So you are looking for a replacement for the built-in Windows Defender? If so, then you’ve come to the right place. Because i’ll tell you about the top 5 Antivirus products that will provide you much better protection than the built-in Windows Defender without paying a cent.
Top 5 Free Antivirus of 2015
The simple task of downloading the Antivirus can be extremely frustrating and confusing. The reason is simple, there are hundreds of Antiviruses and they all claim to provide the “best protection” for your PC. But the question is, how many of them are telling the truth? And how can we believe that they won’t cripple our PC with useless crapware? Unless we test all of them, and surely we wouldn’t want to do that. So hopefully, I’ll try to make your life a bit easier by providing you the list of best FREE Antivirus out there.
5: AVG FREE Antivirus
AVG is one of the more popular choice for Antivirus. It has one of the best web protection tools. Last year it was updated with a new UI overhaul, becoming much user friendly than before.
Pros:
- Good malware & virus detection.
- Solid web protection suite.
- Light on System resources & optimizes the performance of the PC.
- Quick scanning is actually very quick.
- Includes AVG Zen for managing scans remotely.
Cons:
- Bad malware protection rate, mostly it won’t even recognize crippled links/malware.
- Shows annoying pop-ups telling user to upgrade.
- Installs “PC TuneUp 2015”.
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4: Avira Free Antivirus
Avira is one of the older Antivirus available out there. It is still one of the best FREE Antivirus available out there. Provides protection against malware, viruses and phishing. It also provides the ability to sync to Dropbox.
Pros:
- Solid virus and malware detection rate.
- User friendly Interface.
- Cloud Protection Technology.
- Built-in browser plug-in for web protection.
Cons:
- Full features of web protection are not available.
- Uses a lot of System Resources while a scan is in progress (It is recommend that you don’t do anything while it is scanning).
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3: BitDefender FREE Antivirus
Bitdefender is one of the best Antivirus available in the market at the moment, even thought the paid version is far superior than the free version. The FREE version is actually pretty good. It provides a solid protection against both Malware and Viruses and is a good all around Antivirus. However, if you can afford, I’d highly recommend you to check out their paid version as nothing beats it when it comes to the premium features.
Pros:
- Easy to configure.
- Very light on System Resources, you might not even notice that your AV is running at all.
- Excellent Virus & Malware detection.
- Good Phishing protection.
Cons:
- Requires that the user sign in with a social media or create an account within 29 days of installation.
- Non-user friendly. Very hard to restore quarantined non-malicious executable.
- Compatibility issue’s with Firefox.
- Hard to uninstall. You have to run into Safe Mode to completely uninstall it.
- Poor tech support.
- On some hardware’s it may cause massive slowdown of the system.
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2: avast! FREE Antivirus
There was once a time when avast! was considered the best Antivirus. That changed when the developer behind avast! decided to cripple their product with crapware and malware, and all of a sudden avast! became one of the worst Antivirus ever. Ashamed by their doing the team behind avast! decided that they will bring avast! to it’s former glory, thus removing all the crapware that was bundled with it before. And now once again avast! has restored it’s position of being of the best FREE Anitivirus available. So guys that is the sad past of avast! lol, but really avast! is actually one of the best FREE antivirus. It comes with a lot of useful tools like Firewall, SmartScan, Browser cleanup e.t.c that helps you keep your PC safe.
P.S: While avast! FREE is pretty good, avast! Premium is horrible and acts more like a malware than an Antivirus. Stay away from it.
Pros:
- Light on System Resources.
- Good Virus and Malware detection.
- Home-Network Protection Tools, which can scan and fix most of your network problems.
- SmartScan for one-click virus scan.
- Good at blocking malicious URL.
- User friendly interface.
Cons:
- Horrible customer support.
- Annoying pop-ups and adds in the application.
- Mediocre phishing protection.
- Some tools may not fully work until you purchase them.
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1: Panda Free Antivirus 2015
Unlike AVG, Avira & Avast, Panda is new to this Antivirus business. However, being new doesn’t mean that it is bad. In fact it has already surpassed most of it’s predecessors. It has one of the best malware & virus detection rate, and is extremely light. Panda FREE Antivirus utilize the unique “Cloud” based protection, meaning everything is done on cloud, which in turn gives you near zero System Resource usage. Despite being light-weight, it boasts one of the best real-world protection.No annoying pop-ups whatsoever. So you are telling me you are a gamer? Well all the more reason to install this AV, it’s light, it’s fast, it’s solid at protecting your PC & it’s fast. Oh did I mention that it’s fast? Well it is very fast and light on System Resources.
If you are looking for the best fast, light-weight Antivirus with one of the best malware & virus detection rate than look no further. Because when it comes to FREE Antivirus, nothing beats this beast.
P.S: You might wanna turn off the “Panda News” in the settings.
Pros:
- Extremely fast & light, utilizes very little System Resources. Perfect for gamers.
- One of the best real-time protection.
- Extremely solid URL & Web filtering.
- Solid malware & virus blocking.
- User friendly interface and is very easy to install.
- Real good phishing protection.
- Automatic cloud updates keeps the program up-to-date.
- Provides very useful set of tools.
Cons:
- Possibly a bit intimidating user-interface for. Needs a little time to get used to it.
Yeah, that’s probably the only problem I see with this product. Terrific AV program. I switched from avast! Pro to this and I’m more than happy with my decision. Really there is no better AV than this one. If you want the best ever AV, without paying a cent than go with this, I promise you won’t regret it.
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That’s it guys. Now you can surf the web or download stuff with ease. These are the top 5 Antivirus’s that can keep your PC safe. However, i’ll highly recommend you to download Malwarebytes | Free Anti-Malware as a companion app, as nothing beats it when it comes to removing malware. It is compatible with all the AV’s and doesn’t interferes with them making it a really nice choice for a full-on protection. It is also light on System Resources.
I personally use Panda FREE Antivirus & Malwarebytes premium and the combination is perfect. I’m really happy with the protection. And I have not encountered any problem with either product.
No matter what AV you end up going with, I’d highly recommend you to install Malwarebytes, simply because it’s just too good at removing malware and is compatible with all the AV’s listed.
Know something that I don’t? Something wrong with this tutorial? Want to share some tips? Whatever it is, sound off below and let me know.
Windowsaholic 