Best Free Antivirus For Windows -2017 Edition
Best Free Antivirus Software for Windows PCs
An anti-virus software is more often than not the first thing users install on their brand new machines. While there are plenty of software available, some users don’t want to or simply cannot afford a premium anti-virus software while some might want to test out the effectiveness of one before purchasing one. That is where we enter with a list of the best free anti-virus software available for you to make your pick. The products in this list have been tested on their detection abilities, the performance hit that they bring to the table as well as ease of use.
Top 5 Best Free Antivirus For Windows
This product being the first one on this list will not come as a surprise to many. Bitdefender’s malware detection is second to none while at the same time, it causes a very low impact on the system it is running on. The free version of the product covers all the basics that you would need as well as offers free add-on software packages to make the deal sweeter. The only complaint with Bitdefender used to be that their engine had last been updated in 2013 – which has now been resolved with a brand new version. The only real concern here, is the software’s insistence on running in auto-pilot mode. While this makes it easier for users who would wan to plug and forget about it, it also takes the control away from the user entirely.
The next product is Avira Antivirus which is as popular as the one preceding it in our list. Avira offers a very high level of protection against both widespread and zero day attacks. Its feature packed user interface might take some time to figure out and slower PCs will experience a slight performance hit during active scans. On AV Test, the software has shown to throttle nearly 99% of attacks and is known not to throw up many false positives. The main reason that this looses out to Bitdefender is by sheer number of popups. We understand that this is a free software and therefore users will be asked to upgrade but there is a number of popups a user will accept before it becomes a pain and Avira seems to have crossed the number.
The fuel propelling this product into this list is probably less about the software and more about what happens behind the scenes. As of this article, Avast has acquired one of its main competitors AVG and although the products aren’t entirely merged yet, it does give Avast a much bigger pool of users and consequently a lot more data to work with. The one area where this acquisition has helped, is the software’s ability to detect and protect against zero day attacks – which is one of the best at the moment. If you hate popups, the anti-virus also comes with a silent mode which will mute them as well as reduce the hit to the system’s performance – very useful when playing a resource hungry game or running processor heavy editing software.
Panda doesn’t score very highly in respect to popups and ads – there exists a banner on their website telling you about the discounted prices even before you can download the free version – once you get around that and into the software itself, you will be mighty pleased. Being entirely cloud based, the performance hit is as minimal as it can get while it runs in the background. However, you will notice a significant hit while installation, copying files & downloading apps. Users have also noticed a spike in resource use when the software is being updated. It has an easy to use and fun user interface, with useful extra features and enough customization options to satisfy most users.
Last but not the least, we come to the most critiqued name on this list. Over the past few years, AVG has been on the receiving end of a lot of flak – more recently being labelled as “crapware”. One thing you should note however, is that though all those criticisms, the final product has always been one of the best free anti-virus products available. Even after years of being around, the product offers reliable protecting with minimal system impact. If you have read the entire article, you would also know that AVG has been bought out by another competitor on this list that gives it the same expanded user base and data. While that does not seemed to have helped AVG as much, there is talk of a combined product of both these products which might just blow the competition out of the water.
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