Definitive Best FREE Antivirus 2020

[goretsky 1,199]

Hello, 
  
This is the 2020 poll for best free antivirus (aka antimalware aka internet security aka endpoint security) security software.  
  
The poll for paid products is located here.  The poll for 2018's best free antivirus is located here. 
  
If your choice is not listed, please choose "other" and reply below with its name. 

 

This year the poll is multiple choice, so that you can select two (or more) choices.  If you do choose multiple options, please leave a comment with the ones you chose and why.  
  
Regards, 
  
Aryeh Goretsky 

[+Jester124 934]

Still rocking the Microsoft Defender/MalwareBytes combo for Windows and ClamAV for my Linux and Mac systems. So far these haven't let me down.

[ThaCrip 732]

I tend to just stick with the default Windows Defender on Windows systems as it does not interfere with stuff and works well enough. it just tends to be one of the safer choices in general and it's protection is good enough.

 

but as usual... the best line of defense is the user being cautious on what they allow to run on their systems and don't fall for Phishing schemes etc. so if your fairly good here, hopefully if something does slip by, Windows Defender will catch it.

 

and as a general rule... don't have Java or Flash installed on your browser unless you must use them as just doing that gives one a decent boost to their overall system security and keep your programs up to date, especially your browser and chances are you will be fine.

 

my advice... avoid using smart phones for anything important online as they tend not to get security updates as quickly, or at all, unlike Windows/Linux desktop which get security updates quickly etc.

 

p.s. but I use Linux (Linux Mint v19.3) as my general day-to-day OS. so I don't run any anti-virus but instead use Firejail (a sandbox program for Linux (I run the newest one on their SourceForge page)) to help ensure nothing shady gets onto ones system from browsing the web, especially if your occasionally on suspect websites, but even occasionally more legit websites get hit with drive-by downloads. Firejail is just extra insurance for ones Home folder basically and it's easy enough for the average person to get it running on their browser and basically does not interfere with general use (although your limited to saving files, by default, only to the 'Downloads' folder and when you run files you download, make sure to access them from your file browser and not from Firefox itself since it will be in the sandbox which we don't want). many say one does not need a anti-virus for Linux systems which is why as a bonus, those who have underpowered CPU's will benefit from a overall faster running system on Linux than they would with Windows since less CPU resources are wasted running unnecessary junk.

[Vince800 326]

I find that if you're going to use anything other Defender for a free solution, Kaspersky seems  to be pretty good as free option, I've tested it on a few different PCs with no issue.