How to choose the best Antivirus for Yourself?

There is a huge number of antivirus programs to choose from, so how do you find the best one? Do you use what came with your computer or what your friend recommended? How do you know if it’s any good?

Antivirus test organizations test antivirus products every month, ranking them on their effectiveness, performance, and usability. You don’t have to fly blind when choosing an antivirus; you can make an informed decision.

Free vs. Paid Antivirus Products

One of the first decisions you need to make when choosing an antivirus product is whether you want to spend any money or not. Most antivirus programs are paid solutions that will cost you some money. However, there are many good, free antivirus products. You don’t actually have to spend any money to get solid protection.

Free antivirus products generally have the same antivirus detection features commercial antivirus products do, so they’ll detect and block malware just as well. Paid antivirus products have bonus features and function more as an entire security suite. You’ll get features like an additional firewall, anti-theft tracking, anti-spam features, phishing filters, and so on. These features aren’t really necessary — you don’t really need a full security suite, just an antivirus program.

The free products do tend to nag you. They may display the occasional offer encouraging you to upgrade to the paid version. That’s how they make their money; the free version functions as advertising for their paid version. This is the trade-off you make — you’re nagged a little, but you don’t have to pay a yearly subscription fee.

Stick With Well-Known Antivirus Products

We recommend sticking with a well-known antivirus product from a reputable company. For one reason, the antivirus product will be subject to scrutiny and will appear in antivirus tests, so you can get some idea of how well it performs. If you use a very obscure program, you won’t find many tests for it and you won’t really know how well it’s working.

More dangerously, some malware disguises itself as antivirus programs. “Fake antivirus” malware may use names like Antivirus Live, Advanced Virus Remover, and Internet Security 2010. These forms of malware pretend to be legitimate antivirus products, but are actually malicious and doing nasty things in the background. Choosing an unknown antivirus puts you at risk of getting infected.  Stick with well-known, reputable antivirus software.

Check The Tests

We’ve covered a variety of different websites where you can find antivirus test results. Foremost among these is AV-TEST. AV-TEST performs regular tests of antivirus products, ranking them based on their protection, performance, and usability. This tells you how successful they were at blocking the malware samples given to them, how well they performed while doing so, and how easy their interfaces are to use.

Head over to the AV-TEST site and look at their recent test reports to see how well antivirus products are performing. If you’re already using an antivirus, the tests can show you how well it’s performing. If you’re looking for a new one, you can see the most effective antivirus products and start from there.

There’s no single best antivirus. Even if we could pick a single best antivirus right now, the test rankings vary, so the best one now may not be the best next month.

Windows Defender a.k.a. Microsoft Security Essentials

If you check the AV-TEST site for Microsoft’s free antivirus product — included as Windows Defender on Windows 8, or available for download and as Microsoft Security Essentials for earlier versions of Windows — you’ll notice something a bit surprising. Windows Defender or Microsoft Security Essentials appears at the very bottom of the list with a zero detection rating. It’s considered a “baseline,” so every other product here is ranked as how much better it is than Microsoft’s free antivirus. This is just another way to say Microsoft’s antivirus product was the least effective product tested, according to AV-TEST’s results. Before it became a “baseline,” it was consistently on the bottom of the charts.

What’s going on here? Well, it’s complicated — Microsoft’s free antivirus once did very well in tests and gained a lot of love from geeks. It has fallen in the rankings over the years andMicrosoft has made some contradictory statements, with one Microsoft employee recommending you use a third-party antivirus in an interview and another Microsoft spokesman saying Microsoft still recommends their own antivirus product afterwards.

The reality is that you can get by with Microsoft’s free antivirus if you’re a geek or a knowledgeable computer user who knows what you’re doing. However, if you want the most fool-proof protection possible for yourself or if you’re installing an antivirus program for someone who isn’t too knowledgeable about computers, you’ll probably want to avoid Microsoft’s product and use something more effective.

If you’re using Windows 7 or Windows Vista, bear in mind that the Windows Defender included with these versions of Windows is not an antivirus product. It’s an anti-spyware program that doesn’t protect you from malware. Windows Defender is only an antivirus product on Windows 8, not on earlier versions of Windows.

Don’t Forget Basic Computer Security Practices

Choosing an antivirus product isn’t the end of securing your computer; it’s only the beginning. No matter how good your antivirus, no antivirus is perfect, and the occasional piece of malware may slip through. You’ll want to exercise basic computer security practices so you can keep your computer secure, minimizing your computer’s exposure to malware and reducing the risk that your antivirus will catch something.

Free Antivirus Is not really Free Anymore

Free antivirus applications aren’t what they used to be. Free antivirus companies are now bundling adware, spyware, toolbars, and other junk to make a quick buck.

