If you are looking for the best protection against viruses, spyware and rootkits, you need search no further than the free editions of antivirus and antispyware software easily downloadable from the internet. The best selling home and office security kits all have free online editions, and most of them do just as well at scanning and removing malware from your computer. If however, you are looking for something more substantial than a onetime scan and removal, and this would include updated virus definitions and customizable browser security functions, then you will need to get one of the complete paid suites.
What the free antivirus software essentially does for you is give you an inclination of which one makes it to your top notch in terms of user interface, unobtrusiveness (a major no-no if it fills up the screen with notifications or disrupts the browsing experience with repetitive pop-ups) and most importantly, how far it can be customized to include parental controls, block out suspicious sites and utilize adaptive behavioral blocking and analysis. Here is a list of the best antivirus kits that we’ve brought out for the internet user:
Avira Antivir Personal Edition – great package and light on resources, but does not include browser or email security. Fairly effective against known infections and easy to operate with its intuitive interface.
Microsoft Security Essentials – has a good detection rate for rootkits and shows few false positives. Minimal user interaction makes it a popular antivirus, though it can take up the computer’s resources while scanning or installing updates.
Avast Free Antivirus – a class apart for its full real time capabilities that include web, mail, boot time scanning and behavioral blocker. The only department where Avast falls short is on the customizable features and limited sanboxing.
Panda Cloud Antivirus – this lightweight piece of freeware is fairly good at spotting false positives, is extremely fast with an approximately 8 minute scan, though the installation is slightly slower. You can even get a custom version of the latest paid download at the Techvedic support center. Most importantly, the software’s integration with Panda Cloud makes it one of the most capable antivirus software on zero day virus attacks.
Kaspersky – the world leader in protection and security software gets you all the essential security components in the free download, although this is definitely worth the purchase for its added applications and extensive web security. It even lets you configure a personal firewall!
Malwarebytes – download it, run it, and you can even carry it around in a pen drive to fix malware problems on other systems. Its surprisingly effective, runs without your even knowing it, and can multi task too. Remove unwanted registry keys and edit startup programs with Malware bytes’ first-glance usability.
These are what is called third generation antivirus software, which basically means that they do not just rely on known signatures to identify and elimate web threats, but utilize the user’s behavioral pattern and block out suspicious files or mails. Most spyware is written into legitimate applications executable on your computer, but these seemingly harmless programs may cause you to lose personal and financial information or corrupt the system. Spyware is also delivered through spam mail, rootkits and via instant messengers.
The simplest way to ensure that your computer is safe from the ever increasing rate of web threats is to engage an Online technical support service to professionally configure one of these on your computer. You can even get your personal and office networks secured through such an on-demand service. It’s cheap, effective and you may even get a custom version with the service.
