & behavioural shield) is very weak.
- Ineffective Browser launcher which is a memory hog (can be uninstalled)
- Painful removal for detected files. Repeated scans from Luke Filewalker increases CPU & RAM usage.
- Multiple file exceptions needs to be added (real-time and on-demand)
- No firewall/sandboxing/web shield technologies
Read more...
- Pretty light on the system and runs smooth without system slow-downs
- Clean ad-free GUI, Ad-free installer, No pop-ups or ads
- High quality signatures, very fast updates, excellent detection on non-zero day threats
- Deep file scans with very less false positives
- Avira Protection Cloud makes for an excellent cloud engine
- Browser safety Add-ons available for major browsers
- Zero day protection (heuristic & behavioural shield) is very weak.
- Ineffective Browser launcher which is a memory hog (can be uninstalled)
- Painful removal for detected files. Repeated scans from Luke Filewalker increases CPU & RAM usage.
- Multiple file exceptions needs to be added (real-time and on-demand)
- No firewall/sandboxing/web shield technologies

Panda Free Antivirus
Gives you antivirus protection with low memory and CPU usage, and collective intelligence cloud security.
Platforms/Download: Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: 16.1.1
Gizmos Freeware
Our Rating: 4/5 |
- Low memory & CPU usage thanks to cloud protection
- Tiled UI with customizable interface and nicely rendered Settings interface
- Collective intelligence cloud security - Downloading virus definitions is history
- Good detection rates and behavioural analysis program
- Fairly good web protection and hardware resource handling
- Dependant on internet connection leading to weaker offline protection
- Slow scanning speed, no fingerprinting (successive re-testing same files) and at times issues with virus removal
- Not really light, performance impact in web browsing, installation and copying
- Certain false positives despite the information available at cloud
- Watch out for Panda security toolbar during install
Read more...
- Low memory & CPU usage thanks to cloud protection
- Tiled UI with customizable interface and nicely rendered Settings interface
- Collective intelligence cloud security - Downloading virus definitions is history
- Good detection rates and behavioural analysis program
- Fairly good web protection and hardware resource handling
- Dependant on internet connection leading to weaker offline protection
- Slow scanning speed, no fingerprinting (successive re-testing same files) and at times issues with virus removal
- Not really light, performance impact in web browsing, installation and copying
- Certain false positives despite the information available at cloud
- Watch out for Panda security toolbar during install
Honorable Mention
- AVG Free Antivirus
- Baidu Antivirus
- Bitdefender Antivirus Free
- Clearsight Antivirus
- Fortinet FortiClient (Most Improved products of 2018)
- Nano Antivirus
- Roboscan Internet Security Free
- Sophos Home Antivirus
- Tencent PC Manager (Most Improved products of 2018)
- Windows Defender on Windows 10 (Most Improved products of 2018)
- ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall
Related Products and Links
How to make an antivirus engine
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- How to Protect Your Online Privacy
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- How to Report Malware or False Positives to Multiple Antivirus Vendors
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Antivirus Engine
It is used for Real Time malware protection of files and is the core component to scan data on your PC for detecting and removing malware from hard disk, memory, boot sectors, network drives, removable disks, or from external network traffic (internet).
- How does an antivirus detect malware:
Firstly you got the signature-based detection which contains an offline database of known patterns of malware downloaded from the internet which can identify specific malware codes or family of malware. Then you have heuristic based detection that identifies pieces of code that are unlikely to be found in legitimate programs and hence is prone to false positives depending on the sensitivity of heuristics. Virtualization and sandboxing unpacks or executes unknown programs in an isolated secure environment so that their behaviour can be analysed and scanned using the antivirus engine. The latest one is cloud based detection that requires a reliable internet connection and sends the suspicious scanned file over the internet and the analysis is done by the vendors' machine running the cloud engine.
- Scanning for viruses:
Most antiviruses include these basic scan types: On-demand scan/manual scan is initiated by the user from right click context menu or from within the software. On-access scan is initiated when the resource is being accessed like running an executable, copying files from external drives etc. Scheduled scan periodically ensures that the system is free from malware by setting the time and frequency for scanning. Startup scan/quick scan checks most important locations like running processes, startup items, system memory and services, boot sectors and so on.
To be Continued in the next update....... Firewall, Proactive protection, Web protection components and more.
Editor
This software category is maintained by volunteer editor George.J. Registered members can contact the editor with any comments or questions they might have by clicking here.
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Comments
Okay, after 2 1/2 hours of struggling with Avira I never could get web protection to work. So I went back to Avast. But now they charge for features I used to get for free... I mean I got those features 3 hours ago and now they want to charge.
Oh yeah, and they installed Google Chrome again without even telling me they would much less giving me a choice!
So maybe I'll just have to pay for protection (though until a few hours ago I got the best I ever had for free . . except for the Chrome thing). But you can bet I will NOT get Avast. [Commercial reference removed]
But it really stinks that the guys I used to trust are trying to stick it to me now. I guess Google bought them so the good times are gone.
Might Lavasoft's Ad-Aware Free Antivirus + 11 be placed in the queue for future consideration?
They have replaced their Viper-based scanning engine with one from Bitdefender, and v.11 has garnered a positive review from CNET's Editor (and several users) -- http://download.cnet.com/Ad-Aware-Free-Antivirus/3000-8022_4-10045910.ht... .
Thanks.
AJN
AJ,
I just went through a miserable week with Ad-Aware...