At one point, free antivirus was just advertising, pushing users to upgrade to the paid products. Now, free antivirus companies are making money through advertising, tracking, and junkware installations.

How They’re Making Money Off Your PC

Here’s a quick summary of the ways antivirus companies are attempting to make money. It’s similar to how “freeware” applications on Windows attempt to make a buck by loading your computer down with junk.

• Changing Your Default Search Engine: Antivirus companies attempt to change your browser’s search engine to one of their own choosing. They then make money when you click ads on these search results pages. This may sometimes be branded something like “secure search,” but you’re actually just using an inferior search engine that makes the company money.
• Changing Your Homepage: Antivirus companies also want to change your homepage, driving traffic to websites that make money by advertising to you.
• Ask Toolbars and Rebranded Ask Toolbars: Many programs want to install the terrible Ask toolbar. Some companies use a rebranded version of the Ask Toolbar with their own name on it, but one that is still the Ask toolbar.
• Junkware: Antivirus companies add additional programs (or “offers”) to their installers that are automatically installed by default. They’re paid by the program’s creator if they can install the program on your system — as much as a few bucks per install.
• Tracking: Antivirus companies track your browsing habits and other personal details about you. Some antivirus companies probably sell this data to make more money, too.

Comodo Free

Comodo tries to change your web browser’s search engine to Yahoo! and bundles the GeekBuddy paid tech support software. It also bundles other Comodo products you might not want, including changing your DNS server settings to Comodo’s servers and installing “Chromodo,” a Chromium-based browser made by Comodo.

As the Comodo-affiliated PrivDog software contained a massive security hole similar to the one Superfish had, there’s a good chance you don’t want a bunch of other Comodo-developed software and services thrown onto your computer.

Ad-Aware Free

Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware pushes “Web Protection” that will “secure your online search” by setting SecureSearch as your web browser’s homepage and default search engine. Despite the name, this isn’t actually a security feature. Instead, it just switches your web browser to use a branded search engine that actually uses Yahoo! in the background — this means it’s powered by Bing.

If you prefer Bing, that’s fine — just use the full Bing website. You’ll have a better experience than using Lavasoft’s rebranded, stripped-down search engine.

Avira Free Antivirus

Avira encourages you to install “Avira SafeSearch Plus.” This is just a rebranded version of the Ask Toolbar, redirecting your search results through a rebranded version of Ask.com’s search engine. if you wouldn’t want the Ask Toolbar installed, you wouldn’t want this rebranded version of it installed either.

ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall

ZoneAlarm also wants you to enable “ZoneAlarm Search” as your browser’s default homepage and search engine, along with installing a ZoneAlarm toolbar that is — once again — a rebranded version of the Ask Toolbar.

Panda Free Antivirus

Panda attempts to install their own browser security toolbar as well as change your browser’s search engine to Yahoo, and its home page to “MyStart,” which is powered by Yahoo. To Panda’s credit, they at least don’t attempt to trick you by offering you a renamed Yahoo search engine or home page.

avast! Free

avast!’s installer also tries to install additional software you might not want. We’ve seen Dropbox offered here in the past, but avast! attempted to install the Google Toolbar when we tried installing it.

Programs like the Google Toolbar and Dropbox are high-quality software you might actually want, so avast! comes out looking very good compared to the other options here. But even avast! has done done some questionable things in the past — witness the avast! browser extension inserting itself into your online shopping.

AVG Free

AVG has its own suite of obnoxious utilities, including the AVG Security Toolbar, AVG Rewards, AVG Web TuneUp, and SecureSearch. AVG has to provide instructions for uninstalling these things.

Oddly enough, when we attempted to install AVG Free 2015, it didn’t want to install any of these things on our computer. Because AVG has offered so many toolbars and other similar things in the past, we’re not sure if this marks a change for them or if it’s only temporary. We’re still wary of AVG’s free product.

BitDefender Antivirus Free Edition

BitDefender offers a stripped-down free antivirus. It doesn’t attempt to install any junkware or toolbars on your system, and we’re not aware of any time in the past that BitDefender Free actually bundled toolbars or similar junk. BitDefender is still pursuing the strategy of attempting to upsell you to the paid product.

MalwareBytes Anti-Malware Free

MalwareBytes doesn’t attempt to install any extra junk on your computer, although the free version doesn’t offer real-time protection. To their credit, MalwareBytes is offering a free tool that’s useful for manual scans — it even picks up and detects much of the adware other programs install — and encouraging you to pay for a more full-featured product.

This tool could be quite useful in combination with another antivirus, like Microsoft’s free Windows Defender or Microsoft Security Essentials solution. But it’s not a standalone free antivirus you can depend on, as it lacks the real-time scanning.

What Antivirus Should You Use?

