Definitive Best *Free* Antivirus 2014

[Marshall Veteran]

It's a new year, and a new poll for Definitive Free Best Antivirus. The 2013 thread can be found here.

This is a poll for best Free antivirus, there is a separate thread for paid antiviruses here.

If your choice of Best Free Antivirus is not listed, please choose Other and specify in the comments.

[sanctified Veteran]

According to avtest there's not better freeware antivirus than Avira.

[The Evil Overlord]

Worthless without EMET 4.0 it now gets the lowest rate for finding viri on the avtest.org site

ROFl you know you can turn off those annoying msgs right I chose avast free last year when MSE started to really go down hill ( I used to use and recommend MSE to everyone) but seems the Avira free is now one of the best free AV solutions you can get according to www.avtest.org so may give that another go when my Avast license is up

I went back to zonealarm :)

[Zlain]

I still use MSE. It may not have the best detection rates but I've never had an issue. I tried some other anti-viruses but found the UI's either too gimmicky and childish or very buggy. MSE has a clean interface, very simple and it has worked well for me. The biggest mode of protection will always be yourself so bare that in mind. Also, installing click to enable flash plugins will help immensely with protecting yourself. 

[Draconian Guppy]

MSE winning? Worthless poll...

MSE that bad?

[patseguin Global Moderator]

Love bitdefender free. No nagging like Avast.

I like it too. Nice design and no hassle. Seems to do a better job than MSE too.

[LimeMaster]

I use Common Sense?.

 

Just kidding, I use Windows Defender. (Built-in to Windows 8) :)

[Noir Angel]

Avast for me.

[link6155]

MSE/Windows Defender is what I've been using for the past few years. No virus or any system slowdown so far.

[Luc2k]

MSE that bad?

MSE is consistently the worse in detection for several months now in various tests.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I think 360 Total Security should be added to that list. I think that AV would wipe the floor with MSE

[Brandon H Supervisor]

I think 360 Total Security should be added to that list. I think that AV would wipe the floor with MSE

definitely gonna give it a try myself when i get home tonight after hearing you talk about it in a few threads today. looks like the free antivirus plain has a new contender :)

[+Warwagon MVC]

definitely gonna give it a try myself when i get home tonight after hearing you talk about it in a few threads today. looks like the free antivirus plain has a new contender :)

 

Report back!

 

I've been running it on my couch computer for months. Now i'm putting it on all my other computers and will run them with it for 6 months too, before I start recommending this to my clients on a large scale.

[Seahorsepip Veteran]

I would say MSE for a free anti virus since it's easy to install and use for people who ask me for a antivirus.

 

Personally I like eset, but it's not free. But the recovery disk is now available for free.

 

Edit: didn't knew 360 was also available on the desktop, sounds interesting.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I would say MSE for a free anti virus since it's easy to install and use for people who ask me for a antivirus.

 

Personally I like eset, but it's not free. But the recovery disk is now available for free.

 

Edit: didn't knew 360 was also available on the desktop, sounds interesting.

 

Oh it's very interesting.

[Rippleman]

Oh it's very interesting.

 

Just this morning i finally got to go ahead with the usual test. took a fresh laptop with windows 8, and for about 1 hour went around and loaded it up with as much crap and infections i could find. installed 360, removed some, but malwarebytes still had to go behind and clean up after it. 360 was better then the usual crop of AVAST, EST, AVG, NORTON, and the like. With all the PC's you have, you should try it. Take a spare PC, infect the hell out it, image it, then do your tests. After each test rewind back to infected state, rince and repeat with each major AV. See if you come up with the same results.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Just this morning i finally got to go ahead with the usual test. took a fresh laptop with windows 8, and for about 1 hour went around and loaded it up with as much crap and infections i could find. installed 360, removed some, but malwarebytes still had to go behind and clean up after it. 360 was better then the usual crop of AVAST, EST, AVG, NORTON, and the like. With all the PC's you have, you should try it. Take a spare PC, infect the hell out it, image it, then do your tests. After each test rewind back to infected state, rince and repeat with each major AV. See if you come up with the same results.

 

When you said crap and infections ... did it have the biggest problem removing pups?

[Rippleman]

When you said crap and infections ... did it have the biggest problem removing pups?

yes

[+Warwagon MVC]

yes

 

in all honesty I really don't knock an AV for that. I mean it would be great for them to block the installation of the pups, but once they are installed all the AV tends to do is break the ###### out of them so you can't do a proper uninstall. I've had to turn avast off before, when uninstalling the pups, because it would try to remove part of the uninstall which in turn left the program on the PC but broke the uninstaller.

 

The only thing I care about an AV being able to remove are things that don't have uninstallers.

 

How did 360 do cleaning up actual trojans / malware (which I don't consider pups)

[Rippleman]

in all honesty I really don't knock an AV for that. I mean it would be great for them to block the installation of the pups, but once they are installed all the AV tends to do is break the ###### out of the pups so you can't do a proper uninstall. I've had to turn avast off before, when uninstalling the pups, because it would try to remove part of the install which allowed it to be uninstalled.

 

The only thing I care about an AV being able to remove are things that don't have uninstallers.

 

 

I will be putting 360 on the machines I sell, service with the free MB scanner. I like the other features things 360 has also, I wonder how they do it for free... I don't see anything they "sell"... a company can't live on love alone for very long, i wonder what their plans are.

[Rippleman]

in all honesty I really don't knock an AV for that. I mean it would be great for them to block the installation of the pups, but once they are installed all the AV tends to do is break the ###### out of them so you can't do a proper uninstall. I've had to turn avast off before, when uninstalling the pups, because it would try to remove part of the uninstall which in turn left the program on the PC but broke the uninstaller.

 

The only thing I care about an AV being able to remove are things that don't have uninstallers.

 

How did 360 do cleaning up actual trojans / malware (which I don't consider pups)

erased with ease... no returns

[Luc2k]

Tried 360 Total Security a few days ago and while I might put on someone's PC and just leaves it in the background, I would hesitate in other situations. First problem was the "do everything" button on the home tab which removed various stuff (e.g. Ad Muncher) from start-up, stuff I want there. When I couldn't restore everything back to what it was, it became a problem since I like to have control. The second problem is that it interferes with some software like Process Explorer which replaces Task Manager. As long as 360 is running it can't replace Task Manager and selecting the option in Process Explorer gives an error.

 

As for infections, it didn't find anything unexpected. It detects some legitimate python files that Flash Player installs which I suspect is due to BitDefender's engine.

[+Warwagon MVC]

erased with ease... no returns

 

Ya, so that's what I would base the score off of.

[Rippleman]

Ya, so that's what I would base the score off of.

 

i prefer one that does it all in one swoop. But will still have it on my machine for 2nd opinion and the other features. BUT if someone is looking for a 100% FREE solution, its perfect, free 360 + free MB = perfect combo now

[TechJunkie81]

Currently using Avast.  It does the job.

 

I noticed Ad-Aware on the list.  That was a great product before, before it became a virus.

[+Warwagon MVC]

 BUT if someone is looking for a 100% FREE solution, its perfect, free 360 + free MB = perfect combo now

 

For cleaning up after the fact yes.