The Best Free Antivirus for 2014

[bananas]

Last edited Fri Jan 24, 2014, 11:59 PM - Edit history (1)

Some of the free products are clean-up only, some have real-time protection, some include a firewall.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388652,00.asp

The Best Free Antivirus for 2014

Not using antivirus protection isn't just a personal choice, as your unprotected computer could be used as part of a botnet or DDoS attack. There are plenty of free antivirus tools, some quite good, so protect all of your computers now.

Neil Rubenking By Neil J. Rubenking
January 8, 2014

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The chart below summarizes recent lab results for vendors whose product line includes a free antivirus and for which lab results are available. If the Bitdefender technology that was tested is actually found in Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition (2014), that's quite impressive, as Bitdefender scored super-high in just about every test. AVG AntiVirus FREE 2014 did quite well, and in a number of the tests it definitely was the free edition under testing.

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http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/34/0,1462,sz=1&i=344368,00.jpg

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Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.70 remains PCMag's Editors' Choice for free cleanup-only antivirus. In my hands-on testing, I didn't get a chance to explore what tech-support options were available, because it just did the job quickly and efficiently, with no collateral damage. AVG also did well in that test, but getting it installed on my malware-infested test systems required a lot of help from tech support.

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Real-Time Protection
If your computer isn't afflicted with malware, or if you've taken care of the infestation using a powerful cleanup tool, it's time to set up a protective perimeter, so no new malware can get in. In my hands-on tests of malware protection, AVG and Avira Free AntiVirus (2014) scored highest, with 9.4 points and 97 percent detection.

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Free Suites
Two of the products I've included aren't technically free standalone antivirus tools. Both Comodo Internet Security Premium (2013) and ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall 2013 include firewall protection and other security suite features. But really, if you need free antivirus protection, why not grab a free suite?

It turns out this isn't necessarily a great idea. ZoneAlarm's firewall is the Editors' Choice in its category, but the antivirus component doesn't match its quality. If you're after a free suite, Comodo is a better choice. You might also choose to combine ZoneAlarm's firewall with AVG for antivirus.

More recently, I evaluated the unusual FortiClient 5.0. Though it's designed to work with a network appliance, it actually works fine as a standalone. In addition to antivirus protection you get Web content filtering and a built-in VPN client. Note, though, that if you run into trouble you won't get remote-control remediation from tech support. That level of support requires a contract.

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[customerserviceguy]

1. I've liked AVG

for ten years, from the time someone told me about it. It really hasn't let me down.

[bananas]

2. I didn't know Bitdefender has a free version

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2421252,00.asp

Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition (2014)

editor rating: excellent
11 comments

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Bitdefender Free is clearly meant to be as unobtrusive as possible. There's no configuration required, none at all. The most you can do is turn off real-time protection and turn off the background automatic scan—but why would you do that? The main window is tiny, and it vanishes any time you click on another window. If the real-time protection or the background scanner find and fix any problems, you'll get a transient balloon notification near the product's system tray icon. This makes it a great choice for those who want an antivirus that just quietly does its job.

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[starroute]

3. I've been swapping anti-virus programs around all week

I was having problems with Avast, so I switched to AVG. I then noticed that I was suddenly unable to download emails from my Gmail account, so I tried Bitdefender. That didn't help, so I did some more checking around and decided that the email problem involved unannounced changes by Google that had nothing to do with my anti-virus but meant I had to reconfigure my email program.

At any rate, I've got Bitdefender at the moment, and if that doesn't work out I'll go back to AVG. Both seem okay.

[cprise]

4. Check this out

Detection-based security is on the wane. Here is one of the more robust alternatives, a hypervisor desktop:

Qubes is an open-source operating system designed to provide strong security for desktop computing...

http://qubes-os.org/

It needs more feature-rich processors to run fully secure (see the project's compatibility list) but I can attest it does work.

Here is some more:

http://qubes-os.org/trac/wiki/QubesArchitecture
Qubes Architecture Overview

Qubes implements a Security by Isolation approach. To do this, Qubes utilizes virtualization technology in order to isolate various programs from each other and even to sandbox many system-level components, such as networking and storage subsystems, so that the compromise of any of these programs or components does not affect the integrity of the rest of the system.

Qubes lets the user define many security domains, which are implemented as lightweight Virtual Machines (VMs), or “AppVMs.” For example, the user can have “personal,” “work,” “shopping,” “bank,” and “random” AppVMs and can use the applications within those VMs just as if they were executing on the local machine. At the same time, however, these applications are well isolated from each other. Qubes also supports secure copy-and-paste and file sharing between the AppVMs, of course.

[riqster]

5. I run AVG, malwarebytes and Spybot S&D.

All free. Works great.

[1StrongBlackMan]

6. What is "cleanup-only antivirus"?

[bananas]

7. Disinfect an infected computer.

No antivirus program will stop all viruses.
And viruses tend to install a bunch of malware once they infect a computer.
Malwarebytes is the best for cleaning up the infection and malware.

Malwarebytes offers real-time malware protection for a small one-time fee of around $35.

However, they are moving to a yearly subscription fee, so you should get the lifetime subscription soon, preferably a retail boxed CD instead of online.

They emphasize that it isn't an antivirus program, that it's complementary to an antivirus program.

http://hothardware.com/News/Malwarebytes-Releases-Public-Beta-of-AntiMalware-20-Software/

Malwarebytes Releases Public Beta of Anti-Malware 2.0 Software
Sunday, February 02, 2014 - by Paul Lilly

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The bad news is that Malwarebytes is moving to a subscription licensing model that runs $24.95 per year (valid for up to 3 PCs).

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If you already purchased a lifetime license for version 1.x, Malwarebytes says it will also apply to version 2.x. There will also be a few thousand more lifetime licenses offered when version 2.0 launches. In the meantime, you can grab the beta here and view a list of known issues here.

[1StrongBlackMan]

8. Thanks.

[1StrongBlackMan]

9. Okay ...

Maybe you can help me.

I have Microsoft 8.0 (hating it). I can't get to the Store to download MSE. Whenever I click on Store, the screen just flips back to the Start screen.

What gives?

[pscot]

10. Why do you need one

if you have MS Security Essentials? I've been using it for about 3 years now, and it's less annoying and more effective than any anti-viral I've tried. Let it auto-update, and it's basically set it and forget it. And it's free.

[DavidDvorkin]

11. That's what I use, too.

[bananas]

12. I just posted an explained in the other thread.

You'll also see other DUers praising malwarebytes in the other thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=716663