Free Antivirus You Can Trust. Illustration by I Love Dust. You want security software that’s as close to perfect as possible. After all, if just a single piece of malware slips through your defenses, it can wreak havoc on your PC. The question is, how close to perfect is free antivirus software?

According to our testing, some free antivirus programs do an admirable job of detecting, blocking, and removing malware, but others don’t have what it takes to protect you. For this roundup, we once again teamed up with AV- Test, a well- respected antivirus- software testing lab, to put nine free antivirus programs through their paces. Applying a rigorous battery of tests, AV- Test evaluated all of the packages to see how well each one can withstand both brand- new malware and older baddies, and how well each can clean up a malware mess. In addition, AV- Test performed a number of system- speed tests to determine how much each program will drag down a PC’s performance.

Panda Free Antivirus protects you while you browse, play or work and you won’t even notice it. For stubborn removals try Panda Cloud Cleaner instead. In our 2015 review of the top free antivirus programs we found several we could recommend with the best of these as good as any commercial product.

Panda Internet Security 2016 is a highly respectable antimalware suite with useful frills. Pros A premium-grade malware-scanning engine: Spain-based Panda.

Finally, after installing the programs, we evaluated how easy each one is to use. What Do You Get for Free? Illustration by I Love Dust. Most free antivirus programs are pretty basic: You get the ability to scan your PC for malware when you want to, and most of the products will also continually monitor your PC for malware as they run in the background. But most of them don’t include a firewall or extra features like parental controls.

Most free programs offer a message board where users can discuss problems, but these boards don’t provide professional support. T42 Multimedia Audio Controller Driver. You can find exceptions, however. Comodo, for example, includes a version of its Geek. Buddy software, which lets you work with a Comodo technician to fix issues you encounter. Which Package Is for You? Illustration by I Love Dust.

AVG Anti- Virus Free Edition 2. It’s fast, it blocks brand- new malware ef. Avast Free Antivirus 7 and Panda Cloud Antivirus 1. If you’re looking for something that can serve as a supplement to your current antivirus software, we review three possibilities; of those three, PC Tools Threatfire is a good option: It was the best all- around at stopping brand- new malware attacks in our testing. Threatfire relies solely on what’s called behavioral analysis—how programs behave on your PC—to identify malware, whereas most traditional antivirus apps use either malware definition files or a combination of technologies to stop threats. Since Threatfire is primarily intended to stop malware before the invader causes a problem, you should be sure to install it on a clean PC. Which free antivirus program is best?

Click on the chart. Read how we rate antivirus software. Click on the links below to download your choice of packages, and click on the screens, including the chart thumbnail at right, to enlarge them. It detected 9. 8.

That’s a good score, although a bit short of the best results we’ve seen. AVG was at the top of its class in disabling active malware infections: On our test PC, it de. When we directed it to check 4. GB of data, it sped through the job in 1 minute, 3. Its on- access scanner—which runs when you open or save a file—took 4 minutes, 5.

I like AVG’s main interface, though its advanced settings could intimidate some users. Apart from that caveat, if you’re looking for solid, fast PC protection, look no further than AVG. Avast Free Antivirus.

Avast's Free Antivirus 7 mostly excelled in protecting against malware. Avast’s freebie finished second in this year’s roundup.

Avast Free Antivirus 7 mostly excelled in protecting against malware, it has a versatile interface, and it sped through our battery of malware tests. Avast’s defenses were weakest at blocking new real- world threats: It caught just 7.

Avast did far better at stopping well- known malware, detecting 9. This package cleans up malware infections effectively, as well. The utility also removed all traces of infections two- thirds of the time. The Avast offering won’t slow your PC down much. It completed the on- demand scan test in 1 minute, 3.

Avast’s interface has a lot going on—advanced users will find many settings to toggle. Despite this complexity, it is nevertheless friendly enough that it shouldn’t scare away less- geeky users. Panda Cloud Antivirus. If you think setting up antivirus software should be as simple as possible, Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.

If you think setting up antivirus software should be as simple as possible, Panda Cloud Antivirus 1. Panda stops malware well, and its extremely easy- to- use interface is great for those people who don’t want to tweak all sorts of settings.

Panda blocked 8. 5. AVG. And the Panda freebie outperformed AVG in the malware zoo test by detecting 9. Panda did only a so- so job at cleaning up infections. It detected all active infections on our test system, and disabled 8.

It completely removed infections 6. Panda’s program was far from speedy in some tests. It slowed the copying of files over the network considerably, and its scan speeds were among the slowest we saw: It completed the on- demand test in 6 minutes, 1. If you value simplicity over speed, however, Panda Cloud Antivirus, given its success in detecting malware, makes a good choice. Avira Free Antivirus.

Avira Free Antivirus has an overview panel that, while better than in earlier versions, can still be overly technical. Avira Free Antivirus 2. Avira blocked 7. 0. It also lags in disinfection: Though it found all active malware infections on our test system, it disabled only 8. I’m not a big fan of Avira’s interface.

Its overview panel is better than in previous versions, but the interface remains too technical in places. Also, I noticed that Avira occasionally displays ads. Avira’s results weren’t all bad, however. It detected 9. 9. Its on- demand scan time of 1 minute, 3. Using Avira will by no means leave your PC completely open to malware, but you should consider the higher- scoring AVG, Avast, or Panda first. Next: Microsoft Security Essentials, and more, plus supplementary tools.

Panda Free Antivirus Download. Panda Free Antivirus is a very simple- to- use anti- malware application that resorts to cloud technology to rapidly find and prevent Trojans, worms, viruses, spyware, adware and other forms of malicious activity, without sacrificing PC performance.

It has been warmly received by the user community in the past, and the latest edition offers a more accessible approach to malware scanning and virus detection. Speedy installation with third- party offers. The setup procedure takes little time to finish. However, users should be careful when going through the wizard stages, as Panda Free Antivirus offers to download and install third- party utilities that it does not actually need to work properly. By paying a little attention, they can be avoided. In addition, it automatically creates an entry into the Windows Explorer right- click menu, although this is not mentioned anywhere in the setup.

Basic security measures for real- time protection. Panda Free Antivirus is deployed along with Panda Protection, a centralized app to help you manage all the Panda products associated to your account from a single interface.

In other words, Panda Free Antivirus is active even if you choose not to login to your Panda account or don't own such an account. The antivirus ensures real- time protection against various types of threats. Statistics show the total files scanned and quarantined, along with blocked threats. Users may access the scanning module, monitor active processes for suspicious activity, deflect USB- based virus attacks, as well as create an emergency boot USB drive in case Windows refuses to start. Various scanning modes and customization. Panda Free Antivirus can perform a full checkup on the computer for malware agents, verify only popular hiding areas in critical scan mode, look only into specific directories and drives, as well as quickly scan selected files, folders and drives via the Windows Explorer context menu. Novices may apply the default configuration with optimized settings when performing scan jobs, while advanced users have the possibility of tinkering with this arrangement when it comes to compressed files, behavioral blocking, automatic virus neutralization, alerts, exclusions, and so on.

The real- time guard can be deactivated at any time, while scans can be scheduled to run automatically. Performance and conclusion. Our most recent tests have revealed that Panda Free Antivirus does an excellent job when it comes to identifying infected files while remaining light on system resources. However, it may take a very long time to get rid of them, depending on their volume. The way we see it is that regular users who do not usually explore the depths of the Internet will most likely be satisfied with Panda Free Antivirus, but the adventurers will probably turn their heads to something more reliable.