Definitive Best FREE Antivirus 2017

[4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran]

It's a new year, and so we have a new poll for Definitive Best Free Antivirus.
 
The 2016 thread can be found here.
 
This is a poll for best FREE antivirus software. There is a separate thread for PAID antivirus software here.
 
If your choice of free antivirus software is not listed, please choose Other and specify in the comments.

[Danielx64]

I pick window defender and using my brains.

[spaceship9876]

Avira gets the third best antivirus detection rates usually after kaspersky and bitdefender. Neither of those others has a realtime free antivirus. Avira free has popups asking you to upgrade but if you install BGPkiller it will block the popups and therefore behave like the paid version. I also use malwarebytes to work alongside it.

[UnclePritchard]

bitdefender is absolutely horrible.. it behaves strangely on RS2 at least and it slows down the PC a lot.

[witboy]

I'm using Sophos home for some time and it works without any problem.

[Rippleman]

If looking for free scanner only, Malwarebytes. But if needed free real time protection, with the testing I have done, 360 total security (essentials) seems to be awesome and a better experience then most of the ones I have tested on the list.

[Lamp0]

4 hours ago, Danielx64 said:

I pick window defender and using my brains.

pretty much where I am at.

 

I am also running Malwarebytes anti-expoit, thought that will soon not be getting free updates. Also regular scans with Malware-bytes Anti-Malware and Spybot.

[+Elі Subscriber²]

4 hours ago, Danielx64 said:

I pick window defender and using my brains.

Problem with that is that you could become a victim of ransomware, it's extremely easy to catch it these days unless you use a product specifically designed against that threat.

[cork1958]

I pick Bit

3 hours ago, UnclePritchard said:

bitdefender is absolutely horrible.. it behaves strangely on RS2 at least and it slows down the PC a lot.

Horrible? Are you nuts? Slows down a PC alot? Even nuttier! I had it on an old Dell 2300 with 1gb memory and a lousy single core 1.8ghz processor with Windows 7 and didn't slow that already slow POS down at all!

 

I voted for Bitdefender here and in the paid version of this poll also. About the only AV I've ever used that can actually detect AND remove anything it had found.

[spaceelf]

1 hour ago, Ely said:

Problem with that is that you could become a victim of ransomware, it's extremely easy to catch it these days unless you use a product specifically designed against that threat.

It's about as likely as any other malware for users on an up to date platform.  I haven't gotten malware in practically a decade and I keep an up to date OS, browser, and MSE/Defender have been my go to AV pretty much since they came out.

 

So unless you're blind to the more obvious threats or installing stuff from random torrents, pron or warez sites you're usually good.

[ultimate99]

1 hour ago, Ely said:

Problem with that is that you could become a victim of ransomware, it's extremely easy to catch it these days unless you use a product specifically designed against that threat.

sooo what do you recommend?

[exotoxic]

23 minutes ago, LostCat said:

It's about as likely as any other malware for users on an up to date platform.

 

Ransomware doesn't exploit the system it exploits the user.

[oldtimefighter]

6 hours ago, Danielx64 said:

I pick window defender and using my brains.

I agree not being stupid helps but I would still add an ad-blocker and not installing Flash and Java along with that Windows Defender.

[+Elі Subscriber²]

34 minutes ago, ultimate99 said:

sooo what do you recommend?

Definitely using an Anti-Ransomware solution of some sort, not just relying on Windows Defender, Common sense is the best tool, but you could always be tricked with Ransomware no matter how smart you are, too many ways to hide it and make it look legitimate, let alone unknown exploits etc that could be triggered with your browser etc.

[spaceelf]

56 minutes ago, exotoxic said:

Ransomware doesn't exploit the system it exploits the user.

I believe I covered that with 'unless you're blind to the more obvious threats'.  The delivery methods can exploit the system if it's poorly protected, though.

[gate1975mlm]

I use Avast Free mainly because it seems to be the only Antivirus that does not slow my computers down!

 

And honestly sometimes I wonder if I even need an antivirus because I am smart enough to know how not to install things that have viruses. Even when going to those unsafe type of sites. I use Fair Adblocker and Quick Javascript Switcher chrome extensions and Avast hardly ever even warns me of a virus anyway.

