There is a ton of Personal Antivirus to choose from and although I list as many as possible, I recommend Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows users – It is completely free and made by the same people who make your operating system. It runs smooth, doesn’t prompt you with ads and once installed, you’ll barely notice it’s running. Also comes with antispyware and protects against other forms of malicious software.
For those of you not using Windows or not satisfied with my recommendation, here is a list of personal antivirus that is completly free:
AVG Antivirus
With AVG Free Antivirus you get anti-spyware and link scanner. I used AVG for personal use for a long time, right up to when Microsoft released security essentials. It’s an excellent package and does the job.
A note about link scanners – it’s a great way to detect phishing sites, but I don’t like the idea of every single site I visit being reported to AVG which is how it works; when you visit a site, that address is sent to AVG to cross check with known phishing (malicious) sites before you see the content.
Mcafee Antivirus Download Free
There is a lot of confusion over this software. McAfee offers a 30 day trial of their antivirus software, but it’s not free (download is, software is not : ) and if you don’t buy, you’re left with uninstalling the software. For this reason, we don’t include them in our list.
Avira AntiVir Personal Antivirus
Avira offers a free product for home use called AntiVir Personal Antivirus which provides basic protection against viruses, worms, trojans and ‘some’ spyware.
Site: free-av.com/en/products/index.html
Avast Antivirus Protection
Avast, like Avira, offers virus protection and home users only. They also offer full versions for a price – it’s called Avast! Professional. I have not used avast, but it has been around for awhile and thought I would mention it.
Site: avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html
If you know of a free antivirus that should be included, please leave a comment and we’ll consider adding it to the list.
Panda Cloud Antivirus, is it any good or just using the Cloud buzzword to stand out?
Here is a list of firewalls and antispyware that you could look at. Some are free, some are try and buy and some of the personal antivirus you have to pay for, but thought you would enjoy the list.
Avast Antivirus
AVG Antivirus
Avira AntiVir Personal
Ad-Aware
Bullguard Firewall
Kaspersky Internet Security 2010
MalwareBytes Anti-Malware
Microsoft Security Essentials
ESET NOD32 Antivirus
F-Secure Internet Security 2010
Panda Antivirus on 32-bit Operating Systems
SpyBot
Spyware Blaster
Webroot Spy Sweeper
Norton Internet Security
Norton 360
Norton AntiBot
McAfee VirusScan
Trend Micro Office Scan
Trend Micro Browser Guard
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A-Squared
Ad Muncher
Adobe InDesign CS3, CS4
Agnitum Outpost
AhnLab V3 Internet Security 2007
Anonymizer
AOL Safety and Security Center
AutoCAD
Avanquest
AVG Rootkit Alert
BitDefender
CA Internet Security 2009
Cisco Security Agent
Citibank BHO
Comodo
CounterSpy
CyberDefender
eEye
Gdata
Generations Family Tree
GeSWall
GreenBorder
GuardedID
I Hate Keyloggers
IE Tab (Firefox add-on)
Intego Internet Security Barrier X6 for Macintosh
Kaspersky
Keyscrambler
Lenovo VeriFace
Mamutu
McAfee
Norton Password Manager
Panda Internet Security 2010
Pando IE Plugin
PC Tools iAntiVirus for Macintosh
PC-Tools
PrevX Safe Online
Rising Antivirus
Sandboxie
Sophos
Spybot
Spyware Terminator
Sunbelt personal Firewall
Sygate
Trend Micro
Windows Defender
Windows Live OneCare Firewall
ZoneAlarm
ZoneAlarm + Avast (Combined)
I am using IO Bit Security 360 and so far it seems to be quite helpful and I don’t find it slows up the computer as others have…. What is your take on this software? Here is a link to their site index. They offer various free software which at present I have installed all of the ones available for my computer maintenance needs.
Please let me know what your take is on this…