Definitive Best *Free* Antivirus 2012

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

In the preceding Definitive Best Antivirus 2011 message thread, there were requests to seperate the commercial and free antivirus products. For 2012, I have created two separate polls. This is the poll for the free antivirus programs. For commecial (paid-for) antivirus, please see the Definitive Best *Paid* Antivirus 2012 message thread.

Questions or comments? Post them here in the message thread.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[johnporter29]

Microsoft Security Essentials all the way.

The question on my lips at this moment is do we need threads like this year in year out, why not just have a definitive thread for antivirus products?

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Microsoft Security Essentials.

[Lee G. Veteran]

Microsoft Security Essentials.

[Jeston Veteran]

+1 for MSE

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

There were requests in the previous polls to separate the commercial and free products, so I thought I would give it a try this year. I'm not an expert in conducting polls, so please consider it something of an experiment. If people really are unhappy about it, we can go back to the old method for next years' poll, I support.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Microsoft Security Essentials all the way.

The question on my lips at this moment is do we need threads like this year in year out, why not just have a definitive thread for antivirus products?

[AdamLC]

+1 MSE :D

[Ulpian]

Avira, best one, I don't know why it is not on the list.

MSE is quite resource-hungry, maybe v4 will change something.

[Knife Party]

avast

[yowanvista]

Norton

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Oops, my bad. I built the 2012 polls from the 2011 poll, and while I added their commercial products to the other poll, forgot to include them here.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Avira, best one, I don't know why it is not on the list.

MSE is quite resource-hungry, maybe v4 will change something.

[jesseinsf]

Avira, best one, I don't know why it is not on the list.

MSE is quite resource-hungry, maybe v4 will change something.

MSE give you all the same features for free as the Premium version of Avira does which costs $30. Also you get all features for free that Avira Internet Security suite has ($59) if you use windows live Family safety + Windows Firewall + MSE. MSE is 2 Microsoft products in 1, Windows defender (Anti-spyware and Anti-Adware, Anti-Scareware) + Anti-Virus protection (Anti-Malware, Anti-Trojan Horse). IE9 gives free Anti-Fishing protection and protects you from vulnerable websites, and it gives free tracking protection. Windows Firewall protects you from malicious hackers and monitors incoming and outgoing connections. Windows Live Family Safety gives you full control over your children's computer usage. IE9 is considered the safest browser on the internet and Microsoft has finally decided to update IE like the other browsers do which I would hope that this would bring new feature in to IE more rapidly.. IE9 also detects most vulnerable ActiveX controls before it could harm your system. So to me this is one superior free product that outdoes all the others that ofter free alternatives.

[tuckeratlarge]

Avast. Could not actually say it's the best however. I just use it out of habit to be honest. Luckily people seem to think it's a good AV.

[Dusco25]

Microsoft Security Essentials

[Mystical112]

MSE

[44MLX]

Microsoft Security Essentials. (Y)

[PGHammer]

Microsoft Security Essentials all the way.

The question on my lips at this moment is do we need threads like this year in year out, why not just have a definitive thread for antivirus products?

Primarily because of product changes from year to year - the pressure over the past year has, in fact, been largely because of the improvements of MSE year over year.

Fortunately, MSE hasn't decided to rest on its laurels - the current public beta has some surprising improvements over the current non-beta version.

MSE itself is under pressure from a vastly rewritten Norton, not to mention perennial non-US-based favorites such as Kapersky and ESET.

May the best product keep the virii and malware off our computers.

[alpha2beta]

I would have to say for me fixing computers daily it would be MalwareBytes Anti Malware Pro Version with Microsoft Security Essentials V4 (beta at the moment) or MalwareBytes Anti Malware Pro with Avast!

[WilcoGamer]

I dont use anything on my mac however last month when i did have a pc ... MSE all the way!

[+bomberh Subscriber²]

+1 MSE :yes:

[Fourjays Veteran]

Avast here, as it agrees with my PC and has decent detection rates. They occasionally release "bad" updates though which can be annoying (one update marked the whole Internet as a virus and another prevented network connections from working altogether).

I tried Microsoft Security Essentials once and it really didn't agree with my computer. Made the computer unusable for a good minute or two after boot-up. No idea what the point was so I'll take the occasional bad update over that.

[bgjerlow]

Nothing beats Microsoft Security Essentials combined with Avast Free as a secondary. Awesome combination that I've been using for over a year now.

[Miuku.]

So to me this is one superior free product that outdoes all the others that ofter free alternatives.

Yet month after month after month MSE ranks as the worst protection in every AV test and fails to detect some of the most pervasive and common threats. Placebo can be a horrible thing.

As for the "best" free, I've recommended AVG and Avast to the people that I know that still use Windows.

[tsupersonic]

None - my common sense

[Ayepecks]

MSE

[Coi]

Yet month after month after month MSE ranks as the worst protection in every AV test and fails to detect some of the most pervasive and common threats. Placebo can be a horrible thing.

Really? Simple Google and Bing searches don't say so:

http://news.softpedi...ec-McAfee-3.jpg

http://dottech.org/w...n_3_Chart_8.png

http://dottech.org/w...2-03_015153.png

http://www.pcworld.c..._very_good.html

http://4.bp.blogspot...tDefender-3.jpg

As for the "best" free, I've recommended AVG and Avast to the people that I know that still use Windows.