Best Anti-Virus?

[Razaron]

Whats the best anti-virus software I can get?

Can I have options for pay and free.

[Thunderball]

It heavily depends on the style you prefer. Depends if you need it only to check the drives from time to time (let's say weekly) and not interfere with your computing or you may need a complete package - antivirus, web traffic guard, firewall, mail antivirus/anti-spam, secure payments, etc.

[Medusa Cascade]

ESET is working well for me

[Aridn]

I use a combination of Windows defender for full time protection, (light an unobtrusive) Malwarebytes for on demand scans, uBlock origin in my browser to avoid clicking malicious links, and common sense.

[Miyagie]

Ad+Scriptblocker + a working brain is all you need.

[Ealyssa]

microsoft free antivirus. Directly integrated in Windows 8 and 10. Free DL avalaible for 7.

Nobody should have to pay for more on windows.

[Rezhial]

Common sense for life!

[Deleted]

common sense + brain

[Cilraaz]

This is one of those questions that gets 50,000 different answers every time it's asked. It's a very subjective question. Even when using objective reports, the answer changes quarterly. Any of the well known names (ESET, BitDefender, Avast, Kaspersky, F-Secure, Trend Micro, etc, etc) are pretty much interchangeable.

[EyelessCrow]

I sell eset to people, mostly because said people don't use common sense. I personally just have MSE, adblock, and a brain and I haven't been infected since I was like 14 (I'm 28)

[Cerus]

Been using Norton products for 20 years. Sure they can be a bit pricey but I've run NIS for many years now on three PCs. In those 20 years I've had zero viruses, key loggers etc.

[Baelic]

Sadly common sense won't 100% protect you either because of factors you can't control. You would have to go live out in the wilderness and not be connected to the internet to get 99.999% safe, cause you could always get something from an outside thumb-drive and friends lan-connected PC.

I've personally used Windows Defender or AVG without too many issues. Gotta say that if you want something that won't bother you at all until it's needed I'd go with Windows Defender.

[Blueobelisk]

If you aren't the CEO of a company, "Adblock + don't run .exe files" is the strongest combo possible.

[Igi]

Definitely not AVG. It's awful. Even as a paid user i get "do you want to install some shit toolbar" message once every two days. Not only it's annoying, it also alt-tabs you out of whatever you were doing. On top of that, avg updates require you to restart your computer. Problem is, "normal" restart doesn't work, you have to wait for the option to pop up and click restart from the avg itself. I'm very close to deleting it.

[Packing an i5]

Pay Bitdefender or Kaspersky

Free Comodo

Honorable mention windows defender (w8/w10) I am very happy with comodo for free right now but for the first few months of windows 10 I just used the built in windows defender.

[Dandine]

Personally I use Kaspersky.

Free option used to use Avast but I'm pretty sure that's gone downhill.

[Iannis]

Big shout out for ESET. Small resource footprint, zero issues running on win 10 pro for 6 months now.

[Roadblock]

Payware: Bitdefender Total Security.

[Vash The Stampede]

Sadly common sense won't 100% protect you either because of factors you can't control. You would have to go live out in the wilderness and not be connected to the internet to get 99.999% safe, cause you could always get something from an outside thumb-drive and friends lan-connected PC.

I've personally used Windows Defender or AVG without too many issues. Gotta say that if you want something that won't bother you at all until it's needed I'd go with Windows Defender.

Common sense is relative, but there's no limit one can take to avoid viruses. The stuff GradeAUnderA has is a pretty good start.



Next thing you can do is run linux. Linux does have viruses, but they're far and few between. Or you could do most of your web surfing in a Virtual Machine, that way a virus infected Virtual Machine means nothing for your main OS. But I avoid running Anti-Virus programs because they're sometimes worse than the virus.

[Razaron]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I used Malwarebytes on free trial and came back clean.

I'm computer savvy guy, just I have a wife who isn't and I worry about it.