There are plenty of free choices, and because they are free,
you can take the time to consider what's the best free solution for your
situation. That's the nice thing about free antivirus; you're not
locked in by your choice. You won't be wasting 40 or 50 dollars if you
decide to switch. Which is best for you can depend on your situation.
Some Lab Results
Most of the independent antivirus
testing labs
charge a fee to the vendors that they include in their evaluations.
That may seem a bit counter-intuitive, but someone has to pay the bills.
ICSA Labs and
West Coast Labs
work with vendors to ensure they reach certification; that's part of
the service. The other labs I follow let vendors know where they went
wrong, but their pre-improvement test scores are what gets reported.
Vendors who publish only a free product generally can't afford to participate in testing. Those with a spectrum of
security solutions
from free antivirus to high-end suite definitely can afford it, but the
free product isn't always what they submit for testing.
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.
For a full explanation of how I boil down test results from six labs worldwide into
star ratings in five categories, please see
How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests
Cleaning Up the Mess
In the lab results chart, you may note that Sophos also gets high marks from the labs. However, the labs aren't testing
Sophos Virus Removal Tool 2.0 directly. This
cleanup-only tool isn't a full
antivirus solution. Rather, it's for use in emergency, when malware prevents installation of a full solution.
Cleanup-only tools tend to be somewhat more aggressive than standard
antivirus. The assumption is that you've already tried something else,
and it didn't work. As a result, they can occasionally cause
collateral damage.
You'll want to make sure the vendor's available to help in that case.
Panda offers full tech support, up to and including remote-control
remediation, even for
Panda Cloud Cleaner. Comodo will do the same for paid products, but not for
Comodo Cleaning Essentials 6.
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.
I've had to curtail my use of actual malware-infested virtual
machines for testing, as I can't guarantee they won't bring in other,
worse threats, malware that could cause damage outside my testing
regimen. An opportunistic infestation of
GameOver Zeus that appeared in one of malware-infested virtual machines
was my wake-up call. Testing these cleanup-only tools will be harder
going forward; I'm working on it.
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.
More recently I've added a new test that relies on a super-fresh feed of malicious URLs from
MRG-Effitas.
I specifically use URLs that point to executable files, since that
makes measuring success easy. If the antivirus doesn't block access to
the URL or quarantine the file on download, it failed.
I've only tested seven products this way, and only three free ones.
As more results come in, I'll give more weight to this test. It's worth
noting that the highest
scores so far, 79 percent, went to
avast! Free Antivirus 2014.
For a more complete explanation of my hands-on malware blocking test, please see
How We Test Malware Blocking.
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.
No Excuses!
Clearly there are plenty of choices for free antivirus protection, some
of them quite good. The nicest part is, if you're not fond of the free
antivirus you've installed, you're free to replace it. You'll definitely
find something to like from among these products.
Dr. Ashwini Kumar Sharma
