Battle Bitdefender Free vs Kaspersky Free vs Sophos Home Free vs 360 Total Security Essential

[Andrew999]

Bitdefender Free vs kaspersky Free vs Sophos Home Free vs 360 Total Security Essential what do you think is better? I want something that is going to be light on my hard-drive. Because some AVs constantly accessing my hard-drive especially when I am playing games. Cloud protection is better for me especially since I always have a internet connection. These seem my best options that I like. Good web protection and nice UI in my opinion.

 

[amico81]

My opinion: bitdefender free. Why? No Ads, good signatures and with atc (proactive detection). Kaspersky free and sophos don't have a behavior blocker.

 

[The paranoid one]

I have installed BitDefender on a partition and on another I have Kaspersky

Bitdefender free + SecureAPlus or Voodooshield is great, however Kaspersky, lacking BB, has to be accompanied by Comodo Firewall (proactive) or similar, to ensure a very good defense.

One thing I really like about Bitdefender free is that if I run a virus on my virtual machine with, for example, Qihoo, is Bitdefender from the host system that annuls outgoing malware connections.

Sophos is fine, but in my ranking would be:

• Bitdefender
• Kaspersky
• Sophos

I have been a user of Qihoo, but it is way below the other options, I do not currently contemplate this option

 

[Evjl's Rain]

although KFA doesn't have a BB, it has >>>> signatures and cloud system than BD free
BD usually has delayed signatures with so-so BB and poor cloud implementation for some reasons
I feel the BB in BD free is not as effective as the paid version and according to their website, it lacks BD Photon = cloud scanning. I saw the word "cloud" detection in BD free in just 1 occasion, Otherwise, the detection rate is relatively nowhere near KFA
Although BD free has a BB, the end results might be worse or about the same as KFA

a lack of BB doesn't matter if you have a good second layer such as VS, SAP, Appguard, CF or other anti-exes

about the lightness, KFA wins but with proper tweaking

sophos: I haven't tested it yet so no comment

Qihoo: it has been going downwards significantly in the recent year. With all engines enabled, the tested system rarely got Protected or Clean Status. The cloud detection is simply poor and frequently misses old samples. Its BB or HIPs only work great against ransomwares but poor against other types of malware

 

[212eta]

Bitdefender Free vs Kaspersky Free vs Sophos Home Free vs 360 Total Security Essential

Kaspersky Free for its overall Protection (= Detection + Removal)

 

[bribon77]

I haven't tried Bitdefender or Sophos. If I've tried Kaspersky with all sorts of malwares and I think it's very good.

 

[Countryboy_MN]

I've tried Bitdefender Free and it worked really well for me. Sophos Free was a little heavy on my system. Can't speak for the other programs as I haven't tried them.

 

[Local Host]

Kaspersky Free because it has the same detection database as paid products with no delay, is light on resources and offers lots of customisation.

Bitdefender Free lacks customisation although it has a behaviour blocker, it's also more heavy on resources than Kaspersky Free and the database updates are delayed!

360 Total Security Essential should be avoided due to it's Chinese origins (privacy concerns), it has below average detection rates and behaviour blocker.

Sophos Home Free is only useful for on-demand scans it's malware blocking abilities are below average, so it should be avoided as a Real Time Anti-Virus.

 

[Sunshine-boy]

Sophos home is good but weak against ransomware so Sophos home+Appcheck or ransom off would be good.
The good point with Sophos home is it has no adware or anything bad it's jsut an av also consider it has good web filtering and maybe the best I have ever seen
I don't like bd free because the Bd don't care about the free version
kasper sky is also good and it has the best cloud between others :notworthy:
ButI I vote for Q360 because its clean product and have a lot of features like sandbox all for free
Also they have good researchers Google recognizes 360 as the largest contributor of its vulnerability report program

 

[ifacedown]

Bitdefender Free - Offline signatures, cloud detection and good behavior blocker. Updates for about twice a day on my observation. Notifications for detected/cleaned malware sometimes late for up to 1 minute or more (somewhat annoying). Even if protection shield is OFF, still the AVC component works, even if exclusions have been set (super annoying). Generally light on the system, especially after finishing a system scan. However on my old netbook, malware removal causes system slowdown. Setting of exclusion is not good - must be detected/quarantined first before it could be excluded.

Sophos Home Free - average detection, centralized management via web. Good web blocking. Heavy on the system - CPU and HDD reads. Has many processes.

360 TS - My favorite before when I was a beginner in security. Will never look back. Much bloat, signature updates delays.

Kaspersky Free - so good, with heuristics, keyboard, and KSN cloud. Yet it conflicts with my hybrid shutdown/hibernation, so no choice but to uninstall. Maybe on my system only.

My choice: Bitdefender Free - could stand on its own, for a careful user. Just my 2 cents.

 

[AlanOstaszewski]

Where is Defender? :C
If there isn't any problem than stay with Sophos. The beta of the newest Sophos Home (free) has even HitmanPro.Alert implemented. Sophos is the strongstest AV of this list.