Antivirus software is one of the first things you should install on a new PC, and top quality protection can be yours completely free. We've updated our roundup of the best free security software so you know you're getting the very best protection for your data and your personal information.

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It's fair to suggest that built-in antivirus solution, Windows Defender, is the last free AV app you should trust to keep your system clean. Not that it's overtly bad – although it does tail behind just about every third-party antivirus solution – but because it has a big target painted on it for attackers. Windows users who haven't installed something hardier are the perfect hosts for viruses; attack the weak links, attack through the chinks in the one piece of software armour these weak links have by default, and you're in. That's why we've dropped Defender from our list of free antivirus apps in this latest update of our free AV roundup. You need more than it can offer. If you're not running advanced virus detection, zero-day virus protection, anti-malware, anti-ransomware and other security essentials, you're not doing it right and leave yourself open to infections and identity theft.

Once again we've consulted the experts at to find the most effective virus protection, and we've listened to your comments regarding usability, too. Free antivirus without popups, or at least some sort of seedy side, is a bit of a pipe dream – free AV is more of an advert than an altruistic gift.

But we understand that for many of you the constant hassle presented by free AV popups can be a bit much to take – so if you're willing to sacrifice a minuscule amount of antivirus protection in favour of a cleaner experience, we're with you. • Want something better? Then check out the. Scans cannot be scheduled Essentially consisting of the AV section of the full product, clean, light, well constructed scanning mechanisms – which are almost universally faster than the industry average – and unrivalled virus definitions mean it's pushing back towards the top of the tree. AV-TEST's December testing round did pick out a few flaws in its handling of zero-day threats, however.

The free version's insistence on running in autopilot mode is a double-edged sword, making the process of virus management easy but taking it out of the user's hands; while we're inclined to trust it, there have been cases in the past of automatic systems going slightly rogue, such as the incident a few years back when Panda Antivirus identified itself as a virus and locked up a large number of Windows systems. While Bitdefender isn't exactly popup-free – it can be quite annoying, in fact – it's clean, clever, and efficient enough to take our top spot this time. Review and where to download. Includes links to paid-for components Avast and AVG haven't yet fully merged, despite the former formally acquiring the latter in mid-2016. The newly combined company says the two free antivirus products will remain separate, although there's apparently a joint AV package on the way soon.

Obviously, though, Avast now has a lot more data to work with, having expanded its effective userbase (and, therefore, its threat detection network) to a whopping 400 million users. The latest edition of adds an automatic gaming mode to mute popups and reduce system load when you're firing up a processor-hungry game, which is very handy indeed, and the interface has been given a clean new overhaul. There's a password manager, too, which is an undeniably good addition to your security portfolio. It scores well on AV-TEST's widespread malware benchmark and continues a clean sweep against 0-day attacks – presumably that expanded detection network is really helping. Less impressive is the slight negative effect Avast has on software launch times, and its slightly popup-heavy attitude.

Review and where to download. Limited controls for advanced users Marketing itself as 'business-grade security', does a little more than most free antivirus software, and actually seems better suited to families. You get standard antivirus and anti-malware protection, along with browser tools like anti-phishing and, most importantly, content control. Combined with central management of up to 10 PCs, this means you can effectively lock down your kids' browsing options. Although AV-TEST hasn't formally assessed Sophos' skills, fellow lab AV-Comparatives offers a decent rating of its antivirus abilities.

Desktop notifications can be a bit intrusive, though since Sophos Home isn't a direct advert for another comsumer-level product (the company mainly deals with business software) you're not constantly badgered with requests to upgrade. Review and where to download. Limited technical support The paid-for version of Kaspersky's Windows security software frequently tops charts of best antivirus solutions and AV-TEST once again gave it full marks across the board in its latest round of testing. As you would expect, is a scaled down version of the full program, ditching additional features such as privacy protection and safe payment sandboxes to concentrate on powerful, no-frills and - most importantly - free protection for your PC. The result is a tremendously easy to use and navigate bit of software that does an effective job of keeping you protected from viruses. Using the nuts and bolts real-world scanning engine of the paid-for suite, Kaspersky Free is fiendishly hard for viruses and trojan horses to break down. And we love that it doesn't constantly pester you with nudges to upgrade to the full version.

Review and where to download. Lots of popups when running continues to score highly on AV-TEST's stringent testing program, quashing 99.7% of tested threats, and it generally doesn't put too big a burden on your hardware.

It has a clean, friendly interface - with a swish redesign ready for 2018 - and throws up minimal false positives. The introduction of a free security suite to optionally run alongside it – with ransomware and phishing protection, a 500MB/month VPN and various speedup promises – just sweetens the deal.

