The 3 Best Free Anti-Virus Programs

1.) Having the best Anti-virus doesn’t mean you can click or install anything. There are other categories of infections like spyware, malware etc which might go unnoticed even by the Best Antivirus softwares.

2.) Ensure that your Virus definitions are always up-to-date. This helps you stay abreast with the latest patches.

3.) Complement your Anti-virus with an Anti-Spyware Software installed. This keeps you safe from the spyware and malware softwares.

 1. Avast

Avast is one of the best free antivirus programs; having excellent virus and spyware detection rates according to anti-virus test results from AV-Test.org.

Avast antivirus manages to provide a simple and functional user interface, while also being very customizable and feature complete. The active protection feature monitors seven different ways that a virus could enter your computer, including Web browsing, email, file sharing, and more.

Avast also features scanning on boot up if you choose to do so. That's something you don't want to do on every boot as it takes quite a while. However, if you suspect you have been exposed to a virus or spyware it is the best way to detect and remove active infections.

2. Avira

Avira is another one of the best free antivirus products, but it is not as full featured as Avast. The free version of Avira doesn’t protect against spyware.

Avira has an attractive interface, but it needed more tweaking to get things to function the way one wanted than did Avast. According to AV-Test.org Avira rates slightly higher than Avast for virus detection. However, if the spyware tests were run on the free version of Avira the score would be very low since they reserve the antispyware feature for the paid version.

3. AVG

AVG is the most popular and one of the best free antivirus software products. AVG has a very polished user interface and is easy and comfortable to use. AVG detects both viruses and spyware in the free edition. However, in the test mentioned above the detection rate is a little lower than Avast or Avira.

The main thing that makes AVG slightly worse is the amount of functionality left out of the free version verses compared to the paid version of the software. You still get good basic protection, but Avast and Avari cover more of the infection pathways than does AVG.

All three of these best free antivirus choices can be easily installed and uninstalled. You can feel free to try all of them to choose your favorite.

Source: http://freebies.about.com/od/securityfreebies/tp/best-antivirus.htm