There are various paid antivirus programs available that safeguard your Windows PC. However, not all of us would want to pay the yearly subscription. If you are looking for free and yet effective protection for your computer, you have certainly come to the right place. We have tested and analyzed some of the most popular free antivirus programs based on various parameters.
If your computer is connected to the Internet it is always at the risk of malware attacks. The malicious files are able to sneak into your computer and bring along with them the viruses, malwares, and Trojans. This is why your Windows computer needs an effective antivirus program to thwart the malware attacks and to optimize the performance. With the effective antivirus software in place your personal information, data, and identity remain safe.
Want to know which is the best free antivirus program for you? Here is the quick rundown of some of the most widely used free applications for you.
Best Free Antivirus Programs
How to evaluate?
We install and ran these free antivirus programs on the same machine at different times. Each program was thus tested based on the following parameters:
- Ease of installation
- Ease of use
- Interface
- Performance Impact
- Time taken for quick scan
- Time taken for full scan
- Additional features
- Frequency of the prompts to upgrade to the paid version
1. Avira
- After the careful evaluation of the free antivirus programs, we could confidently conclude that Avira must top the list.
- This antivirus program is highly effective, user friendly, fast, and comes with the additional feature of web tracking protection.
- There is no wonder why it is about to reach 500 million downloads. Avira has the cloud based pool of security.
- This means that if you encounter a new virus, every other user of Avira, no matter what corner of the world they live in, will be able to detect it.
- If your computer is a bit old and slow, you may face some performance issues.
- However, it works wonderfully with the new computers and Windows OS.
- It provides protection against the most common as well as lesser known malwares.
- It offers loads of features and some useful customizations.
2. AVG
- Over the years, AVG free antivirus program has evolved dramatically.
- It now comes with a much advanced malware-detection and easily rivals the leaders such as Avira.
- You could notice some performance hiccups, but if you have the good PC configuration you may even miss the performance impact.
- The extra features are limited but there are many customization options.
- What might discourage you to continue using this antivirus program are the frequent prompts for paid upgrade.
3. Panda
- Panda is packed with a useful malware-detection system.
- However, what’s frustrating is that it regularly flags even the innocuous files as malwares.
- However, it does have a very user friendly interface with lots of customization options.
- Impact on the system-performance is barely noticeable.
- It does not have too many additional features and you presence of too many ads may fluster you.
- Also, Panda tends to be a little browser intrusive, always trying to tweak the settings to its own likings.
4. Bitdefender
- The malware detection feature of this free antivirus program is truly unmatchable.
- The free version of the program provides all the basic protection you can think of.
- The impact on the performance system is very low.
- It also allows you to download some free add-on programs for additional security.
- But, the reason why it isn’t a close contender to Avira or the first spot is because its interface is quite complicated.
- It also does not offer any customization. The free version does not even let you schedule a system scan.
- If you are the kind of person who wants an antivirus program that runs inconspicuously in the background, this is the one to go for.
 5. Avast
- Avast is a free antivirus program with a very user friendly interface and nearly no performance impact.
- It also has several customization choices and additional features.
- However, its antivirus protection is not even close to the other programs we have evaluated but you get free virus protection.