This is one of the best free antivirus packages of 2017. So why, then, have we dropped it from the top spot on our list, a position it's held for the past two years? It's the constant badgering. There's a certain level of popups and advertisements that's acceptable for a free product, and Avira has begun to cross the line. It's not as onerous as some – Comodo's over-enthusiastic interface comes to mind – but booting up your PC to see Avira shouting at you once again is jarring. Review and where to download. Not the best phishing protection There's a growing trend amongst some online pundits to label antivirus apps like AVG – and, indeed, AVG specifically – as 'crapware'.

We don't subscribe to that definition; if that term is supposed to mean that these apps are ineffective or pointless, it's simply not true. AVG offers (reasonably) effective virus protection for free, and it does so with minimal system impact. If, on the other hand, the derogatory term refers to products which go a little heavy on the advertising and features that don't matter – 's 'tune up' portion, for instance – perhaps the shoe fits here.

Popups or not, it's the antivirus we're most interested in. Looking at AV-TEST's figures, and considering AVG shares the same expanded userbase as Avast, we were a little surprised that its strength doesn't quite match up to its new parent, and anti-phishing tools could use some improvement, too. Speculatively, this could mean AVG's engine is not getting the same love it once did, or that Avast's is slightly stronger – whatever the case, keep your eyes open for the combined Avast/AVG antivirus that's on the roadmap for this year, because both products running in tandem will be just about unbeatable.

Review and where to download. Ace Accounting Software Free Download. Still has a noticeable impact on system resources The eternal battle against popups doesn't exactly start well, with Panda's site throwing a huge banner up shouting about a discount on the full version before you're even allowed to download the free one. Put that aside, however, to look at the software itself: Panda's entirely cloud-based antivirus solution goes about as lightly on system resources as is possible, at least when it's quietly running in the background. But you'll probably find, as AV-TEST's lab did, that has a bigger impact on many common system tasks – installation, copying files, downloading apps – than most of the opposing AV apps.

We also experienced heavy CPU peaks both at random times and when Panda was updating itself. That said, Panda's overall look – which offers calming vistas where other go for plain white or grey – is refreshing, it's incredibly well laid out, and it comes bundled with a bunch of extra features that don't just seem like fluff. It dials itself down even further with a game mode when you need extra CPU speed, offers to immunise USB sticks (handy if you're worried about preinstalled spyware), has a bootable rescue kit in case a malicious program cripples your Windows install, and includes a threat-weighted process monitor. Review and where to download. Plenty of ads The specter of developer Qihoo's seems to be lifting a little these days, and it's hard not to recommend it when you consider exactly what it's offering up for free: AV protection from several concurrent engines (Bitdefender, Avira, and Qihoo's own engines) along with reasonable extras like anti-phishing and a mobile app to help manage multiple systems.

Doesn't bombard you with popups, which many users will love, but we do have serious concerns about its privacy policy, particularly considering that signing up to Qihoo's data-collecting User Experience Improvement program is set as default. The company has no qualms about collecting sensitive information about you, and what it does with it at the other end is anyone's guess. We're also not hugely impressed by its interface.

You'll need to do some fiddling to get several antivirus engines running at once, and doing so with the rather messy UI is not easy. A lot of the bundled tools seem extraneous, and we hit a couple of false positives in testing too. So if you want quiet, strong protection this is a fine option – but you'll need to do some work, and you may have to pay a high price. Review and where to download. Incredibly slow installation proces ZoneAlarm's reputation in the firewall world precedes it, and while that particular aspect of this all-in-one package isn't what we're really concerned with here, it's a solid extra if you don't trust your router or Windows' built-in firewall.

The antivirus engine on offer here is actually licensed from Kaspersky, so although we were unable to find any results from independent testing labs – hence its position this low on our list – it's safe to have at least a small amount of confidence in its abilities. It's well laid out, easy to use, and is your only real option if you want to use the ZoneAlarm firewall alongside any anti-malware app other than Windows Defender. That said, isn't a quiet program, alerting you of every little thing that's been blocked or deflected – some people like that, others will quickly become infuriated.

Best Free Website Downloader Software more. Review and where to download. No proper email protection A new name for what was once Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+, to celebrate its company's rebranding from LavaSoft to Adaware. As another antivirus package with a licensed engine – this time from Bitdefender – and the benefit of Adaware's history in anti-spyware, you'd expect its results to be good. But things aren't so rosy.

