Best Free Antivirus Software

Internet is a place where information is shared across the globe. The information may be relevant or irrelevant, but if the information is malicious and is spreading fast across a network, it is termed as virus, which is definitely something that raises concern. That is where antivirus software comes into picture. An antivirus software offers protection to a network, to a system against viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware, adware and other system crashing programs. In earlier days, when antivirus software were just made, they were designed to detect certain kinds of viruses and remove them. However, today they have a lot of add-ons associated with them, like free adware removal tools, firewalls etc.

Best Free Antivirus Software Reviews

Here are some of the reviews on best free antivirus software that can help in ensuring a tight network security against malicious software.

Avira AntiVir Personal Edition
This is one of the most sought after antivirus software, which has been quite efficient in safeguarding the system against virus, spyware and rootkit threats. Being a light weighted software, downloading it will not slow down your system, unlike what the other bulky anti virus programs do. Be it any virus or a malware detection, this program does it quite quickly. However, every software comes with its share of shortcomings and Avira too has one. It does not have web or email scanning control. It implies, it may not detect an infected email but can delete the software, if the infected file is opened. But still, this software is considered one of the best antivirus software, due to its small size and versatile detection of malicious software across the network.

Microsoft Security Essentials
Microsoft Essentials is a product of Microsoft, with excellent features like quick scan, auto updates, customized action and scan, scheduled scan and full system scan. It is free, downloadable and east to configure. No registration is required. Besides the documentation for guiding the use of this software is excellent. Once downloaded, it runs peacefully in the background. Also, it has a sturdy firewall like Agnitum Outpost, which is also available free with the package. This antivirus software is best suited for Windows Vista, Windows 7 (32/64 bit users) and Windows XP (32 bit users). The only drawbacks are lengthy amount of time to quarantine malware and a slow scan speed. And an important thing to remember here is, Microsoft Security Essentials requires a genuine copy of Windows, for installation.

Avast
One of the indisputably popular antivirus software, it offers a tough competition to the above two programs. This has added features like web and email scanning, IM, P2P and network shields and boot time scanning. It has a facility of having on demand scans with other antivirus programs. These on demand scans can be run regularly to safeguard the system against key loggers, Trojans, viruses etc.. Besides, it completely scans the root kit and the hard drives before the operating system is loaded. However, for dial up users, there may be issues with the large update sizes.

AVG Anti Virus Free Edition
AVG antivirus software is yet another effective program to protect the system against hackers, phishing scams, adware and other malware that get transmitted through email or IM. The unique feature that it provides with, is the Identity guard, which helps in identity theft protection. For instance, if any of your personal and confidential information is compromised, then this feature will help by all means, to recover the stolen information. With many packages being included in this program, this software has become bulky and at times, the user may experience a slow scan speed and some advertisements (which can be disabled).

Comodo Internet Security, the new version of Norton (Norton 2010) and McAfee are also good known sturdy programs, which help in safeguarding your network against malicious software. So, hope the above reviews on best free antivirus software have helped you in choosing the one, which suits your system best! Happy Surfing!