I downloaded V10.5 a week ago Friday, installation went well, light on resources, didn't seem to slow down any application.
On Monday, V11 was released and things went down hill from there.
It was a mess.
On Wednesday they released another version, not an update, but another version.
I had all kinds of issues, I had to start monitoring manually, the tray, a separate .exe file, would never initialize, nothing would work.
I went to the forum, they had me delete services and other components they said were from Version 9 (how could this be, because I never installed anything from Lavasoft before V10.5).
This was supposed to be the root cause of the problems.
After I deleted what they said was a "service" from V9, nothing ever worked again - I couldn't get it to even manually start.
I also don't like the idea of having their browser protection software included, frankly I never understood if it was initialized or not. I know the toolbar was not installed, but as for the software running, I don't know.
It was listed as a separately installed program in both Windows Ad/Remove and in Geek's removal program, and even after I uninstalled Ad-Aware, I had to remove the Browser Protection separately.
I am not going to reinstall it.
Windy,
Thanks for taking the time to detail your experience with Ad-Aware Free A/V+ 11; I'm sorry to hear that it was so miserable (it appears that Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ 11.0.4516.0 is the current version, released on 2013.10.09).
That version 11 currently garners an overall user rating of 4/5 stars (from 29 reviews) at CNET, perhaps your difficulties were in some way related to your particular system and configuration (another positive review was posted by Thetechhacker -- http://thetechhacker.com/2013/10/10/lavasoft-ad-aware-11-editions-review/).
In any case, it will be interesting to see both what additional formal tests reveal and other users' experiences over time are (to be fair, I have not experimented with it yet).
Take care.
Regards,
AJ
Hello JT,
There's one other free application I've recently read about that may be worth a look when you've the time, CYSEC Free Anti-Virus, which garnered a very positive review from the UK publication Security Magazine -- http://www.seczine.com/article/information-security-news/180813/CYSEC-Fr... .
Cheers,
AJ
Thanks, MC.
Thanks for an excellent site,am currently testing 360 internet security,seems very good and light on the system,run this with malwarebytes free and windows firewall,comodo dns server,privdog and wot,Firefox.
too many false positives will,go back to Panda cloud av
After reading several positive reviews of Microsoft Security Essentials, I decided to give it a shot thinking that my PC would be well protected.
I then came across this article today which I think should be shared will the readers of this forum who believed in MSE. After reading it, I quickly removed the product and switched to Avira Free for now which no longer has the nag screen.
http://dottech.org/130828/microsoft-admits-microsoft-security-essentials...
Since there is now so much controversy, imagined or real concerning MSE and its effectiveness, I think Gizmo should remove MSE as a recommended product until we learn more.
If you like MSE, then stick with it. It is just a matter of opinion.
I did read the comments, and the person to who you refer in your quote is different than the one in the quote I mentioned.
Regardless, if Microsoft Programming or Software Managers cannot get their stories straight, they both seem contradictory to me, I would rather deal with a product that is more proven and established as effective.
"The fact remains that no one security product will protect users from everything no matter if the vendor calls it "360", "Total" or anything else that sounds like it will."
I'm a little confused now. I was wondering which one would be better, Bitdefender or Avast 2014. Do you think both are so good as each other?
Thanks, MC. I checked that page. Very informative! It helps me a lot.
If you look closely at the articles, these are not examples of media manipulating readers but contradictory quotes by Microsoft's own people. That being said, Microsoft should be making one consistant statement across the board regardless of test results or efficacy debates.
If a company cannot, will, or appears not, to stand behind their security product, then I personally am not comfortable using it.
Like I intimated earlier, useage boils down to personal preference.
Listen, I am a bit surprised to read your review. I just ended up reading an article in HOW TO GEEK where they specifically say that even MS recommends now to use 3rd party AV, as their MSE now ranks last in the list of FREE AV Software. Isn't that info available to you also? In fact all agree in saying that AVAST is the best Free AV but has a loaded interface... I would be thankful to read any comments by knowledgeable individuals on this topic. I have trusted MSE for over 3 years now, I haven't had any issues, but reports such as the one in HOW TO GEEKS (yesterday newsletter) worries me. Of course MS reputation for their blunders help in not feeling to safe about MSE or its future in fact.
Windows Security Essentials does not run on Win8. Windows Defender runs by default and now includes virus detection. http://tinyurl.com/o997cha
A good review of Defender and other Win8 protections can be found here:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=6624
However, they too state that "Microsoft has said that Defender on Windows 8 provides an 'acceptable minimum level of protection', and that it will disable itself automatically if another antivirus suite is installed"
Maybe MS is just being honest. :)
You should be careful not to confuse MICROSOFT Security Essentials with WINDOWS Security Essentials. Believe it or not, there are some questionable sites offering the latter, e.g. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Windows+Security+Essentials
Rogue antivirus programs have been known to take advantage of people who are careless about the exact name of a program.
My Bad, Joe. Seems I can't edit that anymore to change to MS.
"Microsoft has admitted Windows users should install antivirus above and beyond its own Security Essentials, describing its protection as merely a "baseline" that will "always be on the bottom" of antivirus software rankings."
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/384394/microsoft-security-essential...
So, how about replacing MSE with Qihoo or Comodo antivirus?
I just quoted what the website said. I have no problem if Gizmo's freeware review MSE. I too have good experience with it regarding protection. Specially zero false positive. But I had some performance issues on two different computers while using it though.
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