This new drops the Web Companion from version 11, which blocked malicious and fraudulent URLs; it now acts only on iffy downloads. There are a host of other promised features, but they're not actually there – placed, tantalisingly, on an interface which very much shouts 'adware' more than it does 'adaware'. Better to go for one of the other downloads on this list rather than be dazzled by its slick, shiny interface. Review and where to download.

Show More Antivirus software is nearly as crucial as a PC’s operating system. Even if you’re well aware of potential threats and practice extreme caution, some threats just can’t be prevented without the extra help of an AV program—or a full antivirus suite. You could, for example, visit a website that unintentionally displays malicious ads. Or accidentally click on a phishing email (it happens!). Or get stung by a zero-day threat, where an undisclosed bug in Windows, your browser, or an installed program gives hackers entry to your system.

We’re not suggesting that PC security software is fool-proof. Antivirus software often can’t do much to stop zero-day exploits, for example. But it can detect when the undisclosed vulnerability is used to install other nasty bits, like ransomware, on your machine.

Anyone who actively uses email, clicks on links, and downloads programs will benefit from an antivirus suite. Our recommendations strike a balance between excellent protection, a worthwhile selection of features, and minimal impact on your PC’s performance.

You can read about how we test antivirus suites below. Note: This roundup was updated to include our reviews of Avira Antivirus Pro and ESET Internet Security. See the bottom of this page for links to all the AV products we reviewed. Best overall antivirus suite. Norton Security Premium still does an excellent job of protecting your PCs, doesn't bother you too much, and has a very easy-to-use interface. Norton protection doesn't come cheap, however, at $110 per year for up to 10 devices.

Is an old name in security, but it has an easy-to-use interface, highly-rated protection, and a number of helpful extra features. It’s on the higher end of the price spectrum at $110 per year (your first year is discounted to $55), but you can install it on up to 10 devices.

(Read our.) Best budget antivirus suite. AVG does an excellent job of protecting your PC. Its interface is not great, but for $70 you can protect all the Mac and Windows PCs in your household, as well as your Android devices. Does an excellent job of protecting your PC, but it’s interface could be a lot better. Nevertheless, with unlimited installs for $70 per year, it’s hard to beat this popular security solution. (Read our.) What to look for in an antivirus suite There are three basic requirements that an antivirus suite needs: • High detection rate for malware and other threats • Low impact on system resources • An easy-to-use interface That’s not all to consider, however.

These days, many security suites come with extras such as a backup service for your most essential files, Android apps for mobile security, a more advanced firewall, family protection (read: child restriction) features, and the right to use the program on multiple PCs. Whether you need those extras depends on your personal situation. How we test First, we take a look at the interface to determine how easy or complicated it is. Does the interface make it easy to get at essential tools like PC scans and password managers, for example, or is everything buried under multiple clicks? Are there elements that look like they should be clickable but aren’t? Are alerts interactive or purely informational, and does that make sense in context? We also examine the features on offer. Every good antivirus suite should have the basics like scanning and real-time protection, but many vendors offer elements that go beyond basic security like password managers or firewalls.

We try to discern whether any of these extra features are particularly useful, or just frills that look nice but don’t serve a practical purpose. To test the suite’s demand on system resources, we run two benchmarks. The first is PCMark 8’s Work Conventional test, which simulates a variety of workloads including editing spreadsheets, browsing the web, and running video chat. PCWorld We run the benchmark before the security suite is installed. Then we install the software, have it run a full scan on our Windows 10 test machine, and start a second run of the benchmark at the same time. Then we compare the overall scores to see if the decline between the two benchmarks is significant.

As a harsher stress test, we also use Handbrake to transcode a video before and after installing the A/V. On most home PCs, this encoding task utilizes 100 percent of the CPU. We then compare transcoding times to see if there’s any significant decline.

Our test machine is an Acer Aspire E15 with an Intel Core i3-7100U, 4GB RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. Each security suite is tested on a clean install of Windows 10 Home. As for the antivirus suite’s detection capabilities, we’ll rely on the opinions of security researchers dedicated to this task. We’ll take into consideration reports from outlets such as A-V Comparatives, A-V Test and SE Labs. We’ll also take pricing into account and what you get for it. Whenever possible we’ll review security suites using a free trial to get a sense of what consumers see when they first try out a new product. Best antivirus: All of our reviews Looking for a cheaper option or something with more flexibility?

Or perhaps you just want to see what else is out there? Below is a list of all the antivirus suites we’ve reviewed.

We’ll keep evaluating new ones and adding them here, so be sure to come back to see what else we’ve tested.