Microsoft Defender is improving, but you still shouldn’t rely on it by itself. That doesn’t mean you have to pay extra, though. We’ve tested the top free antivirus apps so you can protect your PC for free.
You say you’ve maxed out your budget buying holiday gifts, and you don’t have anything left to pay for antivirus protection? Don’t worry. You don’t have to go out unprotected into the storm of malware and hackers that the modern internet represents. You can bundle up your computers in the warm, fuzzy protection of an effective antivirus without dipping into your funds. The best free third-party antivirus programs handily outperform Microsoft Defender, the antivirus built into Windows. In fact, they rate better than many commercial programs. We’ve analyzed dozens of products, both free and commercial antivirus, so you can make the best choice for your situation. With free antivirus tools you get the added benefit of taking several out for a spin before making the final choice. Your antivirus should definitely have the ability to root out existing malware, but its ongoing task is to prevent ransomware, botnets, Trojans, and other types of nasty programs from getting a foothold. All the antivirus programs in this collection offer real-time malware protection. Some take the fight to the browser, working hard to ensure you never even browse to a malware-hosting site, or get fooled into turning over your credentials to a phishing site. Free Antivirus vs. Paid Antivirus If free antivirus tools are so great, why should anybody pay? For one thing, quite a few of these products are free only for noncommercial use; if you want to protect your business, you must pony up for the paid edition. At that point, you should probably consider upgrading to a full security suite. After all, it’s your business’s security on the line. Even for personal use, most for-pay antivirus tools offer more than their free counterparts—sometimes a lot more. For example, the paid editions of Adaware and ZoneAlarm add protection against malicious and fraudulent websites the free versions lack. And Panda reserves quite a few features for paying customers, among them firewall protection, application control, cross-platform support, and detection of insecure Wi-Fi connections. In addition, many companies don’t offer full-scale tech support for users of the free edition. The first time you need extra help digging a particularly stubborn piece of malware out of your system, you might regret the lack of support. Independent Antivirus Lab Test Results Around the world, researchers at independent antivirus testing labs spend their days putting antivirus tools to the test. Some of these labs regularly release public reports on their findings.
