Thursday Special: Three top alternatives for a free antivirus

Viruses are a big deal for some time. There are so many antivirus companies these days that it is hard to find a good reliable one. Not to mention that most products are not free, and those that are, well, you get what you pay for. That’s not the case with the the following three suggestions.

Avira AntiVir Personal Edition is my personal choice and what I use at the moment. I think it offers the best virus protection, according to av-comparatives. It isn’t heavy at all on the system resources and it also detects rootkits. On the downside, being a free antivirus, it doesn’t have anti-spyware and anti-adware protection and doesn’t scan e-mails either but e-mail infections are no problem for it. If you want spyware and adware protection, take a look at Avast. Also, during the updates, which are
kinda slow, some advertisments pop up. This can be a bit annoying, but with a bit of tweaking, can be disabled. All in all, for a free product is pretty good and the downsides are not that bad, especially if we take into account Avira’s high virus detection, the highest of the three. But remember that you only get an antivirus and rootkit detection.

Avast ! Home Edition is another very good antivirus, especially for average home users. The interface can be a little strange at first, but there are skins available if you don’t like it. It has anti-rootkit and anti-spyware detection, which is a good thing. On the resource side, it is fairly light, but not as light as Avira. The downside is the high rate of false alarms and the fact that you have to register the product perioadically. If this bothers you, the other two features don’t need such an action. As a conclusion, Avast is a pretty complete package, presuming you get over it’s downsides.

AVG AntiVirus has come a long way since it first appeared in the 90′s and is a solid choice for a free antivirus. It has spyware, email and phishing protection and a very good detection rate for viruses, but on the spyware side it is lower than Avast or Avira. The updates are quick, automatic and the interface is nice and doesn’t give any headaches. The downside is that it can be pretty taxing on the resources and doesn’t have the fastest scan speed. If this is important for you, consider the other two choices. Although it has advertisments, they can be disabled.

All three products have live protection, but it can be disabled if you wish to do so. Of course, these shouldn’t be your only choices when looking for a free antivirus. They are just (documented) suggestions, but they are a starting point. Nobody knows what the future will bring and today’s best antivirus can become tomorrow’s worst.

Some other free antivirus products:
– BitDefender Free Edition
– Comodo Antivirus
– Pc Tools Antivirus Free Edition
– Rising Antivirus Free Edition