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Definitive Best *Free* Antivirus 2013

Asked by damindor,

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Favorite Free Antivirus  

211 members have voted

  1. 1. Your Choice?

    • Ad-Aware
      4
    • Alwil Avast! Free
      41
    • AVG AntiVirus Free
      15
    • Avira Free
      11
    • Beijing Rising Free Anti Virus
      2
    • BitDefender (Free Edition)
      14
    • ClamWin/ClamAV
      4
    • Comodo Anti Virus/Internet Security
      8
    • Emsisoft Anti-Malware (free edition)
      0
    • MalwareBytes Anti Malware (free edition)
      15
    • Microsoft Security Essentials
      85
    • Panda Cloud Antivirus
      3
    • PC Tools (Symantec) Anti Virus Free Edition/ThreatFire
      1
    • Un Threat
      0
    • Other (please specify)
      8

Question

59 answers to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 0
Grand Master

BeerFan

Posted
Posted

My ISP, Cox, offers the McAfee Security Suite as a free download. I've always been happy with MSE, but the loss of features in Defender for Windows 8, plus the poor rating it was given by AV-Test have made me want to try other options. I'm going to try McAfee out and see what it's like.

  • 0
Grand Master

Brandon H Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted

i don't see how people can recommend MSE when it failed the certification test twice in a row http://www.ibtimes.c...rosoft-disputes

because it's been proven that that test is unrealistic, i think there's even an article about it on neowin's front page
  • 0
Veteran

bikeman25

Posted
Posted

Windows Eight Forums has a registry tweak that you can add that will enable a right click context Menu for Windows Defender in Windows 8, used it myself a while back, no apparent side effects so far

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/8450-windows-defender-cascading-desktop-context-menu-create-windows-8-a.html

Hope this is helpful to folks

  • 0
Grand Master

Noir Angel

Posted
Posted

Avast for me. Thankfully I managed to reason my friends at Affordable Computer Services out of a mass migration to MSE. Though i'd buy a Kaspersky subscription if I could afford it.

  • 0
Enthusiast

JP6641

Posted
Posted

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (+) AVAST Antivirus (+) Spyware Blaster (=) Best Antivirus Combo Ever.

I've been malware free, virus free, and pop up free for going on 6 years now with this combo.

They are all totally pro active and hands down just awesome at what they do.

I'd recommend them to anyone looking for a free alternatve to security in cyberspace. :)

  • 0
Mentor

(Account no longer active)

Posted
Posted

I use and recommend Avira. It's light on system resources, and has a good detection rate. I have been using it for about four years now.

I also have Malwarebytes Anti-Malware installed.

I uninstall Norton when I see it on people's machine's and replace it with Avira. The majority of people who have come to me with problems had not renew/purchase a Norton updates subscription after their free OEM subscription had expired (because they didn't want to pay for updates, and thought they would be safe regardless)!

  • 0
Grand Master

Gotenks98

Posted
Posted

My ISP, Cox, offers the McAfee Security Suite as a free download. I've always been happy with MSE, but the loss of features in Defender for Windows 8, plus the poor rating it was given by AV-Test have made me want to try other options. I'm going to try McAfee out and see what it's like.

You dont want mcafee, it blocks the windows updates which overtime can possibly get you a virus later. Besides why would you want to install something thats going to give you a 20% performance hit right off the bat?
I call shananigans on all of those tests. I work for a university and we rarely see anyone come in with a virus once we install MSE and the system is fully patched. Now those other AVs with being fully patched thats a different story all together.
  • 0
Grand Master

+longgonebn Subscriber²

Posted
  • Subscriber²
Posted

Windows Eight Forums has a registry tweak that you can add that will enable a right click context Menu for Windows Defender in Windows 8, used it myself a while back, no apparent side effects so far

http://www.eightforu...indows-8-a.html

Hope this is helpful to folks

Anyone know if they are going to update this in 8.1? So stupid that they did that. Talking about no context menu by default.

  • 0
Rising Star

monkeylove

Posted
Posted

FWIW, I think tests are better than personal anecdotes. With that, I'm using the free version of Bitdefender (for Win 7), following these results:

 

http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-7/mayjun-2013/

 

http://www.av-comparatives.org/performance-tests/

 

For the firewall, the free version of Windows Firewall Control, and anything else installed and run for offline scanning.

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