The Best Available FREE Antivirus Software

Antivirus software is a computer program that detects, prevents, and takes action to disarm or remove malicious software programs, such as viruses and worms. You can help protect your computer against viruses by using antivirus software. Computer viruses are software programs that are deliberately designed to interfere with computer operation, record, corrupt, or delete data, or spread themselves to other computers and throughout the Internet.

Modern antivirus software are designed to combat a wide range of threats, including worms, phishing attacks, rootkits, trojan horses and other malware. The way antivirus software works is done generally by two tactics, scanning and heuristic (educated guess) analysis. Antivirus software mainly uses a virus dictionary that it uses while scanning for matching virus or suspicious activity. These dictionaries need to be regularly updated.

Even if you only use your computer for the most basic functions, as long as you have access to the Internet, it is highly recommended to have antivirus software. Today, there are wide number of antivirus programs available. Each one tends to offer different levels of security. If you are looking for standard protection, there are antivirus programs available for free for personal use. In a poll on www.makeuseof.com, users voted on their favorite (free) antivirus software even amongst some pay-for programs. As of the time of this post, here were the results:

What’s your Favorite Antivirus Software?

• AVG Antivirus Free Edition (FREE) (38%, 267 Votes)
• Avast Home Edition (FREE) (15%, 103 Votes)
• Eset Nod32 (not free) (13%, 92 Votes)
• Avira Antivir (FREE) (11%, 74 Votes)
• Kaspersky Anti-Virus (not free) (7%, 47 Votes)
• Norton Antivirus (not free) (6%, 39 Votes)
• Other (please specify in comments) (4%, 30 Votes)
• McAfee VirusScan Plus (not free) (3%, 22 Votes)
• TrendMicro / PC Cillin (2%, 11 Votes)
• Bit Defender (not free) (1%, 9 Votes)
• PC Tools Antivirus Free Edition (FREE) (0%, 3 Votes)
• F-PROT Antivirus (not free) (0%, 2 Votes)
• Panda Software (not free) (0%, 2 Votes)

Click here to see the full poll results.