 

After using a computer for so long you learn how to avoid those nasty popups messages with virus like "Your Flash Player is out of date "type of stuff

 

I really just run Avast for extra protection just in case.

[Danielx64]

5 hours ago, oldtimefighter said:

I agree not being stupid helps but I would still add an ad-blocker and not installing Flash and Java along with that Windows Defender.

I also have adguard installed systemwide to block ads.

 

Java can be used without installing it system wide as well. I do it for phpstorm.

[westernguy]

No question in my mind: Windows Defender all the way.

[Jayden Kelly]

Windows Defender is good but I like the Kaspersky. Recently installed on my new laptop after hearing about the Ransom issue. Thanks to "PCFIXIT" (a local PC solution service provider) I got the effectiveness of Ransome virus.

[+John. Subscriber¹]

Windows Defender. There was a time I genuinely thought I'd never say that.

[Terragon]

The simple truth is there there is no "best" Anti-Virus product - there never has been since the first one was no longer the only one, and there never will be again. The reason being is that there are thousands of new malicious samples released into the wild each week, and security vendors just cannot keep up with them all. Because of the techniques used by malware authors (to evade static detection - static means "inactive" therefore the malware is not running and dynamic means "active" therefore the malware is running) so VirusTotal and general scanner results are bypassed, AV vendors have had to spend an awful lot of time invested into "dynamic heuristics" or other zero-day behavioral components such as Behavior Blocker/Host Intrusion Prevention System, Virtualization (isolated environments), and so on.

 

Due to each vendor having their own intelligence and different implementations of different companies, each security product may react differently to a threat. One product may detect a sample another vendor will not have in its database, however the product which missed the first sample may detect other samples based on behavioral analysis which the first vendor wasn't aware of. 

 

TLDR; if we take into the consideration the following it should explain why there is no "best" security product:

- The amount of new malware samples being pushed out into the wild to target both home and enterprise customers on a daily/weekly basis.

- The differences in components among different security vendors. Some products don't have behavioral analysis while others do, and even when two or more vendors have the same feature they won't work identically the same unless there is a deal for SDK licensing among them.

 

Spoiler

The best thing you can do is apply good security measures (brain.exe) instead of simply relying on an AV product. An AV product is more of a backup buddy, it isn't designed to be full-proof. If you as a user make bad decisions then you'll become infected regardless of what is protecting you!

 

I voted for Other because personally I want to give my vote to Emsisoft. Their Anti-Malware product is supposed to be a full Anti-Virus replacement and they have a great Behavior Blocker component IMO which is capable of preventing attacks such as code injection. It was a close call between Emsisoft, ESET and Avast for me.

 

 

On 7/18/2017 at 9:31 AM, John. said:

Windows Defender. There was a time I genuinely thought I'd never say that.

They are definitely starting to step their game up: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mmpc/2017/07/12/detecting-stealthier-cross-process-injection-techniques-with-windows-defender-atp-process-hollowing-and-atom-bombing/ 

 

 

[Terragon]

On 1/1/2017 at 2:49 PM, cork1958 said:

I pick Bit

Horrible? Are you nuts? Slows down a PC alot? Even nuttier! I had it on an old Dell 2300 with 1gb memory and a lousy single core 1.8ghz processor with Windows 7 and didn't slow that already slow POS down at all!

 

I voted for Bitdefender here and in the paid version of this poll also. About the only AV I've ever used that can actually detect AND remove anything it had found.

Results on product performance can very between user, results on performance will never be "static". What worked well for you may not necessarily work well for someone else. For example, it could also be a conflict issue which slowed down his system, or other demanding software in the background performing I/O operations a lot. There's so many possibilities!

[adrynalyne]

Common Sense Pro Edition.

[ultimate99]

On 2017-08-01 at 0:38 AM, adrynalyne said:

Common Sense Pro Edition.

Is it subscription based? Or one time purchase for life? ;-)

[adrynalyne]

19 minutes ago, ultimate99 said:

Is it subscription based? Or one time purchase for life? ;-)

One time purchase. I’ve found it doesn’t expire once you have it

[Mockingbird]

Putin Antivirus Free Edition