Top Free Anti – Virus Softwares


Looking at the safety concerns of your Organization, an anti-virus software is a basic requirement in today’s technology-savvy world. Every now and then, we keep on getting new viruses launched in the market. This, in turn, requires a basic anti-virus software being installed on your PCs.

If you are a start-up or a small scale technology firm, it is difficult to invest in a good and costly anti-virus software. Worry Not. We have some great anti-virus software available in the market for free or we can say at a very less price. These products are free only for non-commercial use; if you want to protect your business, you have to fund in for the paid edition. They are good and keep your data and computers safe. Let us check the top ones over here and why they make to this list.


Nothing comes for free in this world. All of these anti-virus vendors are trying to make money. Many of these companies, for example, will try to get you to upgrade to their paid software. You might see pop-ups or get emails telling you to upgrade. That’s one of the costs of free software.

  • Avira − Having a good reputation for consistently solid performance and easy-to-use tools, Avira is a great choice and has made to the top of our list. Avira antivirus gives a great protection layer of about 99.9%. Avira offers very strong protection against both widespread and zero-day malware. Its interface is at first difficult to grasp but being full of a good variety of options it will win the hearts. Although the slower computers might see a performance hit during active scans. However, Avira Free Antivirus’ sheer effectiveness, a high degree of customization and the wide range of free add-on features — including a VPN client and a privacy-minded Web browser — make it our Top Choice. The Scheduling options come in handy, and you can create a number of scans that run throughout the week. You can schedule a quick daily scan and a weekly full scan, and you’re set. Those combined with real-time protection will keep you safe from just about everything. Avira anti-virus is available for both Windows & Mac.
  • Bitdefender Anti-Virus Edition (2017) − Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition includes precisely the same antivirus technology found in the commercial Bitdefender Antivirus, without the paid edition’s many useful bonus features. Bitdefender Anti-virus app whose pro version got a 99.9% protection rate, the free version of Bitdefender will keep you safe from almost every piece of malware in circulation. Anti-phishing and anti-fraud features help keep you even better protected. Bitdefender’s Malware detection rate is second to none. The company’s free antivirus product covers all the basics, offers a very low system performance impact and, with free add-on software, provides such useful extras as a secure browser and a limited password manager. But Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition’s bare-bones interface is hard to figure out and offers no customization options — you can’t even schedule a scan. It is software that’s best for users who want a set-it-and-forget-it security solution.
  • Avast free antivirus 2017 − Avast Free Antivirus 2017 combines a great free antivirus with a surprisingly extensive collection of bonus features. Although Avast secured a slightly lower protection rating than some other options (99.6%), it’s still very high. It also has relatively low resource usage, making it unlikely to noticeably slow down your computer. A simple, easy-to-use interface means you don’t need an instruction manual to get it set up. Despite ranking slightly lower on threat protection, Avast is a solid choice for anyone looking for a free antivirus. There’s a reason it’s one of the most popular options out there. Again, this software is available for Windows as well as Mac machines. We liked Avast Free Antivirus for its friendly interface, nearly imperceptible system impact, sophisticated configuration options and useful extra features, which include a password manager and a network scanner.
  • AVG Antivirus (2017) − AVG AntiVirus Free has a new look and some new technology, but our hands-on tests and independent lab tests show that it’s just as reliable as ever. It is just another free antivirus app that’s been very popular for a long time, AVG ranks well in both protection (99.6%) and system resource usage. And while they now offer unnecessary things like system cleanup and mobile antivirus, their core product is still one of the best. AVG does have a reputation for showing off some annoying nag screens. In the past year, AVG has improved its malware detection rate so that it now rivals industry leaders Avira and Bitdefender. AVG Antivirus Free only moderately slows down a user’s PCs, and offers a wide range of customization options, if few extra features. But we were turned off by its pushy, incessant recommendations to upgrade to the paid AVG software.
  • Checkpoint Zonealarm Free Antivirus+ 2017 − ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus+ combines a top-notch firewall with antivirus protection licensed from award-winning Kaspersky. This free program can be a good choice, if you don’t want a full-scale security suite. This is quite a full-featured app for being free. In addition to all the standard antivirus features you’d come to expect, it also packs a basic firewall. There’s a good chance you already have one, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. It also offers some basic identity protection that will let you know if there are unauthorized changes to your credit files.
  • eScan Anti-virus Toolkit − This toolkit differs from the other options available in the market and the best part is that it doesn’t require an installation; you can just download and run it. That means it can be run from a USB drive, and you can use it even if you already have another antivirus running. It never hurts to have a backup! Because there’s no installation, there’s no real-time defense or scheduling. So you probably shouldn’t use this as your main antivirus. But if you think yours might not be working, or you want to double-check, it’s a good choice.
  • Panda Free Antivirus − Panda Free Antivirus boasts an attractive user interface and an unusual USB vaccination feature, but its scores have slipped in when compared with other anti-virus software. Panda’s very good malware detection scores are marred by its high rates of false positives, or gentle files mistakenly flagged as malware. But it has a fresh, customizable user interface that’s easy and even fun to use, a small system performance impact, and enough configuration options to satisfy most users. On the downside, it offers few extra features, shows a lot of ads and tries to hijack your Web browser’s settings. While you’ll probably get quite a few nag screens telling you to upgrade to a paid version, Panda does have some advantages. For example, it offloads most of its work to the cloud, freeing up system resources. Beyond doing work in the cloud, there’s not a whole lot to differentiate Panda from other things out there. It did score very well for usability, though, so you don’t need to worry about complex interfaces and configurations.
  • Microsoft Windows Defender − Windows Defender comes with Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, but that doesn’t mean you should use it. While its once-subpar malware detection rate has been getting better, Windows Defender still lands in low among the other competitors. The high rate of false positives confirmed its low ranking. It has a surprisingly high system impact during full scans and does nothing to protect non-Microsoft browsers from online malware. In addition, it has nearly no extra features. Even if you don’t want to pay for antivirus protection, you can do better than Windows Defender.

Whatever anti-virus software you use, it is very important to ensure the software is up-to-date. Of course, the paid versions of the free software do provide some great features if you ready to shell out some money. But in case you are not planning to invest in the paid versions, you still need to have one or the other anti-virus installed to secure your important documents from hacking out.

karthikeya Boyini
karthikeya Boyini

I love programming (: That's all I know

Updated on: 23-Jan-2020

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