Antivirus programs can be a bit of a racket. Buy it the first time, then it’s good for a year of virus updates, then they hit you up for 80% of the retail purchase price every year. If you don’t pay for updates, and a new virus comes out, the program probably won’t be able to detect it.
The good news is there are several truly free anti virus programs out there that stay up to date, but without the annual fees. The biggest hurdle is finding them, even the places who offer it don’t make it easy (there’s no advertising budget for free products typically). They try their best to herd you into the pay-every-year version. Well I’m here to make it easy! Let’s go over the best ones. They’re either freeware or ad supported. These aren’t “trial” versions that expire, it’s the real thing.
Avira Antivir Personal This is a good one and it has a 4/5 rating over at Softpedia. I’ve had the best results with this over any of the others as far as detection and removal. I was working on someones system and it even got rid of a nasty rootkit trojan with no problem at all.
AVG Free is also good, but recently working on a relatives computer there was a trojan it just couldn’t get rid of (though it was able to identify it).
Avast! This ones been around for years and a lot of people use this.
Microsoft Security Essentials This is another solid choice.
BitDefender is very similar to their commercial products, but freeware.
They have a lot more over at Softpedia, but there are the best truly free ones. I’d recommend stocking up before you get a virus or trojan. Some can hijack the system so you can’t even get on the Internet. I’m not cheap, but I don’t like a business model where you have to pay every year to use a product they already sold you.
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