So, whichever is your budget, Bitdefender will be a perfect fit. In terms of security, this antivirus brings a gun to a knife fight. It includes real-time protection, advanced threat defense, web attack prevention, and anti-phishing filters. This is a complete powerhouse that will keep you safe even if you're in the habit of clicking links on shady websites.
To top it off, Bitdefender provides a ton of additional features. This includes antispam , which scans every email's header to filter out spam and phishing emails.
Then, there's a SafePay — a sandboxed and secure browser for online payments. There are modern additions like microphone and webcam protection to ensure that no one is spying on you via your own PC.
That said, if you're using an older device, Bitdefender might slow your system quite a bit. It runs frequent background scans, so if your PC is already having a hard time with more demanding tasks, it can become slower. Tough, on the other hand, it packs the most features into a budget-friendly package. If you want to find out more, take a look at our in-depth Bitdefender review. Avira is known as lightweight antivirus that performs like a heavyweight champion.
It's accessible for users for free and as a paid service. If you like to test the service before buying, Avira will adapt to your preferences. The service can also boast about its multiple awards for malware detection rates. It was during quarantine months when hackers were especially active as most people were locked inside their homes.
Yet, even aside from their antivirus scanner, Avira has many offerings. Their antivirus bundle also includes Phantom VPN , password manager, safe shopping, and file shredder features. If you're a paying user, you will be getting a pretty good bundle that includes useful cybersecurity tools. Some even more expensive plans, like Prime, also add VIP customer support, unlimited VPN, price comparison tool, and premium mobile apps.
You also get free access to their upcoming products. So, whether this option is worth it to you depends on many features. As a bonus, with most plans, you can use a single account to protect multiple devices. That allows you to protect the devices of all your household members. To find out more, read our in-depth Avira antivirus review.
Visit TotalAV. TotalAV actively competes against antivirus market leaders to provide quality protection against all kinds of digital threats. To access its most basic version, you don't even have to become a paying user, it's available for free. Meanwhile, paying users are getting a complete suite that increases your overall security.
It's capable of protecting against threats ranging from ransomware to phishing emails. The tool is constantly monitoring your device for new threats. While it may sound like it should hog your system's resources, there's really nothing to worry about.
The performance impact is minimal. You'll barely notice that the background scans are happening. Like other providers, TotalAV also adds a bunch of additional features to make your experience more complete. Then, there's a WebShield Chrome extension that filters out malicious websites and their password manager.
While it brings a lot of value, its price doesn't bite — it's one of the cheapest antivirus tools. Plus, you will be getting a lot of things with the antivirus. It could make you think it would be cheaper to get everything in one bundle rather than dealing with several separate providers. To find out more, read our in-depth TotalAV review.
Visit Norton. Recently Norton merged with Avast and formed a super-cybersecurity company. Naturally, their product is one of the best antivirus services on the market. The package includes virtually everything that you'd need to make your PC immune to viruses. You're getting all the essentials, including AI-powered real-time protection that prevents viruses, malware, spyware, and ransomware from harming your device. There's also a two-way Firewall that monitors both received and sent network traffic.
It catches intrusions, for example, when someone is using a backdoor to steal your files. The suite also includes Norton Secure VPN to encrypt your traffic, which hides your connection logs even if your internet service provider keeps tabs on you.
Then, there's a password manager that stores your credentials in an encrypted vault. You can even store your most important files in Norton PC file backup. While providing many features and value, Norton is gentle enough for your system's resources.
Plus, you don't need to be an IT graduate to find your way around this antivirus. While their prices aren't the lowest, you're truly getting the gold antivirus standard. Plus, they're frequently running special deals, so there are opportunities to save money off your purchase. For more information, read our Norton antivirus review. Visit McAfee. During the years of partnership with Intel, McAfee got a lot of bad rep. All Kaspersky purchases include a day money-back guarantee.
Download Kaspersky Free Now. Malwarebytes Free is a good choice for users looking for a simple antivirus scanner that they can install and forget about. Apart from the scanner, Malwarebytes Free also comes with a browser extension that protects against a wide range of threats, including malware, ads and trackers, scams, and PUPs.
Malwarebytes Free is a minimalistic antivirus scanner with good virus detection and removal rates. It also comes with a browser extension that blocks malware, phishing sites, ads, and trackers. Download Malwarebytes For Free Now. Sophos Home Free offers pretty good free anti-malware protection. It also includes some helpful web protections and covers up to 3 PCs all within its free antivirus package.
