With Avast blocking the .wins for "phishing" I think it's time for me to change my anti-virus.
Been thinking about switching anyways, the program spies on what you're doing and then recommends products based on your activities which I find rather creepy.
So what's the best free AV these days?
I have the paid version of Kaspersky and I would say it is worth buying an anti-virus.
Free anti-virus software always means you or your data is the product.
Kaspersky has made a good product and the left irrationally hate them for being a Russian company.
Whenever the left suddenly hates something, it is worth examining it at least.
It's worth remembering that as hysterical as the Left is about Russia, they actually do conduct cyber espionage against the USA. Even if Kaspersky is top notch, that doesn't mean the Kremlin couldn't lean on them to patch in some back door in the future.
I use Malware Bytes for malware, and built-in anti-virus otherwise.
I've used Kaspersky before and like them quite a bit for anti-virus.
Malware bytes is a highly recommended in piracy circles, as it doesn't have alot of the bloat that other ones have and is pretty good at searching as a result. You can still get false positives on files but generally I find it good.
Don't use AVG. it's not a bad product but they spam you with advertisements every few hours reminding you to buy.
AVG is owned by Avast. When you want a free Antivirus that isnt Windows Defender, check out Kaspersky Security Cloud Free
AV are pointless. They don't protect you from what needs protecting. They will never find new viruses because the are not preventative but reactive.
My suggestion. Get a good non-active anti-malware. (Malwarebytes). Scan before you shut down your computer for the night.
I suggest you look in creating a fresh install and get everything how you like your computer. Then image that drive. Every 3-6 months just wipe the drive and restore the image.
You will never have to really worry about viruses and the intrusiveness of anti-virus programs.
Always backup document's you use on the regular.
When I used Kaspersky years ago they had a large amount of preventative features, e.g. analyze the behavior of executable files to find virus-like actions. It was kind of impressive from a technical point of view. Unfortunately all these heuristics generate so many false positives that it gets annoying rather quickly.
I read on the internet, and saw on tv, heard on the radio, and on about every other billboard, and pretty much anywhere else I look that a mask is totally effective at stopping viruses. I guess on a computer you're supposed to put it on the exhaust side of your fan. After all, it's not to protect your computer but to show other computers around that you care about limiting the spread of dangerous viruses.
Oh wait did you mean something else? Sorry, it's the first thing I thought of so I had to get that joke in there. Serious answer I don't really run AV but if I were going to I'd pay up for Kaspersky. I don't trust free software that isn't open source anymore. Particularly not something I'm going to leave running and likely automatically update. The other big names McAfee and Symantec the last time I used both of them it felt like I was being asked to pay them for the privilege to spy on me. If you're set on wanting something free for Windows that isn't the built in defender, I used to run AVG on a big network a decade ago and it wasn't bad. It was dirt cheap for enterprise, but is free for personal use. Web-based malware was rampant back then and it was surprising how much stuff it caught. Also let a lot through, but that was user stupidity for installing malware intentionally not knowing it was malware, not really anti-virus stuff.
I prefer prevention over a cure:
That said I also scan with Malwarebytes every now and then and keep Defender running on Windows.
I'll agree with the people who mentioned Kaspersky being good. Personally, though, I've been using Bitdefender for the last several years without any issues.
Also agree with Lurker404's list of other stuff to do to protect your computer.
Ublock Origin with Steven Black hosts. Also Kaspersky Security Cloud Free, or just Windows Defender when you have Win10
I have Windows Defender as my default AV. I also do regular scans with Malwarebytes and Emsisoft.
I use Malwarebytes to scan things actively, and a lesser known AV called "not being an idiot" for everything else.
What the hell? Screenshot or something? I had no idea this was going on and it is certainly concerning.