Even the better antivirus solutions here may be obnoxious. Rather than pushing junkware on you at install-time, they may regularly pop up warnings and other messages, encouraging you to install other software or pay for services. They may be harvesting and selling browsing data and other information, too.

Some antivirus products are legitimately free. Microsoft’s Windows Defender comes with Windows 8, 8.1, and 10. It’s also available as Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows 7. This is a free antivirus product that’s essentially paid for with Windows licensing fees.

BitDefender’s product is currently solid, offering no junk. avast! isn’t perfect and does want you to install additional software, although it is high-quality software. AVG has been full of obnoxious junk on the past but seemed okay when we tried it — we’re not sure what’s going on there, and we’d advise avast! over AVG if you want a free antivirus like these ones.

Paid antivirus are also good options. Kaspersky and BitDefender consistently get better ratings than popular free antivirus applications, so they’re good solutions if you want to pay for something.

How to Run Malwarebytes Alongside Another Antivirus

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a great security tool that’s particularly effective against “potentially unwanted programs (PUPs)” and other nasty software traditional antivirus programs don’t deal with. But it’s intended to be used alongside an antivirus and doesn’t replace one entirely.

If you’re using Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, you should be running it alongside a primary antivirus program to keep your computer in tip-top security shape. But traditional advice is not to run two anti-malware programs at once. Here’s how to thread that needle.

On-Demand Scans

The standard, free version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware just functions as an on-demand scanner. In other words, it doesn’t run automatically in the background. Instead, it only does something when you launch it and click the Scan button.

This version of Malwarebytes shouldn’t interfere with your antivirus program at all. Just install it and occasionally launch it to perform a scan and check for the “potentially unwanted programs” almost no one actually wants. It will find and remove them. Using an anti-malware program as an on-demand scanner is a safe way to get a second opinion.

You shouldn’t have to do any extra configuration here. If Malwarebytes reports some sort of error removing a piece of malware it finds, you could potentially pause or disable real-time scanning in your main antivirus program to prevent it from interfering, and then reenable real-time scanning right after. But even this shouldn’t be necessary, and we’ve never heard of anyone encountering a problem like this one.

(This is the only way Malwarebytes works on a Mac, too. It can’t perform automatic, real-time scans — just on-demand scans. Malwarebytes shouldn’t interfere with other Mac antivirus applications, if you are actually running one.)

Real-Time Scanning

The paid version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Premium also contains real-time scanning features. Malwarebytes will run in the background, scanning your system and files you open for problems and preventing them from taking root on your system in the first place.

The problem is that your main antivirus program is already functioning in this way. The standard advice is that you shouldn’t have real-time scanning enabled for two antivirus programs enabled at once. They can interfere with each other in a variety of ways, slowing down your computer, causing crashes, or even preventing each other from working.

Malwarebytes is coded in a different way and is designed to run alongside other antivirus programs without interfering. It may even work without any further configuration. But, to make it work as well as it possibly can and improve performance, you should set up exclusions in both Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Premium and your standard antivirus program.

To do this in Malwarebytes, open Malwarebytes, click the Settings icon, select “Malware Exclusions,” and add the folder — typically under Program Files — containing your antivirus program’s files.

In your antivirus program, load the antivirus program, find “exclusions”, “ignored files”, or a similarly named section, and add the appropriate Malwarebytes files.

You should exclude these files on 64-bit versions of Windows:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbam.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamdor.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbampt.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamservice.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamscheduler.exe
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\mbam.sys

Exclude these files instead on 32-bit versions of Windows:

C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbam.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamdor.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbampt.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamservice.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamscheduler.exe
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\mbam.sys

For more specific instructions, you might want to perform a web search for “Malwarebytes” and the name of your antivirus program. Or just perform a web search for the name of your antivirus program and “exclusions” to find out how to add those exclusions and exclude the files named on the Malwarebytes website.

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Malwarebytes is designed to run alongside a normal antivirus program so you shouldn’t have to worry about this most of the time — especially if you’re just using the free version. If you’re using the paid version, setting up exclusions can help you avoid problems and maximize your computer’s performance. But even that won’t be completely necessary most of the time.

What’s the Best Antivirus for Windows 10? (Is Windows Defender Good Enough?)

Windows 10 won’t hassle you to install an antivirus like Windows 7 did. Since Windows 8, Windows now includes a built-in antivirus named Windows Defender. But is it really the best for protecting your PC — or even just good enough?

Windows Defender is essentially the latest version of Microsoft Security Essentials, a free antivirus program Microsoft offered for Windows 7. Now it’s built-in, ensuring all Windows 10 PCs have some baseline level of antivirus protection.

Is Windows Defender Good Enough?

