Best Antivirus

Which is the best anti virus for PC?

Hi
 
 

There is no universal "one size fits all" solution that works for everyone and there is no one best anti-virus. Every vendor's virus lab and program scanning engine is different. Each has has its own strengths and weaknesses and they often use a mix of technologies to detect and remove malware.

Choosing an anti-virus is a matter of personal preference, your needs, your technical ability and experience, features offered, user friendliness, ease of updating (and upgrading to new program release), ease of installation/removal, availability of quality/prompt technical support from the vendor and price. Other factors to consider include detection rates and methods, scanning engine effectiveness, how often virus definitions are updated, the amount of resources the program utilizes, how it may affect system performance and what will work best for your system. A particular anti-virus that works well for one person may not work as well for another. You may need to experiment and find the one most suitable for your needs.

Here are links to some related discussion topics:

• What is a good free antivirus I can use for my new computer?
• Best antivirus for Windows 10
• Which anti-virus program are you using?
• Best Free Antivirus?
• Best Antivirus?

You also may want to read Choosing an Anti-Virus Program where I provide comments as to why I recommend ESET and Emsisoft.

Edited by NickAu, 13 December 2019 - 11:53 PM.

If you're on Windows 10, Windows Defender is more than enough.

I highly recommend ConfigureDefender to get the most out of Windows Defender, especially if you're using Windows 10 Home.

If you're on Windows 10, Windows Defender is more than enough.

I highly recommend ConfigureDefender to get the most out of Windows Defender, especially if you're using Windows 10 Home.

Does anyone know if that program can be made to work on Windows 7 Professional edition?

Does anyone know if that program can be made to work on Windows 7 Professional edition?

Unfortunately, it's made mainly for Windows 10 but some features can work on 8.1.

Edited by Protomartyr, 13 November 2019 - 01:56 PM.

@ Roland JS

Note that M.S.E (Microsoft Security Essentials) is the version that was made for Windows 7 (mainly Home versions) .. I still use it on my W7.1 laptop

They do not agree with it being used on the Windows 7 Professional edition, if it is in a company / commercial environment ..

In that case you would be better using any other Free A/Virus, like Avast which seems popular among many small businesses ..

Regards Jaycan..

In that case you would be better using any other Free A/Virus, like Avast which seems popular among many small businesses ..

I would stay away from Avast.

quietman7 has some good commentary as to why in this thread.

Jaycan and others could also recommend Avira, AVG, BitDefender, and any number of other programs   

Jaycan and others could also recommend Avira, AVG, BitDefender, and any number of other programs 

Most of the bleepingcomputer staff is not recommending avast and avg anymore, and I agree as its pretty much adware and spyware.

EJ is right about problems with Avast or AVG.  However, if one does the advanced or custom install, one can mostly install only the desired modules.  The adware and spyware -- you need other utilities that deal with such things;

Does anyone know if that program can be made to work on Windows 7 Professional edition?

Please note that my reply was a "generic" reply to the question from RolandJS about Defender on Windows 7 only..

It is my first free weapon of choice on my 8.1 system, but with Win 7 updates to be deleted in the next year I only meant any other free active Antivirus out there..

This means my Windows 7 laptop will need another Free but Active Antivirus to be installed.. and it was written as "like Avast" rather than "use Avast"..

Sorry if anybody mistook this as a direct recommendation !!

It's getting harder to find free, free from license & subscription, free from one-time license, anti-anything, viri, malware, spyware, ransomware.  If anyone finds anything truly free -- start a new thread and we can build on it.

eset