Best free antivirus

Hey my trend micro anti virus is days away from expiry, can any of you recommend a great not so invasive free antivirus software for my computer?
Thanks

 

microsoft security essentials
avira
avg
avast

dont think you can go wrong with either, im hearing really good things about MSE though

 

i recommend avast 5 very light on resources and quick scans.....hasn't let me down

here is the link: http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download

 

The three best free antivirus solutions would be:

Avira,
Microsoft security essentials,
Avast 5.

Avast 5 & MSSE are apparently comparable, except for the fact that Avast 5 is a bit lighter on resources (though both are already so light you won't notice either one running to begin with) and that it cannot always remove an infection in contrast to MSSE.

Also having Malwarebytes as a separate program (but not starting up with the OS) which you could use once in 3 months or so (just to be sure).

 

Out of the three quoted anti virus products above Avira has the best detection rates.

 

And the highest false positive rates.

I personally stick with MSSE because it was specifically designed to directly integrate into the OS and it's second (to Avira) in detection rates with low amount of false positives (plus it comes with anti-spyware ... a far more enhanced version of Windows Defender).

Bottom line is, either one of those 3 will do because they are coming close to each other either way.

 

What Deks says!
I used to use Avira but when I visited regular "safe" websites it would warn me all the time. So I changed to AVG and found that it was quite Heavy on resources and slowed down a lot during scans. I read on NBR that Avast 5 was released and it was getting some good reviews, so I d/l'd it and it's great and very very light.
So in a nut shell try Avast 5.

 

Only one problem with your list; you included avg. Get rid of that suggestion and your recommendation list improves tremendously!

 

Microsoft Security Essentials

 

The new Avast has been great for me. Has caught and disconnected me from a few nasties already. Much faster scanning than the previous version.

 

Gets my vote.

 

Another MSE here. By the way the latest version is 1.0.1959

cheers ...

 

Microsoft Securiy Essentials is the way to go IMHO. Although I have computers with avast 5 and I am happy with it too. Both are excellent, take your pick.

 

Same here.

 

I think currently the BEST in Overall is MSSE and Avast! Home Edition 5 as well as Avira Antivir Personal 9.
I don't like MSSE because it uses plenty of resources. Moreover, it makes some of my games start slower. But, it's detection rate and functions are OK and nice.
Avast! Home Edition 5 is light(I think lighter than Avira) and easy to use. Moreover, it gives a lot of protections, also known as 1 of the most complete FREE AV. Detection rate is on par with MSSE and Avira.
Avira Antivir Personal 9 is good too, best in detection rate. However, it gives too many false positives.
Actually, if you use either 1 of them here, your PC/Laptop should be safe.
I have tested them all actually. I can tell they're all running fine.

Avoid Lousy AV like AVG, Kingsoft and so on(forgot name already). They're clumsy.

 

McAfee is with all due respect quite bloated, a system hog, and doesn't really have good detection rates.

Btw 'DarkSilver' ... how is MSE using plenty of resources?
50 MB of RAM is not a whole lot really, and it's usage of CPU won't really interfere with basic tasks (and besides, I personally don't usually run anything when I'm scanning the system with an av).
The impact on the system is minimal.
It only may be noticeable while doing heavy tasks and if you're running an active scan at the same time.

 

Avast! 5 Free Antivirus gets my vote!!

 

Avira , Avast

 

Avast by a long shot. AVG has not caught a lot of things that I have seen on machines that AVAST went on and cleaned it all up.

 

Oh no, you said the M word! Please repent immediately and swear to a higher being you will not ever utter McAfee again.

 

I've used A LOT of antivirus software programs (both paid and free versions) and I've also researched a lot on the topic and my advice to you is to simply use the latest version of Avast free version and not worry about it anymore. It's a very good and effective program.

Also remember that using a 3rd party firewall along with your antivirus is highly recommended. I also have a a lot of experience in this area and highly recommend Comodo free version (download Comodo security suite, during installation, only select the firewall).

 

Windows Vista/7 firewall + Microsoft Security Essentials is probably going to be enough for the average user.

Maybe adblock and no script in the browser just for an added layer.

 

avast 5 for free imo is the best out

 

I was a long time Avira Antivir user, but recently switched to Microsoft Security Essentials and now have no intention of going back to Avira. They are both good, but MSE is less intrusive and performs admirably in antivirus tests.

 

I had to dump Microsoft Security Essentials because it kept spiking my CPU usage to 100%, and I couldnt stop it. So Avast for me for now.

 

If you don't mind my asking, can you be more specific as to how MSE is less "intrusive" than Avira?

 

so you don't know about avira's false positive??
It made me hate their pop-up alerts

 

avira

derp10char

 

Haven't had any FP pop-ups from Avira in two years. Are you referring to one particular FP or were you experiencing numerous ones?

 

numerous ones, of course.

 

Well, I'm sure you're familiar with Avira's daily nag screen. I know you can disable it (which I did), but it's still annoying. Plus, you have the daily update where it creates a separate window to show the update progress. MSE is more integrated with Windows and does everything silently without notifying me every day that it's updating. I prefer that.

 

I'm an MSSE fan personally. I've heard good things about Avira 5 and Avast!.

 

I currently use Norton Internet Security 2010 on my main computer (T500), and have a mix of NIS10, MSE, and Avira on the other computers in the house. One issue I have with MSE is that automatic updates do not seem to happen every day, which kind of bothers me. But otherwise, I've only had favorable experiences with the free versions of MSE and Avira.

 

I used to run Comodo, but one day it bugged out and spiked my CPU to constant 100%. Had to safe-mode uninstall it. Been using Avira ever since.

Concerning Crash's post, he mentions Avira creating a separate window to monitor the updating. Mine doesn't do that, but it's fully updated. Don't know if I fiddled with a setting that disabled the popup. Also, like he said, the annoying nag screen is easily disabled.


To users of both MSE and Avira, which one uses less resources?

 

I had used Avira 9 and MSE, but Avast 5 is my favorite now. Avast 5 has the fastest update of all the three.

 

True. Avast 5 on XP and MSSE on my 7 atm

 

I use Norton Security Suite. It's Norton 360 v3.0 for free for Comcast users

 

Avast, Avira, MSE are the best 3.

 

The best one is your brain.

 

Indeed.
AVG is a bad because of it's low detection rate and hogging of system resources.

 

Two non-issues that can hardly be labeled intrusive. As you said yourself, the daily nag screen can be disabled on day one and never be seen again. As far as the separate update window, it automatically minimizes itself and then disappears from the task bar once the update is complete. Now Mcafee is what I would call intrusive and a nag.

 

Common Sense 2010...

Not only is it free, you don't even have to use bandwidth to download it!

 

But you have to use your Brain.

 

And that's a 'bad' thing?

 

Hey it's either that or use system resources

 

Okay people let's get back on topic.

 

I can't stand seeing AVG installed on computers I work on...

I promptly uninstall it and install MSE.

 

Same here with various systems I worked on.

 

ROFL! Seeing how badly AVG got bashed. XD
Yes. AVG sucks. It's used to be good when on AVG 7.5. After that, it's nightmares.
Your system is safe with Avira, MSSE or Avast but never AVG!

 

MSSE has caused 100% CPU spikes on all my machines. Since it seems to still be highly recommended, how do you eliminate that? It was driving me nuts.