best free antivirus

ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
We get this question so often, it's well worth doing a forum search to see what people have already said.

I agree with SpyderTracks, the built in Window Defender is perfectly good enough for most users.
 
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ragnar28

Active member
I would never have thought windows dewfender would be the answer to this question. Though my knowledge in this department is very limited as compared to you guys so il take your word for it. My go to at the moment is kaspersky free as the best free option. I also use the site it think its called totalvirus or virustotal to check things from time to time. Ive been good sofar ( probably because of windows defender lol )
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
ragnar28 said:
I would never have thought windows dewfender would be the answer to this question. Though my knowledge in this department is very limited as compared to you guys so il take your word for it. My go to at the moment is kaspersky free as the best free option. I also use the site it think its called totalvirus or virustotal to check things from time to time. Ive been good sofar ( probably because of windows defender lol )
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So you trust the Russians to secure your PC more than you trust the Americans? Interesting.

How do you judge how good an antivirus engine is?

Simply looking at the total number of detected 'threats' is a mistake. In a marketplace where 'number of detected threats' is the differentiator, antimalware vendors seek to deliver the greatest number of detections; regardless of whether these are actually malware and not simply bloatware.

In addition, the future of malware protection does not lie in improved detection. It doesn't matter how good your detection engine is, signatures can never detect zero-day attacks and heuristics is a delicate balance between detection and false positives.

The future of malware protection lies in isolation; sandboxing unknown processes so that they can't get at the real computer. As Tony1044 pointed out here https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?60945-Windows-Defender-can-now-run-in-a-sandbox, Windows defender now runs in a sandbox making it near impossible for malware targeting Defender itself to infect the real machine.

Windows Defender also contains some important exploit protection (DEP, ASLR etc.) and some very useful app and browser control features. In short, Defender is an excellent choice for malware protection, and not only is it free but it's built-in to Windows itself.
 
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Tony1044

Prolific Poster
ubuysa said:
So you trust the Russians to secure your PC more than you trust the Americans? Interesting.
Click to expand...

Actually in this case, yes I do.

For anyone that doesn't know the story, Kaspersky fell foul of the US on "spying" charges.

What actually happened, was a contractor at the NSA took exploitation code that he was working on home. This is a huge no-no and anyone whose worked in a high security environment would immediately frown at the idea of that combined with question how the hell he managed to actually exfiltrate the code from the site. As an example, in the UK, high security sites will have USB ports blocked by default and even when you get access, you have to check encrypted USB media in and out each time you use them and cannot have the devices overnight.

But anyway, his home PC - connected to the internet - had Kaspersky on it and Kaspersky's code detected it as being potentially virus-like when it picked up other hacks for Office and sent details of the code back to Kaspersky whereupon it was investigated and found out to be what it was.

On top of that, it's Kaspersky that are responsible for exposing the equation group and their ongoing behaviour. This is a group of extremely high-skilled hackers, with nation-state resources, that have been found to have done things from compromised hard drive firmware to websites - but often done in a fashion that allows individual targeting rather than being "always on".

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ng-tools-by-mistake-pirating-microsoft-office
https://www.kaspersky.com/about/pre...on-group-the-crown-creator-of-cyber-espionage

Edit: By the way, I am not saying that Kaspersky is better than Defender - just when it comes to trust, in this case, I do trust Kaspersky.
 
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ragnar28

Active member
You make some fair points. I also did state my knowledge on this is limited. I also did state my go to, not the est option, simply that i was suprised by windows defender and now by reading your post I am even further impressed. I feel a bit insulted that you would think I judge a AV by the number of threats it detects as I am in marketing I know how that works. I dont know whats the best, your argument for windows defender is quite compelling.

I see a double edged sword by trusting Russians, I am not American so I dont have a natural disposition towards them ( thats stereotyping). Because no matter how you put it they are very talented compared to the average of the rest of the world in this area. Also many of them are hackers ( thats also stereotyping ). Whats the truth ? i dont know.

You have made me reconsider Defender as a option with your post. Should I Speak about it again in the future I will remember what you have said and probably approach the subject differently.
 
Stephen M

Stephen M

Author Level
It is very hard/impossible to say which is the best AV, although common sense comes very high on my list. For freeware, I do a regular system scan with Clam TK, I am not sure how it is with Windows but is cross platform and it has been handy for me. I use torrents a lot (all open source freeware so no need to worry about me breaking forum rules on dodgy downloads Mods :) and I always like to scan after picking up new stuff as even the supposedly good Open Source sites send out nasties.
 
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