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.
«The moon belongs to everyone/The best things in life they’re free.» Or so the song says. In truth, you can get quite a lot of security protection for your PCs at no cost. Many major security companies give away antivirus protection to consumers. In return, they get a reputation for generosity and (more importantly) mindshare. A CISO who uses free antivirus on her home computers may not be totally swayed to purchase the corresponding enterprise endpoint security system, but she surely won’t forget to consider it. As for the rest of us, well, the best third-party free antivirus utilities beat out the built-in Defender and even outperform products that are far from free. We’ve put dozens of antivirus programs, both free and commercial, through the wringer to help identify the best ones. Check our reviews, try a few of the free antivirus utilities, and pick the one that suits your needs. 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.