In addition to multi-device protection and remote management, Sophos is also a decent choice for families because it has free parental controls. Sophos offers pretty good antivirus scanning and remote management for up to 3 devices — which is pretty generous for a free antivirus.
Users looking for coverage on up to 10 devices, advanced malware and ransomware protection, and advanced web safety tools should upgrade to Sophos Home Premium. Download Sophos Free Now. There is no such thing as a truly free antivirus. Most antivirus companies limit the free version of their software to only offer basic protection.
Windows Defender is not a bad antivirus — it even ranks a little bit better than some third-party free antiviruses. If you choose an antivirus program from a trustworthy company, then yes. All of the brands on this list here are perfectly safe to use — the only difference between their free and paid versions is that the paid software includes additional features, like a VPN, a password manager, and parental controls, as well as better customer support options.
Avira is my 1 pick for the best free antivirus in If you need a free antivirus, take a look at our list of the best free antiviruses in or just download Avira Free.
If you want the best protection for all of your devices, you need to pay for a premium antivirus program like Norton or Bitdefender. While there are literally billions of malware attacks reported annually, trojans and adware are consistently the most common types of malware found on Windows computers. Trojans look like other files with extensions like. If you decide to uninstall your third-party antivirus, your PC will automatically ask you to reactivate the Windows Defender antivirus.
But what if you just want Windows antivirus software without all of those pricey extras? And what if you can't afford to pay for antivirus software? One of the best free antivirus programs might be exactly what you need. Free antivirus software used to be a step down from the paid software and involved trade-offs. The protection wasn't as good and you'd either have to put up with ads filling your screen or with constant nags to upgrade to a paid program.
That's all changed. One of the best antivirus makers, Kaspersky, offers a free version with the same excellent malware protections as its paid offerings. Its top rival, Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition, has been officially discontinued, although Tom's Guide readers can still download it with this link. A merger between the biggest names in free antivirus, Avast and AVG, created a combined malware-detection engine that's much better than the sum of its parts.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's built-in antivirus software, Windows Defender, aka Microsoft Defender Antivirus, has gone from being a joke to being one of the best antivirus programs out there, free or paid. You can now get free antivirus protection that's as good as anything you pay for. So here are the best free antivirus programs based on their protection, system impact, ease of use and extra features. Kaspersky Security Cloud Free 2. Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition 3. Windows Defender Antivirus 4.
Avast Free Antivirus 5. Kaspersky Security Cloud Free Antivirus may be the best free antivirus program we've ever seen. It has excellent malware protection, a decent set of extra functions and features, and a system-performance impact so small that our computer actually sped up after we installed the program.
Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition has been officially discontinued, and we're not sure how long Tom's Guide readers can still download it. It's the best "set it and forget it" free antivirus option. It's now one of the best antivirus programs altogether. You don't have to install or download it — it's already on your PC.
If you want an unlimited password manager or a hardened web browser, Avast Free Antivirus might be for you. Its malware protection is much better than it once was, although its performance impact is fairly heavy. Avast's stepsister AVG has the same malware-detection engine, but lacks Avast's full slate of useful extra features.
But it does have a file shredder and system optimizer. We have to mention one program that's not antivirus software, but which we recommend anyway: Malwarebytes Free. While antivirus tries to stop malware from infecting your machine, Malwarebytes functions as the cleanup crew, sweeping out less-harmful adware or potentially unwanted programs that the antivirus software ignores.
It works well alongside any antivirus program. Kaspersky doesn't talk much about its free antivirus product, and you might have a hard time finding the free Kaspersky software download page on the company's website. That's too bad, because Kaspersky Security Cloud Free is the best free antivirus product we've ever tested. We've never seen such a combination of excellent protection and extra features in a free antivirus program.
It's got a bright, comprehensible interface, a lot of customization potential and Kaspersky's unbeatable malware protection. The program also lets you schedule scans, and its performance impact was so small that it actually sped up our test machine a bit. Kaspersky's useful extra features include a file shredder, an on-screen keyboard and an email scanner. The password manager and VPN service are fairly limited, however, unless you pay. Read our full Kaspersky Security Cloud Free review.
Bitdefender has officially discontinued Antivirus Free Edition, and it will be supported only until June 30, We still love it and you can still get it , but proceed at your own risk. Compared to premium paid antivirus programs that are big, heavy and loaded with extra bells and whistles, Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition is like a '60's sports car, stripped to the essentials but still providing plenty of power.
Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition offers nothing but the basics. There's no password manager, no gaming mode, no quick scans and no scan scheduling.
You can manage the software from the program's System Tray icon, but you don't really need to interact with Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition after its installation. Yet Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition has the excellent Bitdefender malware-detection engine, which sits just below Kaspersky and Norton in the lab-test rankings. It's the best free antivirus software if you want a security solution that you can set up and then forget about.
It's also perfect if you need to protect the computer of an elderly relative but don't have time to manage antivirus software from afar. Read our full Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition review. Microsoft's built-in antivirus software is now a heavy hitter. While Windows Defender, aka Microsoft Defender Antivirus, doesn't quite beat Norton or Kaspersky in malware-protection lab tests, it comes out ahead of Avast, AVG and most other free antivirus products while operating almost entirely behind the scenes.
You won't be getting many extra features with Windows Defender itself, yet Windows 10 does have parental controls, a gaming mode and protections for its own Edge and Internet Explorer browsers. There's no built-in VPN, but you also won't be bothered by pop-ups trying to upsell you to paid antivirus software. As for a password manager, there's a stealth one built into the Microsoft Authenticator app for Android and iOS that syncs with the Edge browser, as long as you're signed into your Microsoft account on all devices.
We still recommend going for Kaspersky Security Cloud Free, which has even less of a system impact, better malware protection and more useful extras, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with using Windows Defender as your primary antivirus solution. Read our full Windows Defender review. Avast Free Antivirus has the best assortment of extra goodies of any free antivirus program, including a hardened browser, a gaming mode, a Wi-Fi network scanner and a recently added ransomware shield.
Unfortunately, the unlimited password manager has been discontinued. The program is also very customizable, letting you tweak its appearance and functions to suit your style. It even offers limited access to Avast's VPN service. However, Avast Free Antivirus caused a pretty heavy system load in our testing and its scans took a long time. It also kept nagging us to upgrade to Avast's paid antivirus protection, and played bait-and-switch with features that looked like they were free but weren't.
Most significant of all, the malware protection in Avast Free Antivirus is a peg down from Kaspersky's or Bitdefender's, whose free programs also bothered us less about paid upgrades and had lighter system loads.
Read our full Avast Free Antivirus review. AVG shares a decent, if unspectacular, malware-detection engine with its corporate sibling Avast while having a much lighter system-performance impact. While the latter is almost a free security suite with lots of bells and whistles, AVG AntiVirus Free is the quiet, neglected child that gets the hand-me-downs. The good news is that AVG's wide range of customization options and its file shredder and system optimizer are still available, and its interface is open and easy to use.
Worst of all, given its middling malware detection and dearth of extra features, there's no convincing reason to choose AVG AntiVirus Free over the built-in and overall better Microsoft Defender. Malwarebytes Free, formerly called Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, is not antivirus software. Instead, it's a very useful malware-removal tool.
What's the difference? Unlike antivirus software, Malwarebytes Free can't prevent a PC from being infected. But it does an excellent job of cleaning out malware that's already on your system, as well as removing legal adware and potentially unwanted programs that antivirus software often ignores.
Malwarebytes Free doesn't interfere with any antivirus software that's already installed, so it's perfectly safe to install it alongside one of our recommended brands. Just don't upgrade to the paid Malwarebytes Premium, true antivirus software that does poorly in lab tests and which will conflict with other AV programs.
We recommend Malwarebytes Free as a complement to any of the best antivirus programs, free or paid. Read our full Malwarebytes Free review. Before you buy antivirus protection, figure out what you need. If you have young children at home, then consider midrange antivirus products, most of which include parental controls. Do you want an all-encompassing security solution?
Or are you a techie who understands and the risks of using the internet? Then a low-priced basic program might be all you need. MORE: How to buy antivirus software. Once you've got your priorities figured out, then determine how many machines you'll need to protect.
Most vendors offer single-device licenses for Windows PCs. But multi-device, multi-platform licenses for five, 10 or more computers and mobile devices are available in midrange and premium antivirus packages, covering Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and sometimes even Linux. Some vendors offer plans that cover an unlimited number of devices. Gone are the days when you could walk into a store and pay a one-time fee for an antivirus product that came in a box off a shelf.
All the vendors now sell their software licenses as yearly or multiyear subscriptions. The upside is that you'll always get the latest software, which you can download and install straight from the internet. Many antivirus products are sold online for much less than their list prices. But each brand offers basic, midrange and premium configurations of features and pricing, with every step up adding more features. Think of autos at a dealership.
0コメント