Best Free Antivirus for Windows PC in 2017.

Windows PC users need a good antivirus program to ward off malware attacks, to keep their computers running efficiently and to safeguard their online identities and personal information. Paid antivirus suites have many features to protect children online, manage security on mobile devices, and monitor a computer's firewall, software updates and other features. But some users just don't want to or can't pay a yearly subscription fee for those extra features.If that describes you, you've come to the right place. We've evaluated the most widely used free antivirus programs based on malware protection, system impact, ease of use and useful extra features.

So which free PC antivirus product is right for you? After reviewing six free antivirus programs, Avira Free Antivirus came out on top. It offers excellent malware prevention and the ability to  fine-tune the product to your exact specifications. And, with free add-on software, it has features that rival mid-priced paid antivirus suites. If you'd rather not fuss with settings, then try Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition, which has equally good malware protection but doesn't let you adjust much.

Also Read:What is Overclocking a Computer? All You Need to Know About It.

  

1.Avira Antivirus

The next product is Avira Antivirus which is as popular as the one preceding it in our list. Avira offers a very high level of protection against  both widespread and zero day attacks. Its feature packed user interface might take some time to figure out and slower PCs will experience a slight performance hit during active scans. On AV Test, the software has shown to throttle nearly 99% of attacks and is known not to throw up many false positives. The main reason that this looses out to Bitdefender is by sheer number of popups. We understand that this is a free software and therefore users will be asked to upgrade but there is a number of popups a user will accept before it becomes a pain and Avira seems to have crossed the number.

2.Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition 

Bitdefender's malware detection rate is second to none. The company's free antivirus product covers all the basics, offers a very low system performance impact and, with free add-on software, provides such useful extras as a secure browser and a limited password manager. But Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition's bare bones interface is hard to figure out and offers no customization options you can't even schedule a scan. It is software that's best for users who want a set it and forget it security solution.

3.Microsoft Windows Defender Antivirus

Windows Defender comes with Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, but that doesn't mean you should use it. While its once subpar malware detection rate has been getting better, Windows Defender still came in last among the six products we reviewed, and its high rate of false positives confirmed that ranking. It has a surprisingly high system impact during full scans, and does nothing to protect non-Microsoft browsers from online malware. In addition, it has nearly no extra features. Even if you don't want to pay for antivirus protection, you can do better than Windows Defender.

4.Avast Antivirus

The fuel propelling this product into this list is probably less about the software and more about what happens behind the scenes. As of this article, Avast has acquired one of its main competitors AVG and although the products aren’t entirely merged yet, it does give Avast a much bigger pool of users and consequently a lot more data to work with. The one area where this acquisition has helped, is the software’s ability to detect and protect against zero day attacks which is one of the best at the moment. If you hate popups, the antivirus also comes with a silent mode which will mute them as well as reduce the hit to the system’s performance very useful when playing a resource hungry game or running processor heavy editing software.

5.AVG Antivirus

Last but not the least, we come to the most critiqued name on this list. Over the past few years, AVG has been on the receiving end of a lot of flak more recently being labelled as “crapware”. One thing you should note however, is that though all those criticisms, the final product has always been one of the best free antivirus products available. Even after years of being around, the product offers reliable protecting with minimal system impact. If you have read the entire article, you would also know that AVG has been bought out by another competitor on this list that gives it the same expanded user base and data. While that does not seemed to have helped AVG as much, there is talk of a combined product of both these products which might just blow the competition out of the water.

6.Panda Antivirus 

Panda doesn’t score very highly in respect to popups and ads there exists a banner on their website telling you about the discounted prices even before you can download the free version once you get around that and into the software itself, you will be mighty pleased. Being entirely cloud based, the performance hit is as minimal as it can get while it runs in the background. However, you will notice a significant hit while installation, copying files & downloading apps. Users have also noticed a spike in resource use when the software is being updated. It has an easy to use and fun user interface, with useful extra features and enough customization options to satisfy most users.