Antivirus provides a essential layer of protection from a multitude of virus, trojan, worm, spyware adware, dialer, keylogger and rootkit infections. Traditionally antivirus programs just detected virus and spyware removers just detected spywares but nowdays boundary between antivirus and spywares removers is unclear. Most antiviruses have at least reasonably good detection rate of all forms of malwares.
Malware includes viruses, trojan, worms, spyware, dialers, keyloggers and rootkits threats that perform malicious activities on a computer. With the huge increase in malware, antivirus software cannot keep up with dectecting all of it. But using more than one real-time antivirususes much more system resources and reduce system performance. So I recommend you only choose one antivirus for real time protection. You can increase your protection by using other security softwares.
I looked at several free antivirus programs which are vital in protecting your computer from virus threats and others types of malwares. Below are best free antivirus software with full description.
Avast! Free Antivirus:
Avast! free Antivirus is 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 some of the best security tool.
Avast has the most features of all the free antivirus with full real times 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.
Although sandbox is 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 thought it can set to sandbox the software automatically. Lastly Avast is also light on resources.
Microsoft Security Essential:
Microsoft Security Essential is a favorite of mine with great detection rates, particularly for rooikits. Even more impressive is that Microsoft security essential 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 remove threats. No registration is needed and there are no nag screens and advertisements.
The main downsides are the slow scan speed and the long amount of time it take to quarantine malware, thought in my opinion these are rather trivial concerns, as for example scan just be run overnight. MSE is also is not available in certain countries so user there will have to look elsewhere.
Note: Microsoft security essential require genuine copy of windows to install.
Panda Cloud Antivirus:
Panda cloud antivirus is panda's successful attempt to jump on antivirus bandwagon. Along with MSE, it is a excellent choice for average users with a simple interface and completely automated features with automatic updating and removal of malware. The detection level is generally very high, but according to the latest test data, detection of Zero days threats is slightly lower. PCA uses 'cloud' technology to provide for much quicker release for updates as all definitions are stored in cloud and thus the panda update their blacklist all users of PCA with an internet connection are protected from it.
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 Antivirus Personal Edition:
Avira antivirus 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 rebranded 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 detectionrates of malware, higher than almost any antivirus according to test.
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 Antivirus Free Edition:
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 provides a real alternative to the major commercial antivirus products.
There are some other excellent free Antivirus softwares but i did not include in the review because of lower detection rates.
- Comodo Antivirus.
- PC Tools Antivirus free edition.
- Rising Antivirus free Edition
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