Antivirus is already running out of the box. Windows Defender automatically scans programs you open, downloads new definitions from Windows Update, and provides an interface you can use for in-depth scans.

But how good is this? Well, truth be told, Microsoft’s antivirus is a bit behind the others when it comes to comparative antivirus software tests. We’ve sounded the alarm on this before, and we were particularly worried because we had previously liked Microsoft’s antivirus product so much.

Windows Defender has a lot of advantages. It’s built-in, won’t harass you with pop-ups and requests for money, and is lighter than some competing antivirus solutions. It won’t attempt to harvest your browsing data and make money from it, as some free antivirus programs have started doing in an attempt to make a profit.

Overall though, Windows Defender doesn’t provide bad protection. Assuming you keep Windows up-to-date — which happens automatically now — and use an up-to-date browser, avoiding potentially dangerous plug-ins like Java — you should be okay. Windows Defender and with the standard computer security practices you should be followinganyway do a fine job.

Despite the low “scores” offered to Windows Defender by AV-Test — just “0.5/6″ for protection — Windows Defender caught 95 percent of the “widespread and prevalent malware” in June 2015, along with 85 percent of the zero-day attacks. BitDefender managed 100 percent and 100 percent of the tested samples, while Kaspersky managed 100 percent and 99 percent. So, despite the wide difference in scores, Windows Defender still does a solid job. In the past, Microsoft has alleged that it focuses on malware that’s actually prevalent in the real world while the tests aren’t representative and other antivirus vendors tune their products to do well in tests. Microsoft employees don’t generally comment on test results anymore, however.

Windows 10 also includes various other protections introduced in Windows 8, like the SmartScreen filter that should prevent you from downloading and running malware, whatever antivirus you use. Chrome and Firefox also include Google’s Safe Browsing, which blocks many malware downloads.

Windows Defender should probably be fine for most PCs, along with some common sense and other good security practices. However, if you’re regularly downloading pirated applications and engaging in other high-risk behaviors, you may want to skip Windows Defender and get something that does better against the collection of obscure malware samples used to test antivirus software.

Use MalwareBytes Anti-Exploit, Too

We also recommend an anti-exploit program to protect your web browser and plug-ins, which are the most targeted by attackers.MalwareBytes Anti-Exploit is the free program we recommend here. It functions similarly to Microsoft’s own EMET security tool, but it’s more user-friendly and offers more security features. This helps block common exploit techniques, even if they are zero-day attacks that have never seen before. MalwareBytes Anti-Exploit would have blocked all those nasty Flash zero-day attacks you heard of recently, for example. It hardens your browser, plug-ins, and other targets attackers frequently target, defending you against the most common attack techniques rather than attempting to catalog and defend against every known piece of malicious software.

Windows Defender plus MalwareBytes Anti-Exploit is a good, free, low-hassle combination of security programs we recommend to keep the average Windows 10 PC secure. Enterprise Windows 10 PCs would often have Windows Defender running along with Microsoft EMET, but Windows defender and MalwareBytes Anti-Exploit is a better combination for the average home PC.

(MalwareBytes itself is a solid anti-malware program that functions well as a compliment to any antivirus program, including Windows Defender. It finds a lot of the “potentially unwanted programs” (PUPs) and other junkware that a typical antivirus won’t find, but MalwareBytes Anti-Exploit is a separate program.)

But What’s the Best Antivirus?

Okay, so maybe you aren’t happy with Windows Defender. You might want to select another antivirus instead.

If you’re looking for a paid antivirus product, Kaspersky and BitDefender are consistently ranked up there at the top of the various antivirus tests. You might want to do a bit more research orexamine the latest versions of the tests yourself and see which antivirus programs are doing the best. But Kaspersky and BitDefender are both solid, well-respected options if you’re prepared to open your wallet.

If you’re looking for a free antivirus solution, Windows Defender really is fairly solid. But, if you want something else, be sure to avoid installing whatever toolbar or browser extensions the antivirus wants to install. Free antivirus companies have turned to bundling software and harvesting data to pay for those “free” antivirus solutions.

Windows Defender will automatically disable itself when you install a third-party antivirus, and then re-enable itself again if you ever uninstall that third-party antivirus. It’s designed to get out of the way.

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Whatever antivirus you choose, it won’t provide complete protection. If you download and run harmful programs, you’re going to end up in trouble at some point.

Selecting an antivirus that has better protection scores against obscure malware you may never encounter may help make you a bit safer, but other security practices are more important. Ensuring you stay safe and keep your system secure is more helpful.

And, considering the scariest attacks these days are zero-days that use holes in browser plug-ins and plug-ins themselves to compromise your system, MalwareBytes Anti-Exploit will likely offer better real security against the actual most dangerous attacks than a replacement antivirus.