Which of the free antivirus softwares is the best?
Antivirus (or anti-virus) is a type of software used to prevent, detect,
and remove any type of malware, including virus, trojan horses, worms, spyware, adware, dialers, keyloggers and rootkit infections.
There are many antivirus software products that can be downloaded and used for free.
In many cases, free antivirus can offer more or less the same protection as a paid product. Combined with firewall, it provides sufficient
security for whatever kind of user.
It is not easy to say clearly which antivirus software is the best of all. The comparison we provide here is extracted from multiple
internet resources (forums, blogs), computer magazines and our own experience.
Presented results are partly subjective, it is not possible to decide objectively which layout is better and which is worse.
Here is the final chart:
Best free antivirus chart (2011/01)
Rank
Name
Score
1.
Panda Cloud Antivirus
+ best malware detection (99.2%)
+ almost no system resources needed
+ inovative cloud concept
+ no updates needed
- avarage infection removing
- needs internet for maximum performance
95%
2.
Avira AntiVir Personal
+ very good detection rate (98.9%)
+ predictive 'heuristic' detection
+ scan speed
+ frequency of automatic updates
- pop-up ads
- old interface
94%
3.
Microsoft Security Essentials
+ infections disabling
+ good predictive detection
+ user-friendly layout
+ needs minimum system resources
- decent detection rate (96.3%)
- scan speed
91%
4.
Avast! Home Edition
+ very good detection rate (96.2%)
+ web traffic scan
+ scan speed
- outdated interface
- registration needed (free)
89%
5.
AVG Free
+ very few false positives
+ web attack blocking
+ e-mail scan
- average detection rate (95.8%)
- average on-demand scan speed
85%
6.
PC Tools Antivirus Free Edition
+ needs few system resources
+ layout
- poor overall detection (85.3%)
- no spyware detection
- poor predictive detection
- no automatic updates
73%
Links for downloading of these free products can be found
HERE.
This comparison chart will be updated when new versions with significant changes will be available
(or when a new free antivirus software will be produced).
