Viruses, that feared enemy of any device with an operating system, but with special mention of Windows although no system is exempt from these Trojans. When we buy a computer we only think about browsing, playing, downloading content or working, we think that the computer does not need protection programs to function correctly and it is like that at the beginning.
Some time and many downloads later is when we can begin to notice problems in the computer, all those uncontrolled downloads, those visits to all kinds of pages and the simple habit of using pendrives that have passed through many other computers can lead to your computer all class of malicious files capable of weighing down your computer to make it totally useless. But the problem is not just a loss of performance, too we may make our files or personal data available to third parties who could steal important information from us. Let's see which are the best that we can find completely free of charge.
Is it better to pay or use a free option?
It all comes down to a huge database, which the companies behind these programs constantly update in order to keep all the malware threats that may haunt our team at bay. In this way, no matter how new the virus is, our antivirus will be able to deal with it.
But also the effectiveness of these antivirus against malware is important, or the impact on the performance of our computers, since some of these programs could slow down our system a lot due to the high consumption of resources that it does in the background. We must also take into account the ease of use or how intuitive its interface is.
In this respect, a free antivirus competes on equal terms with its paid counterparts, achieving the same effectiveness against viruses and the best performance and usability scores.
The difference is made by the extra and advanced options that we can search for companies, but for personal use we will not notice any difference except in the pocket.
Avast Free Antivirus
We started strong with what is considered the king of free antivirus, it can never be missing from a list of the best free antivirus on the market. A program that, according to experts in the field, offers the maximum in terms of security, at the height of others that are paid and above many other options. In addition to this, it obtains the best results in terms of usability, so it is an effective program.
If we add to this that it is very easy to handle, configure and understand when a warning of a possible threat occurs and that all this is causing the least possible impact on the performance of our computer. This undoubtedly makes Avast the best possible antivirus for our computer, but so that it does not become so short we are going to give more options because others may seem better or more attractive.
AVG Free Antivirus
AVG has a free version but also a paid version. The free option has malware analysis of all kinds, real-time updates, link blocking, downloads and also performance analysis of our team.
It is somewhat more limited than its paid version, but at the security level they are exactly the same, so it is difficult to advise its payment. An unsurpassed level of security according to many experts, with ease of use and configuration as major attractions and without hardly obstructing the performance of our equipment.
Kaspersky Antivirus Free
As in others, we have a paid version and a free version, in the free version we will not have to worry about possible performance losses due to excessive consumption of resources, since the impact is totally innocuous.
This program offers us total protection against all types of malware and has specific protection tools for our most important information. Although it is not the best of the free antivirus that we have, its paid version is among the best possible paid antivirus.
Bitdefender Antivirus Free
An excellent option for users looking for an antivirus scanner that does not complicate things after installation. It is designed to run completely in the background, it will only show us essential notifications in case of some kind of suspicious activity. The analysis, detection and removal of malware is carried out automatically.
The scanner is really fast, managing to process all files and folders in just a few minutes after startup.. It has anti-fraud and anti-phishing protection functions, it marks them and alerts you as soon as it detects them to prevent data theft. If you are looking for a good, hassle-free background scanner, this option should definitely be among your favorites.
Free Panda Antivirus
The national option could not be missing from this list, it is a Spanish company based in Bilbao and Madrid. In addition to that, it obtains one of the most awarded technologies in the sector.
It is popular due to its ease of use, interface, and unique design. But the main reason comes from its virtual private network (VPN). A VPN works by forwarding your internet connection to a secure server. All the data that enters and leaves your computer is in crypt, which prevents Trojans from accessing your internet traffic. This level of security is highly recommended if we use public internet networks.
While panda's VPN network is free, but limited to 150MB per day. So it will only serve us to navigate and use the mail. If what we want is to protect us against downloads, we must go to its paid version.
Why use any of these instead of Windows Defender?
Windows Defender in general computing is a very good product for basic needs, it will detect the malware and protect us from it as other programs do. But it does not offer protection against many other types of threats such as ransomware or fraud.
Many free options, even some that do not appear on the list such as Avira will protect us against everything that Defender protects us and many others that do not. So it's better than nothing, of course, but I don't recommend leaving our security in your hands.