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Definitive Best *Free* Antivirus 2012

Asked by goretsky,

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Favorite Free AV  

457 members have voted

  1. 1. Your Choice?

    • Alwil Avast! Free
      69
    • AVG AntiVirus Free
      20
    • Beijing Rising Free Anti Virus
      1
    • ClamWin/ClamAV
      1
    • Comodo Anti Virus/Internet Security
      12
    • Emsisoft Anti-Malware (free edition)
      2
    • MalwareBytes Anti Malware (free edition)
      10
    • Microsoft Security Essentials
      312
    • Panda Cloud Antivirus
      6
    • PC Tools (Symantec) Anti Virus Free Edition/ThreatFire
      1
    • Other (please specify)
      23

Question

Grand Master

goretsky Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted

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

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johnporter29

Posted
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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?

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Grand Master

goretsky Supervisor

Posted
  • Author
  • Supervisor
Posted

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?

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Grand Master

goretsky Supervisor

Posted
  • Author
  • Supervisor
Posted

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.

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jesseinsf

Posted
Posted

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.

  • 0
Grand Master

PGHammer

Posted
Posted

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.

  • 0
Grand Master

Fourjays Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

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.

  • 0
Grand Master

Miuku.

Posted
Posted
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.

  • 0
Collaborator

Coi

Posted
Posted

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.

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